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The general consideration as to why people cheat on a committed relationship partner is that there is either a problem with the cheater or the relationship. We often assume that scammers have some illness, unresolved trauma or dysfunction, or at best some form of emotional immaturity that drives them into infidelity. In other cases, we assume that the primary relationship is flawed in some way that creates a perceived need for external sex and intimacy. In either case, we tend to view infidelity as a symptom of underlying problems. The cheater and / or relationship is disturbed and cheating ensues.
And guess what, in most cases. Sometimes the cheater has attachment deficit syndrome. Sometimes the cheater has an unresolved childhood trauma and uses the excitement of illegal sex and romance as a distraction from painful feelings. Sometimes the cheater knows that he or she is in a bad relationship and uses these feelings to justify the infidelity or to find a new partner before leaving the old one. Sometimes the main relationship lacks sexual fire or emotional intimacy, so the cheater has a one night stand or an affair to fill the void. And so it goes.
However, the cause-and-effect model described above does not explain all infidelity. Over the years, countless clients have told me that they love their spouse, have a great relationship, enjoy each other’s company, respect each other, be attracted to each other, the sex is good, and so on are not money or family problems or any other obvious relationship problems. The only real problem is that they are cheating and they either may or may not want to stop.
So there is the cheater, happy in their relationship but still cheating and wondering why. “Sure,” says the fraudster, “something doesn’t have to be right with me or my relationship, otherwise I wouldn’t do it.” And usually a therapist begins exploring these possibilities with them in search of an obvious underlying problem to research and address.
What I’ve learned over nearly three decades as a therapist specializing in sex and intimacy is that infidelity is often, but not always, a symptom of a faulty personality or relationship. Some people are reasonably healthy emotionally and in a wonderful primary relationship, and they still choose to cheat. And that goes for both men and women.
Esther Perel, who formulates this idea in her book The State of Affairs, suggests four reasons why people who are generally well-adjusted and happy in their primary relationship nonetheless infidelity and their marriage, home, family, and position jeopardize their church or community and more.
1. Self-exploration
Finding a new sense of self is probably the most powerful of these reasons (and can include the other three). Perel writes:
People get lost for a variety of reasons, and every time I think I’ve heard them all, a new variation pops up. But one topic keeps cropping up: affairs as a form of self-discovery, the search for a new (or lost) identity. For these seekers, infidelity is less likely to be a symptom of a problem and is more often described as a full experience that involves growth, exploration, and transformation.
For these deceivers, infidelity is an exploration of unexperienced or long-suppressed parts of the self. It is freedom from what they were and are. Interestingly, they usually don’t want to change who they are; You just want to escape these constraints for a short time – feel young again, feel relieved, explore life and grow and experience it. When these people cheat, they are looking not for someone else but for themselves (or at least some lost or long-ignored aspect of themselves).
2. The seductive nature of transgression
Sometimes lucky people who cheat will say that sneaking around and having sex or an affair will make them feel like teenagers. It’s exciting and forbidden, and they enjoy breaking the rules. It’s like a five-year-old smuggling a biscuit that his mother said he couldn’t have. The forbidden biscuit tastes extra sweet.
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In his book The Erotic Mind, Jack Morin discusses this phenomenon from a sexual point of view with his erotic equation: attraction + obstacles = arousal. That is the seductive nature of transgression. Since the cheater is not supposed to have extra-curricular sex and romance, he or she wants it even more. For children and adolescents it is a natural exploration of the self and the world to cross boundaries in this way. As an adult, infidelity can feel more similar.
3. The charm of unlived life
Here, instead of transgression, it is missed opportunities that attract fraudsters. They think of the one who escaped or who never was, or the life they could have led, if only. . . This can make them feel restricted and restricted by the life and relationship they have chosen – regardless of how much they enjoy that life and relationship. So indulge your curiosity. They use extra-curricular sex to see who they would have been if they had chosen a different path. This, too, is a form of self-exploration in which infidelity introduces the individual to the stranger within.
4. Feel new or banished emotions
After all, happy people who cheat can do so to experience new or exiled emotions. This, too, is a form of self-inquiry. Men can be particularly prone to this as they are often told to hold back, rather than express, their emotions as they grow up. Over time, they learn to become a “cowboy” and not to feel. Unfortunately, in doing so, they often stifle both joy and sorrow, joy and pain. For these people, regardless of gender, infidelity is more an emotional release than a sexual release. And again these deceivers explore their inner selves.
Whatever the reason, cheating hurts
Are Some Reasons Better Than Others? And is the answer to that question really important? From the point of view of the cheated partner, probably not. For the betrayed partner, whatever the underlying cause, sexual betrayal hurts alike and there is no good reason for doing it. From a therapeutic point of view, however, the reasons for cheating play a role. When a person is happy in their relationship and is cheating to explore themselves, the approach to healing is very different from that of a person cheating to address personal pathology, unresolved childhood trauma, emotional immaturity, or problems within the relationship.
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