why do men cheat?

Stacey, I think that was a GREAT answer.

Hmmm…..I think people “cheat” because when we THINK we love someone, we set up all kinds of rules about what they can and cannot do and then make our happiness and well-being contingent upon that.

To me, this is the opposite of love.

I don’t really believe in using the word “cheat” to describe human behavior, especially in relationships….it’s an ugly, destructive, inaccurate word. It’s not helpful, and it does not promote self-love.

The only relevant question is the degree of honesty, integrity, enthusiasm, and love that YOU bring to any given relationship. And whether you’re choosing people who are capable of bringing the same.

The ONLY questions I would be asking yourself are:

Does this relationship make you happy?
Do you feel good about yourself in the relationship?
Does it promote your best self? (honest, loving, joyful, etc?)

These are the only things that really matter. Focusing on his behavior is missing the point.

The situation, as I understand it, is: he was traveling, you two were in a fight and making each other unhappy, there was “interference” from your family (did you break up?), he was unhappy, confused, and lonely, he TALKED to another woman, confessed it, and you broke up with him.

In my experience, people are willing to forgive all sorts of unbelievably cruel behavior in themselves and each other, but when it comes to someone seeking out the ONLY valuable and beautiful thing on this earth – basic human connection – we are WILDLY unforgiving, judgmental, and furious.

Then we say we are not upset because they needed connection, we are upset because of the deception…..
but when we make ANY other connection with any other woman unforgivable, when we make that a CONDITION of our love, and a CONDITION of the relationship…..we are not exactly creating conditions that are going to promote anybody’s well-being, integrity, honesty, or love.

The real issue, as I see it, is making your happiness or well-being dependent on somebody else’s behavior.

The real issue is making LOVE into a demand that the person we love behave in a certain way. That is not love. That is, if anything is, the selfish and weak part of ourselves…..that is cheating OURSELVES out of the possibility of genuine love and connection.

When we are strong, giving, and empowered, there is no such thing as “cheating.” There are only choices that people make, and degrees of honesty and integrity within a relationship, and we decide what works for us.

The real issue with the word CHEATING is that it implies that someone STOLE something that was RIGHTFULLY OURS.

But this is not the case. Nobody OWES us love, not even the person we’re in a relationship with. When you start thinking that somebody OWES you love, that you have a RIGHT to it, you will destroy your relationships time after time.

The ONLY person who OWES you love is YOU. That’s it. Everybody else’s choices are their own. You cannot control them. And you cannot make your happiness or well-being dependent on what they do or do not do.

If YOU give yourself the love that you are owed, you will stop demanding it from other people. You will release your expectations and demands on other people, and accept them as they are. And from that acceptance, you will CHOOSE whether or not a given relationship is working for you.

But you will create the conditions for love to arise rather than obliterating the possibility. You will fill yourself with love FIRST, let it overflow into your relationships, and then, CHOOSE to be with people who reflect that level of self-love, self-respect, and generosity back to you. That’s it. No worries about rules or cheating or whatever.

This is not about laws, or property. This is about people, about connections, and we DO NOT OWN anybody else, we DO NOT OWN their love, we do not have a RIGHT to it, and it is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a freely given gift. Otherwise, it means nothing.

A person can only CHEAT if you set up a situation in which you BELIEVE you have a right to their love, or to certain forms of behavior.

If you BELIEVE that the only person who’s love you have a right to is YOUR OWN, cheating will NEVER be a problem for you. It simply won’t exist. There will simply be other people’s choices, their connections with you, and the level of honesty and integrity and joy you feel in the relationship, and your choices based on THAT about how you proceed.

Now, I’m not JUSTIFYING his behavior in the sense of saying, it’s ok, you should go back to him – because honestly you sound like you were INCREDIBLY unhappy in the relationship in the first place. And that is the real question: were you happy? were you your best self?

If not, move on, but drop the obsession with cheating and stop making your happiness and well-being contingent on anybody else.

YOU DESERVE YOUR OWN LOVE. Stop cheating yourself out of it.

You deserve better than making your happiness and well-being contingent on someone else’s behavior.

The real reason we feel cheated is when we give love in order to GET something from somebody else (love, good behavior, whatever), and then when we don’t get it, we feel cheated, because we feel like we “paid” for it with good love. But good love does not look like this. Good love is always given freely, and there is never a loss, no matter what the other person does, because it was an overflow, a gift to begin with.

“Cheating” is what we feel when we believe we have lost something by loving someone. But if our love is genuine, and freely given, there is no loss. We just keep moving forward and our love, respect, and integrity draws us toward those people who are right for us. But there’s no such thing as loving the wrong person. Only EXPECTING love from the wrong person. And the only person to EXPECT love from is yourself.

Love yourself, and the right thing to do in any relationship situation will be easy. And you’ll never feel cheated no matter what, because you will have loved yourself FIRST, and only GIVEN LOVE FREELY, without expectation, without demands for anything in return. And that self-love will lead you to relationships and connections that serve your best interests, your best self, that reflect that love and integrity back to you in the best possible way.

When it comes to love, the only person we can cheat is ourselves. Love yourself, and you’ll make the right relationship decisions naturally.

You deserve to be fiercely and completely and ferociously devotedly loved….BY YOU. Nothing else really matters.

That love will spill out onto the world, and your radiance will be reflected back to you, and the idea of “cheating” will cease to exist, because your love for yourself is so powerful that you can love others freely, with total acceptance and without expectation.

And paradoxically, when you love freely, that love will be returned to you, always.

hope that helps
xoxo

Robin,

I don’t mean to minimize your pain, at all. Nothing is more devastating.

I was suicidal and hospitalized when this happened to me. I took a knife to myself. Everything went black. It was the greatest pain of my life. I understand how unbelievably, incapacitatingly devastating this can be.

I only offer my perspective as one possible way of being, in the hopes that it might help someone else as it has helped me. You are totally free to reject it and approach life however you want to.

For me, this was how I learned to live with love, acceptance, and trust. This has been what gives me the greatest happiness and peace and allowed me to embrace profound connections, no matter what the future holds or what the consequences might be.

But I am only one person. There are many ways to look at the world, and whatever is true to your heart and is the best for you is the only thing that matters.

With love for you in this time of great pain,
Anna

Awww Judy you are so sweet. How are you doing with everything today?

Xoxo

I disagree Anna. When you make a commitment to someone, its no different than when you enter into any other CONTRACT, BOND or PROMISE you make to another, regardless of how the other party’s acting or feeling at certain times. If you can’t hold up your end of the bargain then don’t be in or enter into them, period.

Eric is right on, whereas if you PICK a man (or woman) who lacks integrity, honesty, morals, ethics, and their words/actions mean zilch so if/when they CHEAT the other party shouldn’t be so surprised.

You can try to downplay the word CHEAT but it means to defraud, deceive, elude, and/or deprive another. Commitment has nothing to do with owing someone something, it has everything to do with RELYING on the other to be faithful, honest, provider, protector and being there through the thick and thin, good and BAD times.

Based on the fact this man was in prison for over 8 years, which is not a light sentence and most likely a very serious felony, shows his true character in that he doesn’t operate by laws, rules, contracts, or social norms, therefore not a person one should RELY ON when in a commitment with them.

IMO it is NOT about commitment, contracts or promises. It is about RESPECT for an other person. If you respect someone and care about her/his feelings you do not cheat. Period.

And disliking cheaters (or disrespectful, selfish people in general) has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with lack of self love…

Yes…it’s all about the respect…..it should be mutual too

To me respect means everything, and commitment/promises nothing, when it comes to love.

I wouldn’t want my partner to not cheat because he “promised not to”, but because he DOESN’T WANT TO, because he loves, respects and doesn’t want to hurt me.

All my relationships have been based on love and respect – not commitment or promises – and I consider that proof enough that the concept works very well…

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your thoughtful and deeply felt input. I totally get where you’re coming from, and I hope it’s abundantly clear that (a) my perspective is only one among many, an explanation of how I think about things and what had worked for me, NOT an attempt at a declaration of anyone else’s truth or any universal right way of thinking about things, and (b) I support relationships built on trust, communication, and respect, with someone who shares your desires for the particular shape of your relationship, shares your values, and shares your ability to live up to them.

My intent was not to “sugarcoat” the pain and devastation of situations that involve cheating. As I mentioned above, I attempted suicide when it happened to me, it was the darkest moment of my life, and I feel unbelievably lucky and grateful to be alive today in spite of that.

My thoughts here are merely a reflection of my own experiences, not an attempt to prescribe what may or may not be right for other people.

The person in question was and is one of the most beloved people in my life. We still consider each other soul mates. We have a very loving, honest, wonderful, respectful, PLATONIC relationship now. He is my best friend. But what happened at that time was not a reflection of his character or my worthiness of love (although I took it as both at the time), but rather symptomatic of a profoundly dysfunctional relationship – not because we were not right for each other, but because we had attempted to COMMIT to a type relationship that simply was not sustainable for either of us. He took refuge in another relationship that served his needs better, and I took refuge in self-pity, neediness, and melodrama. At the time I blamed him for his dishonesty, but in retrospect I realized I had made the CONDITIONS for honesty and respect between us all but impossible. If he had been honest with me at the time about the insufficiency of our relationship, I would not have accepted it. In fact, we did have this conversation many times, but I clung obstinately to the belief that we were meant to be together in a romantic sense, even though he had (rightly) changed his mind.

Lane, I DEEPLY agree with what you’ve written elsewhere about the fact that even when we make a commitment to somebody, in a relationship, we still are free to choose and change our minds if and when that relationship ceases to be productive.

Sherri, I understand what you mean that those who choose to make a commitment are likely to see it as a very serious thing (or at least, it’s helpful to choose someone who takes whatever particular commitments you make just as seriously as you do.) For my own life (and this has nothing to do with whatever may or may not be right for anyone else), I would choose to be with someone who understood love as a gift, not an obligation. A person who treated their commitment as a mortgage payment (an obligation they fulfilled whether they liked it or not), would simply not be the right person for me. Perhaps it would be for other people.

Maria, I completely agree about respect. To me, respect is a choice, not a feeling…..it has nothing to do with agreeing with another person’s words, actions, or behavior, simply the standard of integrity and honesty that I hold myself to in my interactions with them.

My main point was simply this: in my own experiences and observations, getting angry about cheating is easy to do, but ultimately the easy way out. By blaming the other person, rather than accepting that this is a choice they have made, we stay stuck in a victimized mentality that fails to recognize that we are always responsible for our own happiness, our experience of love, the quality and conditions of our relationships and the connections we choose to create.

The most painful aspect of cheating (for anyone involved) is that it is symptomatic of a dysfunctional connection in the first place. It breaks the illusion the illusion that all was well, that the connection was what we believed.

People cheat when they feel they cannot get what they need honestly. People cheat when they are unable to be honest with themselves or others about their true needs.

The useful question, as I suggested above, is not “why did she/he cheat?” but rather “why have I chosen to participate in a relationship with someone who does not share my values?” Or, “In what ways has this connection failed to serve one or both of us?” “What are my options moving forward?”

My personal belief is that relying on anyone else’s actions, choices, or behavior for your fundamental happiness and well-being is no way to live. In ANY relationship, no matter how committed or long term or amazing, you have to COMPLETELY accept that either of you could walk away at any time. The fact that you freely CHOOSE to be together, not just once but every single day, is what makes it meaningful.

Personally, the most painful, degrading, devastating situation I can imagine is one in which my partner chose to be with me simply out of commitment. Not because they wanted to but because they had to. I would be MUCH more devastated if my partner WANTED to be with someone else but didn’t.

I would MUCH prefer to participate in a relationship in which both of us felt free to be completely honest about our attractions, desires, and needs. However, MOST relationships do NOT permit this. Most relationships are so intolerant of the possibility that either partner would ever desire to be with anyone else that honesty becomes impossible, and when honesty becomes impossible, so do respect and love. When we believe that someone OWES us love, we stop creating the conditions in which that love can flourish.

Cheating is symptomatic of dysfunctional relationships. It is not the cause, it is a dysfunctional response to a connection that has failed in a much deeper way to begin with. And the only way to create and participate in authentic relationships is to recognize that our happiness and well-being is not contingent on anyone else or their behaviors. We do not NEED anyone else to do anything in order to be happy. We do not RELY on them for our well-being. We ACCEPT who they are and the choices that they are making – without judgment – and make our own choices about whether or not to participate in a relationship with them, or how.

If we allow ourselves to be devastated because someone does not love us or does not act on that love in the way that we believe we should, we cannot possibly create healthy relationships nor the conditions in which our best, most trusting, loving, and accepting self can thrive.

I also suspect that the general pressure to commit to monogamous relationships when it does NOT suit everyone’s natural instincts or best interests, the pressure to remain fulfilled by one person only, and the pressure to conceal, repress, and deny our instinct for connection is extremely unhelpful in terms of creating conditions of honesty, openness, and respect in relationships. Monogamous relationships can be incredibly fulfilling, but only if it is truly right for both people involved.

If you make monogamy a condition of your relationships, you have to be really, really sure that this is TRULY what the other person wants …. that they are not just doing it to please you or to keep you or out of fear of losing you, but because it is what they CHOOSE. Otherwise you are setting yourself for devastation, because choices made out of fear of loss are never going to be in our best interests.

Connection is a PRIMAL need. When people are driven to cheat, it is rarely out of lack of morals. It is usually because they are STARVING for an authentic and completely fulfilling connection and the relationship in which they are in has ceased to provide that. This doesn’t mean that dishonesty is the best solution to this, but it does mean that the REAL issue goes much much deeper than cheating.

If you want fulfilling relationships, you have to ask the difficult questions of yourself – like, HOW and WHY am I creating and participating in relationships that do not serve me – not just blame other people when they fail to live up to your expectations and demands.

It is MUCH more difficult to accept that you are the only one responsible for your happiness and well-being. For me, I had to go to the verge of suicide over another person in order to fully understand this.

My hope in writing this was simply to share some perspective that has been useful to me in terms of thinking about these things in a new way, in the hopes that it would inspire someone in great pain to fully commit to self-love, self-respect, and authenticity in their relationships, rather than allowing themselves to be devastated to the point of giving up their life as I did.

With much gratitude and love for everyone,
Anna

Lane, I agree :-)

I think a lot of times it is a kind of mutual dysfunction where two people fall out of ACTING in a genuinely loving/desiring way….whether that’s codependency or a shift into companionable friendship……I think most women have a very complex relationship with their sexuality and find it difficult to express themselves sexually if they are feeling at all emotionally “off” in the relationship….but most guys are going to feel emotionally “off” unless they’re experiencing a direct physical connection with the woman they love as often as possible…..so it can become a bit of a vicious cycle unless you recognize what’s happening and commit to changing the patterns….which is NOT always easy.

I have talked to a lot of married guys about this (because I am nosy and curious lol)….really good guys, SO genuine and wanting to do the right thing, but at the same time SO tortured by being deprived of the possibility of sexual connection. Because that is how they FEEL love (in an intimate committed relationship at least). So they love their partner but at the same time, the only thing worse than being deprived of sex is being deprived of food and water. I think a lot of guys would actually rather go without food :-)

I used to not get this because I was very repressed sexually and was perfectly capable of going years without sex and not thinking there was a problem.

Once I discovered what a CRUCIAL dimension of my well-being this was, I could not IMAGINE how horrible it would be to go without it.

My personal belief is that sex and connection is a basic human right. IF you commit to a monogamous relationship, there’s no sense in committing NOT having sex with other people unless you are REALLY specifically committed to creating an amazing sex life and an amazing connection that is fully and completely satisfying for both of you. Otherwise, you are depriving your partner of the possibility of sex and connection with other people AND depriving your partner of the possibility of sex and connection with you….. and that is just slow, cruel, torture.

Most people who cheat do NOT feel good about it. They would MUCH rather be in a compassionate, open, loving, fulfilling relationship. I don’t think cheating is the answer, but I do think that the REAL question is not so much “how do I stop someone from cheating on me” (which just feels disempowered and fearful) and much more “how do I create an amazing and fulfilling connection with the person I’m with?” That’s a much more interesting, relevant, and empowering question to ask, as I see it.

One quote that always stuck with me is this …. it’s a little extreme in the sense that I think there’s SOME room for negotiation but in principle I believe it:

“If you are expected to be monogamous and have one person be all things sexually for you, then you have to be whores for each other. You have to be up for anything.”

And I love the idea of sexual soul-mates :-) I’ve been thinking a lot about monogamy lately, what it means, why we choose it, whether it’s for me (in some form or another). I have a platonic soul mate (my best friend) …. sexual exclusivity was a disaster for both of us, because we just didn’t click in that way. The guy I think of as my sexual soul-mate, I could definitely be monogamous with him, although it would be VERY difficult for me to get my head around the idea of limiting someone else’s choices, experiences, desires…..but with anyone else…..I know for myself that it would be VERY difficult. So I sympathize with guys in this sense. Sex is SO crucial to me that to be deprived of it (by the person I love, no less) would be unbelievably painful. It is such a primal form of connection. I think this is why cheating is so painful – but also why all the conditions that lead to a person cheating are incredibly painful as well.

We all need connection – deep, fulfilling, honest connection. I think the greatest challenge in exclusive relationships is that you take on a PROFOUND responsibility…..not just to not cheat, but to actually CREATE the kind of connection that we’re all seeking.

Thanks for your fantastic perspective, as always :-)
xoxo

Jennifer, you expressed everything I meant better than I ever could.

I really admire you. For me, it took SUCH a long time after the initial incident to fully come to terms with everything that you are saying here. The fact that you are able to choose this level of calm and self-respect during a time of great confusion and pain is really amazing.

You yourself will have the best intuitions about where this guy was/is at with you. I suspect that his talk of the future wasn’t so much intentionally misleading as it was “trying on” a possibility…..maybe talking aloud with you to see how it felt, to imagine a future with you, without being in a place where he could fully commit to it …. more just an experiment in thinking about it at this point….maybe he even scared himself into thinking he had said too much too soon and willfully sabotaged things almost as a way of showing you/himself his non-readiness when he wasn’t able to say it aloud….

Again, I don’t think cheating is the right answer….an open discussion about his non-readiness would have been braver….but I think having some understanding for the complexity of the situation might give you some peace within yourself in terms of recognizing that you weren’t TOTALLY off in your perceptions of reality….i.e., his FEELINGS for you were definitely there, but as you said maybe he wasn’t up for the main bf gig even if you had hoped he might be.

For me I would rather go with the understanding that someone meant well but got mixed up along the way and made some bad decisions…..it just makes trusting and connecting with people in the future so much easier….

Hope you’ll keep us posted with how things go

xoxo

Hi Anna.

I agree with what you said and I have tremendous sympathy for people who this do:

“I suspect that his talk of the future wasn’t so much intentionally misleading as it was “trying on” a possibility…..maybe talking aloud with you to see how it felt, to imagine a future with you, without being in a place where he could fully commit to it …. more just an experiment in thinking about it at this point….maybe he even scared himself into thinking he had said too much too soon and willfully sabotaged things almost as a way of showing you/himself his non-readiness when he wasn’t able to say it aloud…”

I understand why someone who isn’t ready may want to be ready and will actually verbalize their hopes for the future. But it seems to me that the hurtful and confusing part of dating is when the speaker takes little or no responsibility for what he said or the promises he made and he thinks it’s okay to continue doing this with every new woman he is excited about initially.

I do not want to believe the generalizations that “men lie” or they are “future fakers.” I treat men with respect, so I respect what they say and I believe they speak with integrity, just as I do. Am I not supposed to, just to avoid getting hurt? For me, if I go into a dating situation prepared not to believe a man’s words, I would feel that I’m disrespecting him and infantilizing him like a child that can’t be held responsible for his impulsive thoughts, words, and actions.

It is confusing where to draw the line between being sympathetic to a person who wants to be ready and being distrustful, suspicious, and skeptical.

Thanks for any input.