Infidelity
"What contributed to this person's choice to betray me - why did they choose infidelity"?
The first question is an unanswerable one as trusting your partner following an affair has more to do with YOU and how YOU choose to respond to being betrayed. The second question is much more interesting, and if answered correctly, more likely to keep you safe if you decide to heal and evolve together following an affair.
Every affair tells a story and although it is true that the story has something to do with the state of a relationship where betrayal takes place, what's more true is that infidelity tells an important story about who the unfaithful partner is, the state of their own psyche and soul, whether they are even suitable for a real relationship with anyone with the bandwidth to actually love.
Infidelity always has a purpose to it, although most often that purpose is not known or understood, and must be, in order to really answer the questions around,
"Once a cheater, always a cheater".
All behavior is purposeful and people don't do anything without a reason for doing it. Your task is to become your own personal psychologist and ask the right questions about the right issues to arrive at your own truth about keeping yourself safe in a relationship with someone who has betrayed you.
The truth is if you don't show up and ask for what you want in a relationship, you give up the right to expect having it. I expected a lot and didn't show up by being emotionally absent which set the marriage up to be unfulfilling and fail.
I became a workaholic believing my wife loved me only because of what I could provide her with allowing anger and entitlement, a dangerous alchemy fueling my acting out, to justify the erosion of boundaries and values giving rise to my affair. Without boundaries and a value base to live from, anyone is capable of having an affair.
I felt sorry for myself and blamed my wife for why I was so unfulfilled, once you convince yourself you're a victim of something, you can justify anything. That belief alone allowed me to have an affair with impunity, almost a right, to find happiness with another, after all,
"I had done so much and got back so little from my marriage".
Men have an uncanny and dangerous ability to compartmentalize their lives such that one part doesn't recognize the other. In this split, dissociative state, I rationalized everything including the creation of the two worlds I relished in calling it complexity. Without integrity life simply doesn't work.
The purpose here is the expression of anger in the form of contempt and the ultimate form of criticism through the ultimate invalidation, sleeping with someone else. The message,
"kiss my ass you worthless partner, you haven't been there for me in years so I'll do whatever the hell I want to meet my needs, if you find out so be it, you deserve it",
nasty stuff!
These are coward affairs where the unfaithful partner is not willing to take responsibility for their dissatisfaction in the marriage by doing something proactive about it. Instead, they live on a precarious edge where they feel both emboldened and justified to engage in the affair ‘in hopes' that the infidelity will be found out and usher in the separation or divorce they fanatasize about, but are unwilling to assume accountability for.
Driven by irrational rage in relationships with a history of stored up resentment and hostilities which lie dormant and underground, the purpose of the affair coalesces into a grand finale in the form of a pay-back affair where the intent is to injure and hurt the self esteem of the betrayed partner who is made wrong and killed off thus allowing the unfaithful to justify any action to ‘pay them back' for the hurt they believe they've been a victim of.
The roles and responsibilities you create and design your lives around leave little to no space, time or energy for either of you to meet your deeper needs for closeness, connection, nurturing, attention or fun. You choke on tasks and are overwhelmed by responsibilities you feel alone and unappreciated for doing. You attend to each of your respective lanes with diligence and discipline giving you the experience of being responsible and ‘serving' the other. The problem is you live in a state of perpetual disconnect, while you are doing many of the right things you become roommates, not passionate lovers, and the thought of existing this way the rest of your days especially if you're over 40 scares the hell out of you making you a prime candidate for an affair!
A common affair pattern is that women are more likely to have affairs for love and companionship, while men are more often content with sex alone confusing it with love and companionship. Women are likely to believe that their infidelity is justified if it's for love, men are likely to believe their infidelity is justified if it's NOT for love. In both cases, needs not met in the primary relationship that is neglected are being met through an emotional affair and eventually sexual almost always justified on the basis of 'we're just friends'. People have affairs to experience an emotional connection that they feel is lacking in their primary relationship. They stray in search of someone who pays attention to their feelings and encourages meaningful contact be it emotional or sexual citing a need for friendship as the culprit.
The purpose of the affair is a misguided attempt to satisfy legitimate longings in very illegitimate ways undermining everything really important to both partners. Misdirected energy can be leveraged and focused in the direction of an anemic relationship in need of care, nurturance and being first for a change making survivability of a marriage after an affair quite possible in these situations.
"Once a cheater always a cheater"
is really a defense mechanism and it too has a purpose. To protect you from getting hurt by never trusting anyone again. Don't do that! Instead, get smart by understanding what drives someone to betray and determining the purpose of the affair.
Psychology Today
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