Should I Continue This Article?

I started writing this article about cheaters. Should I finish it? Do you have any input?

In Defense of “The Cheater”

Someone on facebook wrote me a message and asked me if I could talk about “cheating” and how much it affects the person who gets cheated on. The problem is I cannot do that because cheating isn’t always black and white and talking about “how much it affects the other person” is almost always one more move in the chess game that is people's relationships.

As a couples therapist, I have had my fair share of cases where “cheating” was the presenting problem.  There are really only two outcomes, the couples stay together or they leave. Okay maybe three if you include modifying the definition of their relationship to include allowing each other to see other people.

Talking about cheating is extremely difficult. I believe that cheating is 100% of the time a symptom of a communication issue and I see cheating as a reflection of the current type of relationship that exists between two or more people.

Societally speaking though, cheating is seen as the problem instead of the symptom.  That is because most people think they are in “good” relationships, when in actuality their relationship is shaky at best. I believe that couples create situations for themselves that lead to one person using “cheating” as a way to draw attention to the fact that the way they are currently behaving with each other is unsustainable. Now, do I believe the people cheat with this thought in mind? Probably not, but the effects of the cheating behavior are the same.  For some couples, cheating is the only thing that gets them to talk about their relationship.

A recurring argument in my relationship with my ex-soulmate had to do with sex and how much was enough. Unfortunately, we split right down stereotypical lines here with me not being satisfied with the frequency and usually making a request and her being frustrated at feeling pressured. We really spent a significant amount of time dancing around a fairly obvious truth in retrospect.  Namely that we could not agree on the definition of how much was “enough” sex in our relationship and instead of finding a way to compromise, we instead dug our heels deeper into our explanations for why each others opinion on the matter made them a terrible partner and a terrible person.

There is no right or wrong answer to how much sex one has in a relationship, unless the people in the relationship have a difference of opinion. I can think that, for me, a good relationship includes sex at least 3 times a week.  Another person can see my desire for 3 times a week as a sign of sexual addiction. One person might be absolutely fine with once per week and another can see their preference as tantamount to emotional abuse through intentional sex deprivation.

How can two people come to such wildly different conclusions? Well part of it has to do with what sex means to each person in the relationship.  To me, sex meant so many things and not all of them were my ex-partners fault.  Sex used to mean to me that I was accepted,  that everything was ok and that no matter what my ex had said or done earlier I knew that we were good.  It was how I both validated myself as a partner and a person.  That is a lot of meaning to put on sex and when sex doesnt happen, how else do I validate myself within the context of my relationship? Well hopefully, my partner would validate me in others ways such as how she responds when I make a mistake, the way in which she makes r

I would like to draw a quick distinction here.  There is a type of cheating that, for me, has no excuse and is 99% black and white.  If you are in a relationship with one person and you knowingly enter into a relationship with another person and don’t have a conversation about non-monogamy then you are doing worse than cheating, you are robbing someone of the ability to make decisions about their health and sexual safety, but even this still has wiggle room because the main reason people cheat in their relationship is the same reason I have difficulty explaining this concept, because how do you define a relationship?

Most people have not been exposed to the framework necessary to understand how to see themselves within a relationship. I often have partners in relationships who say things like “I don’t know why you want to see my partner, this is an individual problem” or “how is couples therapy gonna help her bipolar disorder”, and what people are failing to realize is that choosing to see these issues as “individual issues” is the problem. When you are in a relationship, there is no such thing as an individual issue because all issues occur in the context of a relationship.