Discovering that a spouse or significant other has strayed can be a devastating experience, especially when the person betrayed had absolutely no clue that it was even in the works. Obviously the biggest question on their lips is going to be “Why?” In furiously flipping back through their mental rolodex to pinpoint the exact moment the flames of passion were ignited elsewhere, however, they often fail to recognize that an affair is rarely the result of how the cheating spouses feel about them; it is instead a product of how the cheating spouses feel about themselves
SUPERIORITY/INFERIORITY
When a spouse feels that he or she is intellectually or physically superior to one’s mate, a mindset can evolve that such a disparity in human value is an automatic entitlement to extra privileges. A wife whose job brings in more money or a drop-dead handsome husband who views his partner as a little on the plain side is already justifying that a little fun on the side is their prerogative for having to be saddled with someone who is not his or her social equal. Because they’re not allowed a “do-over” to go back and pick someone they deem worthier of their company (at least not without financial repercussions), an affair is a way to endure life with a partner whose feelings they don’t really respect. The reality, however, is resentment of the fact that their husband or wife not only has the respect of everyone else in their circle but operates on a higher moral plane which they themselves have fallen short of.
The flip side involves individuals who feel as if they’re not deserving of someone so magnificent or smart or successful and are seeking to punish themselves by chasing after someone else who usually brings far less talents to the table. When they get caught and summarily booted out, they have fulfilled their own prophecy of believing that they were never good enough for their original partner’s company, regardless of how much their partner may have tried to tell them otherwise.
CHALLENGE
How many people who have ever engaged in shoplifting really needed the items they stole? For many, it’s just the thrill of getting away with something that they know they’re not supposed to be doing. After all, hasn’t it been instilled in them since childhood that rules are meant to be broken? When someone jeopardizes a perfectly happy home life, it’s not because they’ve suddenly decided that’s not what they want any more. What they want is to alleviate the sense of routine and predictability that they perceive is the price of contentment and stability. If they can hoodwink their partner into thinking they’re off at the library studying for a test, why not do it again and again? The more times the ruse succeeds, the more likely that the cheater will not only keep doing it but set up situations that increase the level of risk and discovery. By doing so, the cheater feels smart and accomplished—an attitude that has nothing to do with his or her actual feelings toward the unsuspecting partner.
JEALOUSY
Is the spouse spending too much time at a new job or fussing over the arrival of a new baby? If there’s a perceived shift in the equation regarding how much attention a spouse was getting before and how much he or she is getting now, an affair represents a chance to “get even” by soliciting attention from an outside source. The partner, in fact, may not even be aware that a significant other is feeling ignored or less loved and, accordingly, doesn’t do anything to change the new routine. Should the affair be discovered, what the cheater hopes to accomplish is to get his or her partner to realize that the relationship could end if things don’t return to the way they were before. What isn’t taken into account, of course, is that the cheater’s infidelity has now introduced a layer of suspicion that will force him or her to have to work that much harder to keep the innocent partner from being the one to make an exit.
BOREDOM & AGING
Coupled with challenge, there are a lot of people who stray from their vows simply because they are bored. This generally isn’t boredom with their partner, however, but rather boredom and dissatisfaction with where they are personally in life. Instead of trying to do something on a self-help level to alleviate the ennui, they go seeking external stimulation that will take their minds off of themselves. In the case of a mid-life crisis, a spouse can resent the fact that his or her partner seems to be handling the advancement of years much better and accordingly wants to go out and prove they’ve still got it. It has nothing to do with feelings about the spouse but rather how the potential cheater feels in comparison.
EXTRICATION
Very few of the men and women I’ve known throughout my life who have ended up divorcing as the result of an affair have actually gone on to marry the individuals they were having affairs with. The affair, instead, represented an opportunity to extricate themselves from a relationship they had grown tired of or—in the case of marrying too young—simply outgrew. Rather than exploring the option of counseling or better communications with one’s partner, they opted for the route of purposely getting caught in order to avoid having to make the first move themselves. By doing so, they thus put themselves in the position of letting the other party initiate the divorce for them. After all, telling a future paramour “My wife divorced me” seems to hint that it was the wife who threw in the towel rather than valiantly hanging in there and trying to work things out. Translated: the cheater assumes the role of a confused but earnest victim in the hope of attracting sympathy.
