UBT: ‘You Can’t Get Over Cheating’
The Universal Bullshit Translator digests “you can’t get over cheating.” According to a recent article in the Guardian, infidelity can make your relationship stronger. The UBT is so sick of this sentiment, it would like another flavor of bullshit, please.
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An alert chump sent a Guardian article: ‘Cheating means the end,’ and eight other relationship myths ruining your love life.”
Hey, all you people out there who left cheaters? You’re mythical.
And assuming you exist, how could you RUIN YOUR LOVE LIFE? Had you only hung in there, gee whiz, you could’ve had a stronger marriage. Well, only if you admitted your faults and taken responsibility for your partner’s philandering. But no. You had to go and RUIN it.
Look, I knew this article was doomed when they quoted therapist Andrew G. Marshall — the man who told women they need to apologize to their cheating husbands. But then the Reconciliation Industrial Complex passed the victim-blaming baton to Lohani Noor, a psychotherapist and founding director of The Institute for Relational and Sexual Therapies.
The Universal Bullshit Translator is balking today. “Cheating makes a marriage stronger” is to the UBT what gruel is to prisoners. A bland, monotonous fuel source. I mean, really. Can’t we source some fresh, free-range, pastured bullshit?
Sigh.
You can’t get over cheating
Research spanning 160 cultures has cited infidelity as the most common reason for breakups. “Many people assume that once trust is broken, the relationship must end. This suggests cheating is unforgivable, no matter the circumstances, and staying after betrayal means weakness or lack of self-respect. True love would never have space for such a betrayal,” Noor says.
One hundred and sixty cultures must be wrong. Hey, just because millions of people reject relationships that violate their trust, doesn’t mean they can’t learn to make space for betrayal. Stick around! You don’t lack self respect! You probably just lack financial power or equitable divorce laws.
True love never betrays you. It’s just shacked up with Schmoopie in a Motel 6. Work with that.
It’s no wonder this “rule” is so deeply ingrained. Moral and religious values often equate cheating with sin.
World religions totally encourage divorce. If they didn’t, why would they host those Divorce Care groups in their basements?
Get over that “sin” mindset. And those “morals” and “values” while you’re at it.
Black-and-white thinking tells us: “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
Instead, sit on that sofa and pay me $200/hour and I’ll cure you of black and white thinking. Until such a time as you discover her active dating profiles. After which, let’s pivot to your rigid “moral” beliefs.
And the self-respect narratives of modern dating advice frame leaving a relationship after being cheated on as the only empowered choice.
(Chump Lady waves.)
Recovery is possible!
It requires “deep introspective work, therapy, honest communication and accountability from both parties”, Noor says, for relationships to recover, but it is possible.
Accountability from both parties = shared faults. Because when you were choosing superpowers, making your husband’s dick wander was tops on your list. Sure, he has to be accountable for his paid girlfriend-experience habit, the missing 401K, and several infectious diseases. But you spend too much time with the children! Let’s be honest.
Context also matters: “Was it a one-time mistake?
No. I think you’re pretty consistently checked out with the kids.
It might be a symptom of deeper issues such as emotional neglect or addiction. Both parties often enable the cheating to happen.”
You enabled that double life you had no idea existed. And hand-fed a herd of unicorns by the backdoor. When you weren’t astral projecting yourself to work each morning. Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean you didn’t enable it. Heck, you’re probably levitating spoons in China right now.
Change is possible.
Some people really can change.
By which I mean you, Chump-o. So, you think you can’t get over cheating? With my help, you CAN!
Oh, you thought I meant the cheater can change? Science indicates that dishonesty is more of an operating system than a bug. However, stringing you along with hope is very profitable. And who wants to believe in cheaters? I’d rather believe in failed communication styles.
“While cheating is serious, it doesn’t always define a person for ever. And not all cheating is the same. Emotional affairs, long-term deception and one-night stands have different impacts,” she adds.
Cheating doesn’t define a person forever. In fact, if you ask a cheater, it doesn’t define them at all.
Sometimes reconciling after cheating makes couples even stronger.
Sometimes shooting off your kneecaps really does improve your tennis game.
Constructing bridge spans with over-cooked pasta makes our infrastructure stronger.
I feel better after my near-death experience with botulism! And you can too!
Others realise the relationship is truly over.
Some bogus “self-respect” blogger probably got to them.
The key is choice, not obligation. Noor says: “Both outcomes are valid.”
You’re not obliged to stay with cheaters. Just like they’re not obliged to remain faithful to you. Both outcomes are valid.
If a cheater were capable of “deep introspective work, honesty, and accountability” then they wouldn’t have cheated in the first place. They only feign those qualities in therapy to avoid a financial hit.
OMG the lies he told in RIC sessions while hiding money and – just all lies to give him more time to build his separate life. But poor him! I kicked him out! So unfair of me. He came back for som stuff later and wanted a hug… wtf
No, you don’t get it. It is on the victim of cheating to do the deep introspective work.
Being cheated on definitely made me do deep introspective work! Unfortunately it was against my will.
HAHA- because we caused it!!
What would happen if you substituted in the word “stealing” for “cheating”?
Like this:
Black-and-white thinking tells us: “Once an embezzler, always an embezzler.”
Or this:
Sometimes reconciling after assets are stolen makes couples even stronger.
Or maybe this:
“While thievery is serious, it doesn’t always define a person for ever. And not all thievery is the same. Incidental shoplifting, long-term illegal offshore asset transfers and one-time wire fraud have different impacts,” she adds.
There must be some cheaters out there in the wild, a select few, who cheated once, hurt someone deeply, learmed the lesson, went to therapy and never cheated again. I know, I know, but hear me out. Even if the number is miniscule, for every million cheaters, one only does it once. That still means that out of every million all but one DID cheat again and again. You can’t play those odds as the stakes are too high.
The thievery is a great example, if they robbed a bank, and then said that they would never do it again, you’d be a fool to trust that. So even if you wanted to give them a second chance, now what? You watch them like a hawk near every bit of money they come near? And then one day if they steal your considerable life savings, now you feel worse because you could have prevented it.
The thing about haviung to be the marriage police? It sucks no matter what. Maybe your cheater never does it again, but you still spend the rest of your life waiting for that other shoe to drop. And if you play police and DO catch them? All that time wasted.
I would rather be alone for the rest of my life than be with someone that makes me constantly wonder if they are up to something. And many chumps find a new, loyal and awesome partner, which is incredible. Others, like me maye, might opt not to ever date again, but if I make that choice it will be just that, a choice. And I think that is a pretty awesome choice too. To focus on things other than romance and never have to worry about a FW.
Here’s my example of a unicorn. FW cheated and confessed it years later–after developing severe depression and anxiety. My therapist has suggested that he confessed because he thought it might help his depression and anxiety. It didn’t. He’s had Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Electro Convulsive Therapy, and two trials of ketamine. Upon leaving the hospital after a month-long stay in a psychiatric unit, the doctor told me that he will not get better. So far the doc is right. FW will not cheat again–but that is because he stays in bed all day and doesn’t take care of himself without prompting. He doesn’t maintain any relationships with his family or friends. Is there a tie between his depression/anxiety and cheating? I doubt it. Before his disease, this guy was a charismatic bon vivant–a real charmer. Classic FW material.
That is awful. And so complicated, depression is a hell of a disease when it is as bad as that. The cheating pre-depression makes my sympathy a bit harder to scrounge up. But yes, maybe he is the example of the one per million that don’t do it again. And that’s not a glowing recommendaton for RIC either. If he could musuter up the will to get out of bed, It’s likely he’d cheat again.
My FW suffered from anxiety and depression too. It was not as deep as what you are describing. I think he decided that he was “unhappy” and then a new gf was going to make him happy. And she did, on a superficial level, for a period of time. But eventually it ended, and there he was, still so very unhappy because the unhappiness was coming from within.
When I read the post I thought, would they same the same to a victim of domestic violence? Oh, he hit you! He’s very sorry, but look what you did to provoke him!
I wish people would stop saying this. They DO say the same to survivors of domestic violence. Often. All the time even. I know this because I am a survivor of domestic violence, and many people have said it to me — even my own parents. Even therapists. Even pastors. And domestic violence counselors. So many people have said it, so many have asked what I did to “make him hit me,” and it still hurts every damned time! And it hurts when someone says, “They wouldn’t say that to a victim of domestic violence,” because people DO say it. Please stop saying it!
As I made clear in my reply to lizvocal, I, too, am from a violent home, and I know it’s said–I heard my other mother say it. I certainly don’t say or think that victims “deserve” to be hit or provoke it. I just do think it’s less likely a therapist would publish that and use it as an excuse.
And for the record, I’m also from a home in which my father committed suicide, and I reject victim’s guilt for that, too. The only person who is responsible for my father pulling that trigger and putting a bullet in his brain is him.
I hope you pushed back against every one of those who tried to blame you for your partner’s violence.
Hate to say it, but people do say this to domestic violence victims all the time. The codependence industrial complex wants victims to examine how they “enable” the violence. I worked for a shelter for 15 years, and it was gross how hard we had to fight to keep other specialties – relationship and addiction counselors especially – from messing up how the counseled victims.
I believe it. It’s not just the counselors, either, but all those who grow up in violent families. My own father was violent, and I once heard my mother ask my sister’s teenage daughter, after my sister had hit her older brother, “What did he do?” I took my mother aside to say that she of all people should know that the person who is responsible for physical abuse is the one doing the hitting.
Well said! I was about to post something similar. The thing these relationship ‘gurus’ never address, or get to grips with, is the fact that cheating entails *lying*. Lying to a person’s face. Telling them that what they’ve seen/read either never happened, or doesn’t mean what they think it means. How can anyone ever trust again the person who brazenly lied to their faces, the person who gaslights you, trying to force you to disregard the evidence of your own eyes? It’s just insane.
These awful counselors are often very expensive and so of course they don’t want to “get it” because they want to keep the Chump paying $$$
the endlessness of covering up still has a strange hold on my brain .It was my whole marriage, ruling my reality – the reality- and so I lived in nonsense world. Shaking that is a long term thing. It’s I guess called “meh”. Still not there. It’s ok, because I am happy I am free but the brainwashing was real.
Same here. It’s mind boggling, 8 years out and I’m only grappling with 8 years of lies in total. I extricated myself from the mindf*ck a long time ago, but trying to make sense of the mental/emotional abuse of a compromised reality continues… Why would anyone ever get back on board with the person who pushed them off the boat? How is that a “valid” outcome??
Agreed. My d-day was ten years ago (divorce seven years ago), but I am still grappling with the ramifications of knowing that he’d had a secret sexual basement and lied to me from the very first days of our relationship all the way over three decades of marriage.
Same. It’s been almost 6 years since D-day, and I am still sifting through the rubble, amazed that I never noticed anything amiss and shocked that this person I trusted was capable of such deceit. I’ve moved on, and while the sifting isn’t constant, it still happens.
He lied to me every day for 3 years—or at least that’s what he said. He added that he only lied about one thing, which in his mind makes it okay. “I have integrity. I am a good person. I did lie, but only about one thing…”
One thing.
We were married for 35 years.
When someone suggests that the betrayed partner somehow enabled the cheating or claims that affairs can actually strengthen a marriage, I feel enraged. These narratives are dismissive of the lasting wounds that infidelity creates.
Mine too, still goes around telling people he is a man of honesty and integrity – I don’t know how he works it into the conversation but he does. Turns out he was cheating even before we married. D-day was thirty years into the marriage and I stayed another ten years and three more d-days, mostly out of fear of poverty. I’ve been trying to divorce his sorry a** for five and half years and he keeps throwing up obstacles, the latest being that he needs to find a new attorney because his withdrew due to illness. How hard can it be? What is it with these FWs?
Probably has to do with $$$. Probably $$$ he’s hiding. I don’t know how it works in Canada, but I think that in the US, you can ask the judge to force the divorce through. But I’m not a lawyer.
I struggle with the same thing. Over thirty years together and he was lying and living a secret life the entire time. How does one get over that? How do I ever trust again? I don’t even trust myself to see the red flags!
I feel like I’m forever edgy. However, even though I might not be able to put a name on the flag, I am more inclined to trust my gut when something feels off.
I really do wonder who commissions articles like the one in the Guardian that CL dissects above; it is utter garbage. There was no chance whatsoever of Ex-Mrs LFTT and I emerging “stronger” from what she did, because her response to getting caught cheating was to deny it and then to double down with the “I want an open marriage after the fact” gambit.
Like pretty much every Cheater ever, Ex-Mrs LFTT’s dishonesty and selfishness were not “bugs” in her operating system …. they were fully integrated features.
LFTT
Emerging stronger = the chump having to suck it up and live a lie knowing what their FW did. Makes me wonder about all the unicorns out there who emerged stronger by not leaving!
Assuming that said unicorns actually exist which I doubt. After such a breach of trust, how can the relationship survive? It can’t ever be the same again.
Part of the asking-for-an-open-marriage-after-the-fact club here too. I can still feel the gut punch of that declaration.
Love the bugs vs. features analogy — that is so spot on about how I came to realize that was how his brain worked.
My FW’s response was feigned relief: “Wow, I’m really glad that’s out in the open.” As if the burden of keeping up a lie for over half of my lifetime was somehow unfaaaair to him! He seemed to be under the impression we were going to go right on as if everything was normal. I responded “I don’t think you appreciate how serious this really is.”
Yes, cheating is actually serious. Big shocker there!
WBM,
Cheaters know how serious cheating is ….. otherwise they wouldn’t put so much effort into keeping it secret, or in avoiding the consequences when their cheating comes out into the open.
Cheaters just don’t like us Chumps knowing that they know.
LFTT
They LOATHE getting caught and double down. Always with the double down. It’s insane.
Non-religious and don’t want to view cheating as immoral or sinful, then how about acknowledging it as unethical?
I’m third generation agnostic and was taken to nude life-drawing classes by my artist mother at the age of fourteen (which in no way traumatized me). Basically, I wasn’t raised with puritanical issues against sex itself. But I do have issues with gaslighting, rape-by-deception and the typical embezzling of critical family assets for affairs. I consider it all to be domestic abuse which has zero to do with groovy and woke sexuality.
And the other thing that really annoys me about these experts is that they always assume cheaters want to stay and yet affairs are often exposed on their way out the door to be with the AP.
These “experts” profit from chumps on hopium handing over real dollars
It is annoying! In my case, I feel like my ex wanted to separate, but was too much of a coward to do it. Easier to just start an affair, get caught, then jerk me around for a 10 months while you claim you are “confused”.
I actually cheated on a high school girlfriend, so I don’t necessarily believe once a cheater, always a cheater, because I really did grow and learn from that experience. I wanted to break up with her but I was a 17 year old coward, so I cheated and confessed instead. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever done and I would never do it again.
But it DID help me understand in some ways the mind of my ex. Based on my experiences, I don’t think you can cheat on someone if you truly value and respect them as a person.
Which is one of the many reasons it is so difficult to reconcile after infidelity.
You’re very brave to admit that here.
I also don’t think ‘once a cheater always a cheater’. Twenty-five years into my parents’ marriage, my dad had an affair. He broke it off, then admitted it to my mom and said he wanted to go to counselling. They’ve now been married fifty years and as far as I can tell they are genuinely happy together. Definitely happier than before the affair, anyways. My dad has regularly said he’s so glad my mom gave him another chance and their marriage survived, and that he can’t believe he did something so incredibly stupid.
My dad is pretty avoidant in general — I think he probably cheated because he couldn’t face having a Come to Jesus conversation with my mom.
I think cheating is always an abusive act (or series of acts, rather) but I don’t believe all cheaters are the same or cheat for the same reasons. I think if my ex had come to me the same way my dad came to my mom, we could have potentially fixed it. But, like you say, I think cheaters generally don’t value their partner or respect them as people. It was the lack of respect and devaluing of me that killed my marriage, not the affair itself.
Your dad probably continued to cheat but just covered it up better. And quite possibly, your mom knew but decided to stay for whatever reason or reasons.
That literally doesn’t make sense. None of us had any idea about the affair until he decided to tell us. He could have continued his affair if he’d wanted. He didn’t need to cover it up better because we were all clueless when he told us.
Mom had no idea. I overheard him tell her.
Some people are serial cheaters but I don’t think that’s true of everyone who cheats. I don’t think it’s possible to fix a relationship with a serial cheater. I think it’s still highly unlikely you’ll fix a relationship with someone who cheats once but I do think it’s possible for some people.
I understand why my parents are still together. I don’t know if I’d make the same choice my mum did if I were in her situation, but it’s her life and couples therapy really did change how my parents talked to each other.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know with any certainty what anyone is hiding. It’s possible your dad has never cheated again. It’s also possible that he got better at hiding it.
The people, like my former husband, who hide it best (as in, “none of us had any idea about the affair until he decided to tell us”) are the ones who scare me the most.
❤️
I agree that it’s impossible to know — the fact that I had no clue with my dad or my ex husband freaks me out to no end and has impacted my ability to trust.
I love this blog, and I wholeheartedly agree with the premise that cheating is abuse. It so obviously is.
But I don’t think painting every cheater with the same brush is helpful. People do things for various reasons. Cheaters are not a monolith anymore than chumps are.
My dad and my ex are very different people and handled their cheating in two completely different ways. I can understand why my parents’ relationship had a chance at survival and mine didn’t.
My mom made a choice and, while I’m not sure it would have been mine, I do think it’s a valid one.
I realize you’re new here, but no one believes “once a cheater, always a cheater.” I go to great pains on this site to argue that entitlement feels great and humility not so much. And that the entitlement it takes to cheat is at odds with the painful growth work it takes to be a better partner. Odds of successful reconciliation are long. But the larger point is cheater potential is BESIDES THE POINT. The question for the chump is: Is this relationship acceptable to YOU?
I recently posted a research study that indicates that dishonesty is a personality trait, and not always situational. Which is another look at the personality disorder dimension of infidelity. I don’t argue that every cheater is a personality disorder. But we have an entire therapy industry that seems to overlook that aspect of cheating and promotes reconciliation.
No one is painting cheaters with the same brush. I’m glad your father cleaned up his act. Also understand that a lot of people here reconciled with the same belief and learned they were duped later. Once the trust is gone, it’s hard to know.
Which is really my larger point. Once you’ve cheated, you’ve ruined that relationship. Can you go on to be a better person in your next relationship? I sure hope so! But the enormous data set here of stories shows that’s unlikely. But certainly not impossible.
You forgot the air quotes.
Accepting that the personality traits that made the cheating possible are his basic operating system took years for me to process and accept. Once I did it became easier to let go of the facade that he created and start protecting myself from the fact that everything he said or did was meant to manipulate and/or decieve.
When he was caught and called out to the degree that he couldn’t lie/manipulate his way out, his response was to place us into marriage counseling. He turned the hourly sessions into a safe space for him to continue to lie and manipulate. When I’d had enough and insisted on accountability, his response was sitting in silence, seething with contempt and resentment.
There is nothing authentic to work with in these people.
SIlence is a powerful tool. Mine used it expertly. watching me flail. We have child neglect as abuse, elder abuse, but when a grown human, not a baby nor elderly, is neglected and ignored and treated as non existent and stolen from- it is that person’s fault! Makes no sense, Just a thought.
I think the article is right to propose that one can, in fact, get over cheating in your relationship. However, the means by which the article suggests one can do so is clearly rubblish. The best methodology for getting over cheating was set out in a book written by the author of this blog! LACGAL all the way 💪
Yep. Slam the door and walk away. It’s the best thing I ever did. Worst was marrying the fucker.😈
…yep, I’ve got Bingo!
-Yellow Journalism (“Some people say that…”)
-Straw Man Fallacy(let’s make a shit counter argument an then disprove it with equally fallacious logic)
-(Free Space) “I cheated and am going to make everyone think that it’s ok so I don’t have to live with the guilt/discomfort/legal bills/child support”
-“Empirical Science says this. I say different!”
-“If it happened one time, it can happen all the time!”
Like, are these “journalists” not trained on face validity of an argument? When you disprove your own argument (and in fact open with a very strong argument against what you are trying to peddle that you in no way are able to dismantle), you make it a very hard sell. I think even if I were not the direct opposite of the target audience for this I’d have been like “wait…what?”
Look, I’m glad that there are the ascended beings out there that were in fact able to make things work out and even better after betrayal. Really, I am. In fact, maybe one of these days we’ll get to actually, you know, MEET some of these people and hear their stories. I’d be very interested to hear what strategies they employed to make things work out, communicate better, or be better partners.
As the great FYI_ posits somewhere above where you will read this…I am kind of wondering if those are the same strategies most of us employed to begin with to have a healthy relationship and still got betrayed. It’s almost like the extra credit “make sure I don’t have to pay my own expenses” method with these cretins is what they were supposed to be doing all along. Why do idiots want extra for doing the bare minimum?
However, and maybe it’s just confirmation bias-I’m seeing (again, here we go with “empirical science”) far, far, FAR more cases of “it doesn’t work out in the long run”. We get posts every Tuesday or so concerning that-things look great on the surface but there is a dramatic implosion.
Again, I am happy that out of all of the relationships that have ever occurred (and we’re only 5-10,000 or so years into this “humanity” thing), a couple of times someone said and actually meant “boy, I’m sure glad Amanda cheated. We are so much better because of it!” Sounds an awful lot like there are greater odds of winning the Powerball while simultaneously being Batman. The rest of us mere humans (Remodeled or otherwise) end up in more therapy than we were already in.
Have a Mighty Monday.
In my former religious circles, the leading elder has repeatedly taught that ANYTHING can be overcome in a marriage. He also said that if divorce occurs, it is because of human failure. Thankfully, I wasn’t in the audience the last time he did that, but I listened to the recording because a friend there cued me.
So you have to keep trying and trying until you are a shell of a human being, and if you initiate the divorce, you are a failure because you didn’t trust in God?
Technically, I was given a pass because my ex left and kicked off the divorce, but that thinking is still so toxic, I can’t stand it. It underestimates evil and just how deep and horrid these things are, particularly sexual addiction. My ex was also a pill addict with significant mental health issues, and that was also over-the-top. I didn’t see that for what it was until I joined a twelve-step group after my ex left. Ultimately, the marriage was just completely shattered and had been in a downward spiral for over a decade.
There’s no room for saying, “This situation is so bad that closing the door is best for all involved.” Oh, and the aggrieved person should initiate divorce if necessary. It doesn’t matter who does it; the marriage needs to end.
Yes, that’s why I left that church.
My mind does have trouble in holding in one hand ✋️ I didn’t cause the cheating…. in the other ✋️ hand I hold I can’t cure the cheating and in a third hand I have to hold, I can’t control it either ….if all those 3 Cs from AA are true for Alcoholics, then would they not also be true for addictions of all kinds, including the urge to hurt in any and all ways, someone you proport to love and cherish. If the 3 Cs are true for addictions to deception, sex and lies, what do I need to do? Once I understand that I do not control these disturbed cheaters, what do I do? There in is my greatest power. Take the forgiveness of more than 1 or 2 chances, and LEAVE THE CHEATER. Yes, there is something we must do. Plan for it, safety first and get out. There is no cure. Promises are ropes of sand. I was the battery in my abusers flashlight, I had to pull them out and run for the hills. My cheaters found replacement batteries so fast my head was spinning. I was nothing but someone to torture and cycle abuse and cheating through, a body to USE…for years. But once I knew the TRUTH..Believe that they suck —I extricated myself from the cycle. The equation shifted to freedom. Thank you Chump lady for the steel you have injected into my spine. I will never be the same, but I am better– SOLO!!
Yes, the 3 C’s changed my life:
I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, and I can’t cure it.
Sadly, I knew the 3 Cs for the alcoholic but not the cheater…the 12 step programs do not advocate staying or leaving, but they get you strong enough to know when you’ve had enough. The same for the cheater.
I’m disappointed in The Guardian. Thanks for bringing this article to our attention, Tracy.
One summer day FW announced after 30 years of marriage that “we” were deeply unhappy. He had never told me he was unhappy before. He went on to angrily accuse me of various relationship dealbreakers over the years I’d committed that he’d never mentioned at the time.
I was so gobsmacked I asked him if he was having an affair. I got the dead shark eyes and a rambling word salad about how — because of “the problems we’ve had for a long time in our marriage” — he’d made emotional connections with others he could “see a path forward with.”
I asked him if this meant he wanted a divorce. No! he said. Of course not! While he refused to go to counseling, he did agree to me trying to repair the relationship on my own.
Yes, chumps, I pick-me danced for 18 months while he lived it up with Schmoopie. That’s hundreds of days of active lying and withholding and deceit. He had to make thousands of decisions about the logistics of his double life during that time. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he played me without any remorse until he got caught. Even after D-day, he blamed me for being a bad romantic partner, forcing him to look elsewhere for happiness.
Cheating is unethical. Cheating is absolutely about entitlement. I’m so grateful I found Tracy and this community a month after I kicked him out, because that’s when the true healing began.
Thank God he never agreed to go to therapy! What if we had gotten stuck in an RIC nightmare? Whew, dodged a major bullet there.
Long live the UBT.
These articles are written as if keeping the marriage is the most important thing but miss the big question – was the marriage mutually beneficial and satisfactory to begin with? I was seriously thinking about divorcing my husband for his laziness, his selfishness, his entitlement, his lack of grooming, his lackluster foreplay, his unjustified criticism of me, his grandiose sense of self-importance, and a host of small annoyances (like consistently spelling clothes incorrectly). When I learned he hadn’t quit dating I was relieved. He wanted me to go to couples counseling with him, to fight for him, to help him with his sex addiction, but WHY? My life is so much better without him. I sleep better, I have more free time, I have more discretionary funds, I have fewer chores, full use of the closet, control of the remote, and my snacks don’t disappear.
I’ve tried dating but none of them are worth risking the peace I feel in solitude.
aAuthors should write articles about how if you find a partner who will put up with your shit, don’t piss them off.
Deceptive sexuality is repeatedly intentionally beating the emotional sh*t out of someone the perpetrator professes to love. They even enlist help, a disordered idiot who gleefully joins in, who also stupidly thinks the perpetrator is capable of love (which is a verb, a behavior) which their harmful deceptive behavior disproves.
If that is not a dealbreaker, I don’t know what is.
An affair totals the relationship IMHO. Stay if you want, but the cost of associating with bad company and their harmful self-centered habits is too expensive if I truly care about myself.
My new standard is LEAVE AT THE FIRST LIE.
Life on my own is light years better than in a so-called relationship with someone who has no problem lying to my face, inflicting the most severe emotional and psychological pain I have ever known, and gets someone to help him do it.
Cheaters and side pieces are poor choices for intimate partners. If you think it’s a good idea, best of luck to you.
❤️
“a disordered idiot who gleefully joins in, who also stupidly thinks the perpetrator is capable of love”. Oh wow, you know Mrs. Bendover! What a small world!
https://youtu.be/412tdDiLdX0?si=OZff5DpXb3nr75ZL
What The RIC does not teach you..
Looking back, I would have to agree that I have not heard any worthy and true stories of people getting back together and the betrayed partner feeling great about it.Once I began to hear about his decades of abuse and betrayal, I right away made a clear line of no physical contact. He never touched me again, not a hug or kiss–zero. It saved my life, I believe. It gave me the basis to build my strength to find a new life, new people, new life. Had I permitted him to touch me, I think I would have been so terrified–not just of getting and STI/STD–but just to be exposed physically to that level of degradation. Ugh. If you are still in the first year or 2 of getting your life together, I urge you to draw that line. From there, you can draw other lines that you need and move away from that orbit of insanity. It was where I began to assemble my new, much healthier, much better life. I come to this site often to let newbies know that there is a better life out there. I am a proud member of the septugenarian club, so I have some mileage under my slender belt. Don’t lose any more time to the FW. You have better days ahead. That is how you get over it.
Wondering if the writer’s nomme de plume– which is an actual train station in Scotland– is meant as a joking poly reference to “heavy sexual traffic” or something?
In any case, according to a blog critique, Paisley Gilmour reportedly used to call themselves “Jack,” presented themselves as a long-married dude and chronicled his/her/their and their wife’s polyamorous adventures in Cosmo which includes a fair bit of martyred resentment for not being allowed to have sex with extramarital partners in monogamous friends’ homes. https://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2018/09/cosmos-polyamory-diaries-update.html
Meanwhile the poly blogger above who criticized the original Cosmo Polyamory Diaries (here: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/polyamory-diaries/) is a bit mocking of the martyrdom, saying, “How about finding better friends?! What he’s not finding, and still seems too blockheaded to know he needs to find, is poly community.”
But why find community that shares your views and values when you can therapeutically convert the great unwashed, unwoke masses and correct their misguided, retrograde beliefs by chastising betrayed partners who were conned and gaslighted into believing they were in monogamous relationships? And why– if Gilmour were born a her and in a poly relationship with woman and, in fact, truly woke– do they not proudly qualify these things? That along with all the articles about hetero sex techniques seem like a depressing attempt to play entryist into “mainstream” views by pretending to be a mainstream cis het normie.
In the original Polyamory Diaries, the writer is only identified as Anonymous so it’s unclear if s/he/they are in fact Paisley Gilmour. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/polyamory-diaries/
But, if these writers are one and the same, I think bell hooks is rolling in her grave. This is not because I believe everyone nonbinary should have to out themselves… unless, that is, they presume to tell others how to live and love. Anyway, the rather dodgy and deceptive approach to reforming monogamists kind of reminds me of the Chris Fleming song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTsdKycVZZ4
“I’m poly!”
And when they tell you it’s with such glee
Like a dog dropping a rodent carcass at your feet
Like this only benefits you and is menacing to me
And everyone else
It’s never who you want to be polyamorous who’s polyamorous
You’re never like oh sweet!
You’re usually like, could I get a helicopter to take me to safety?
COUPLE: It’s so nice to see you, but…we do have something real quick that we just need to tell you about
CHRIS: Oh, sure tell me!
COUPLE: We’re polyamorous! Did you know that humans aren’t naturally monogamous?
I should have known how you kept going on
About how welcoming the burlesque community’s been
I sensed something conspiratorial before
But I just thought you were gonna try
and get me to play board games or something!
Side note: Board Game couples give off
An even more menacing vibe than poly couples
Well I’m going to write to Lohani Noor at her bullshit institute. What these ignorant, so-say intelligent people fail to realise about cheating is that making the decision to leave someone you love in the hope of a better life on the other side is a tortuous decision for many of us chumps.
It’s not necessarily about “morals” or “sin” but a chumpy realisation that we’ve been abused psychologically, at the very least. It’s not all about us being on our high horses. We have to divorce and “break up” families which is devastating and not decisions we take lightly; well not in my case anyway.
It took me seven years of living in denial and putting on a brave face to keep my family intact, before I realised it was just a waste of time. I’ve felt suicidal and became estranged from my sister over it (my only family member).
How can being a victim of domestic abuse EVER make a relationship stronger? All it does is reinforce the patriarchy (sorry men chumps!) and take abuse underground in that you need to put up and shut up about it. Affairs are NOT sexy times, they can ruin lives and kill.
I first read “chumpy realisation” as “chumpy rebellion”. As long as it is an exuberant act of rebellion I’m all for it.
#MeToo!
I’m praye the karma bus runs over Ms Noor by bringing her a serial adulterer as a partner. The damage these counselors do is enormous.
Why should chumps be expected to fight for cheaters? Why would we want to? Chumps are the injured parties, and society should expect that cheaters either fight for us, or compensate us fairly for the damage they’ve done.
Are comments enabled on this BS article? I hope CN goes to post up a storm
“Many people assume that once trust is broken, the relationship must end.”
No, it means the relationship has ended.
Spot on. It’s a fact. I can’t see how anyone honestly true to themselves could stay in a relationship after cheating. I tried for 7 years!
This is great. (Enough common sense is genius.) (quoting Josh Billings and Thomas Edison)(kinda/sorta)
As promised, I sent an email to Lohani Noor. Let’s see if I get a response!
“Dear Lohani
I recently read your comments in The Guardian about cheating and whether relationships can recover from infidelity. While I appreciate your effort to introduce nuance into a sensitive subject, I felt compelled to share a different, often overlooked perspective—one shaped by lived experience.
I was married to a man who led a double life. He was a serial cheater, lying to my face for years while I carried our unborn children. Without my knowledge or consent, I was exposed to serious health risks, including STIs. There was also financial abuse—money siphoned from our shared life to fund affairs, while I was kept in the dark and gaslit when I asked questions. The emotional toll of that betrayal was devastating and still is. I was not only grieving the relationship I thought I had; I was grappling with the psychological trauma of having my reality systematically denied and distorted. At my lowest points, I experienced suicidal thoughts at the hands of his psychological, domestic abuse.
So when I see narratives that frame cheating as potentially “making couples stronger” or suggest that “both parties often enable the cheating,” I feel something important is being lost: the raw, destabilising, and sometimes life-threatening experience of those who were betrayed. Cheating is rarely about emotional neglect or relationship problems; it’s about one person choosing deceit, over and over again, while their partner is left living a lie.
I also take issue with how much emotional labour is expected from betrayed partners. We’re often told to introspect, to communicate better, to “do the work” to rebuild. But where is the expectation on the cheater to fully own their choices—not just in therapy, but in action? To sit with the destruction they caused and do the heavy lifting of accountability, even if the relationship doesn’t survive?
It’s not just about sin, or black-and-white thinking. It’s about agency, consent, health, and survival. Many of us leave not because we’re cold or unforgiving, but because staying would mean continuing to abandon ourselves. And that’s something we’ve already been forced to do for too long, in spite of still loving our partners.
You’re absolutely right that “the key is choice, not obligation.” But I hope future discussions will give greater voice to those of us whose lives were shattered by betrayal—who weren’t simply dealing with a mistake, but with a long-term con. Healing, for us, starts with truth—not reconciliation.
I’d strongly encourage you to explore the work of Tracy Shorn, AKA Chump Lady—a writer, thought leader and community that has become a lifeline for millions of people like me. She’s the only consistent, clear-eyed voice calling out the real harm of infidelity without romanticising it or burdening victim survivors with the task of “rising above.” For many of us, her work is a place of safety, sanity, and solidarity.
I am open to talking to you any time, should you want to explore my lived experience further to inform your future writing.
Regards
Me”
BRAVA !!!! 🙌🏽 🎉 🎊
Amazing post and amazing comments on this topic from real betrayed partners: https://www.reddit.com/r/survivinginfidelity/comments/1lb3qtg/its_not_your_fault/