Tell Me How Infidelity Is Abuse

Succinct? Moi? On a Friday morning where I woke up and chose violence? I think not! Coffee up, Chumpnation. It’s about to go down.

So looking at the dictionary definition of abuse (as being cheated on has forced me to re-evaluate A LOT of what I have learned over the years and hence double check my understanding), I am seeing the obsolete definition being “deception”(seems pretty modern to me, but let’s keep going.) “bad or improper treatment”, “wrong or improper use”, and “harshly or coarsely insulting language.”

I am only seeing the implied use of maleficence here. More on that below!

At its core, infidelity is a deceptive act that ignores if not nullifies the notion of consent. While the active intent may not be to cause direct harm to the victim(s) it still does occur. While I acknowledge that by the rawest definition that infidelity could technically be construed as polyamory, it is done without the express consent of all parties involved. The easy to understand analog-if we were to apply the same logical template to sexual intercourse we are discussing the difference between consensual intercourse and rape.

Human behavior, and by extension, the law, does not tend to forgive intent. The core is that somebody comes to harm, physical, emotional, or otherwise. It is unimportant what the intent(often born out of ignorance or simple lack of consideration as we see very often in this community). It’s sort of like how “not guilty by reason of insanity” does not mean you go home from court-you go to a state mental hospital until you are fit to stand trial for what you did and remain under sanctions for your entire life if that never comes to pass.

I say the following as a mental health professional with a full career worth of experience in trauma informed care (before it was even called that, but I digress) and individuals with histories of severe mental, physical, and sexual abuse. My knowledge of these things precedes by own victimization in this domain. I approach this with my own personal lived experience as a survivor of infidelity, as somebody that grew up in a household shattered by same, from independent interview and therapy of, and my involvement in this support community. My observation is that the typical response to infidelity is consistent with the response to other forms of abuse. I am able to very easily infer based on this that infidelity IS abuse.

This is further demonstrated through emergent symptoms/diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, emergent and increased symptoms of anxiety and depression, dissociative episodes, and exacerbation of pre-existing mental health conditions.

Owning my own bias on the matter as a victim of same-I will say that if being the victim of infidelity turns out NOT to be the same as abuse that it is alarmingly similar and warrants further study. If it looks like a duck and quicks like a duck…

Oh, did I mention that infidelity is in the DSM? You know, the ICD-10 compliant diagnostic manual that governs mental health diagnosis?

From meta-analysis of the accounts of people’s subjective experience of being victimized by same, we see a lot of commonalities:
-The aforementioned advent or exacerbation of mental health symptoms consistent with trauma (as trauma response is scientifically the causal consequence of abuse). See above for more details!
-Exposure to Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) that victims would otherwise not be at risk for.
-Exploitation-expectations placed upon us left us increasingly vulnerable to increased abuse.
-Financial abuse-money and resources are misallocated away from the family system to fund a secret life. These issues often take years if not decades to overcome upon the eventual separation from the family system.
-Emotional health issues related to abandonment and loss of normalcy. This includes the need to support family members (children, etc) as THEY also cope with similar feelings while navigating our own trauma.
-A highly probable increase in emotional and physical abuse-as the scripture reminds us, “a servant of two masters will come to hate one and love the other.” Many of the accounts I have read here have involved the general degradation of relations to the point where insults and physical abuse begin to occur or otherwise become more common.

I bet a lot of that looks very similar to “reasons people get divorced.” Well…yes! There is a lot of overlap! So here’s another factor for you:
-Exposure to victim blaming. Not only do we endure abuse by the partner, we gain increased victimization from people that lack perspective, understanding, and empathy. This of course promotes increased feelings of isolation, low self-worth, etc etc.

I think we can agree by this point that this is a complex issue. This is not our response to “our high school boyfriend/girlfriend ghosted us in favor of somebody else and we are calling that cheating”(though that is admittedly awful).

The people in this community were in long term, committed relationships (often legally so) that were destroyed by cheating, infidelity, and abuse. This has come with longlasting ramifications psychologically, financially, and legally.

So let’s walk away from science and empirical fact for a minute and discuss our actual ethos around here:
Relationships end. WE get that. And that hurts under the best of circumstances. If you spend more than a couple of hours here, you will encounter the notion of “if somebody was unhappy in the relationship it was their duty to minimize harm by separating and ending the relationship ethically.”

Let me save you some reading if you are new here: that is not what happened for…pretty much any of us. Abusive acts occurred and excuses were made for abusive and at times illegal behaviors. We were told that their happiness was more important than ours and that’s why they needed to keep secrets. We were told that while they could have left “it’s just not that easy-they couldn’t give up the security.” We were told that they needed us for our money and support but not for “us.” That they got to have what they wanted but we didn’t.

And we are not OK with that.

For what it’s worth, the individual that cheated on me during our long-term relationship where we cohabitated DID attempt to ethically open the relationship when she was unhappy with the arrangement. The problem was that apart from the fact that I do not believe in polyamory as a practice was that she was already cheating and simply seeking permission to proceed. I had already been victimized when she attempted to “fix things.” Never you mind I was also intensely vulnerable due to being diagnosed with diabetes the day before and more likely to capitulate. I did not. I told her “No, work on the relationship that you already have.” She elected to remain in the relationship while proceeding with opening the relationship anyway.

I would also like to underscore in the period of time between “when things were good” and when it became clear that she “went elsewhere” was marked by no attempt on her part to address the perceived issues in the relationship beyond telling me that I needed to go to therapy any time I was upset about…pretty much anything. There was no attempt at adult communication or reconciliation of issues prior to her “going elsewhere.” It was apparently perfectly acceptable that in not meeting unspoken needs that I continue to support her financially, medically, and emotionally. Most attempts that I made to address my concerns were deflected or I was informed that I was imagining things. Should I have left? Probably. I know better now.

She became more openly verbally aggressive, verbally abusive, demeaning, using tactics including dishonesty, gaslighting, and financial abuse until the time that she left. Forensic analysis of finances indicated a long-term pattern of theft of and misappropriation of financial resources away from the relationship and toward her affair partners. I am two years later still digging myself out from not only needing to adjust being a single income household but also debt that was generated in her behalf.

This all exacerbated my own pre-existing anxiety, depression, and symptoms of PTSD. I have been in intensive therapy approximately weekly since the onset of this. I have developed pervasive issues with trust and self-expression as a result of all of this. This shook my ability to perform my professional duties as a therapist. I continue the uphill battle with financial independence-she left a financial crater and unfortunately being cheated on, apart from deeply shaking my self-image and confidence also seems to have marked me as “damaged goods” to the uneducated population.

In closing, particularly predicated on recent…cultural events, I am very concerned based on the NPR article that triggered our challenge today about how our community and victims of infidelity are being perceived. There is a certain…anti-intellectual undercurrent right now where things like “science” and “empirical fact” seem to be getting swept to the side and getting ignored in favor of popular sentiment. As discussed here previously, we simply get queasy when discussing the A word or the V word and change the subject rather than face what we tolerate.

Perhaps it’s time we had a proper funeral for “discourse” and get ready for darker times ahead.

Aside from all of my clinical commentary and personal accounting above…I remain startled that we as a culture continue to permit “acceptable losses” and “acceptable abuse.” We have the same fundamental opinion of infidelity as we do about alcoholism-we turn a blind eye because we simply do not want to address our own ugliness and address the real issues.

I am saddened that people would commit an abusive act, find out the ramifications later if they somehow did not in their calculations of “getting their needs met” or “just trying to be happy” , and rather than attempt to grow from or atone for what they have done-instead “double down” and say, despite all evidence to the contrary, that what they did was a transgressive, abusive act, state “well, you’re just bitter”, “there are going to be losers”. and “heartbreak is a part of life.” That is a reductive and quite frankly shameful opinion concerning ANY kind of victimization.

(exhales)

Thank you for your time.

And A Fuckwit Free Friday to the rest of you!