If you are the victim of cheating, realize that the choice to cheat was not made by you and had more to do with his issues than yours.
I can think of nothing more distressing than finding out the man you had full faith and trust in has cheated. Unless, of course, it’s you believing you are somehow to blame for his cheating.
“What did I do wrong?” is not a question you should ask yourself if you’ve been cheated on. A woman should NEVER take responsibility for bad behavior by her man!
Even in the worst marriage or relationship, a man has options and choices. If he cheats and tells you, “it just happened,” call bullshit on that. Every action we take, we choose to take. No man just happens falls into the vagina of another woman. It doesn’t happen that way! His affair happened because he chose to have an affair.
If he has an affair it is not because of something you did or didn’t do. The responsibility lies with him for making the choice to cheat instead of dealing with his problems in a more proactive manner.
Every man who cheats has a “reason” for doing so. You can bet on that! Below are common reasons men give for cheating and why you aren’t responsibility regardless of what reason he comes up with.
Below are 5 reasons you are not to blame for his cheating:
1. Some men cheat because the marriage/relationship bond has broken down.
Time, bills, children, and life in general, can all take their toll on a marriage. We all realize we need to work at our marriage to keep our intimacy strong with each other, but other things get in the way, and many couples find themselves drifting apart.
An immature person, instead of handling the problem, tries to avoid addressing it by turning outside the marriage. The breakdown of the relationship is usually the fault of both people, but the choice to cheat is the responsibility of the cheater.
2. Some men cheat because their needs aren’t being met.
This usually means one spouse feels his or her emotional or physical needs are not being met. Again, this can be caused by an emotional distance between spouses, but it can also be the difference in sex drives, being too exhausted from other responsibilities to have the energy for sex, or using sex as a way to control (participating in sex as a reward or withholding for punishment).
Turning outside the marriage is not the answer for this situation either, and a mature person will realize that and try to correct the situation through communication and counseling. An immature person will begin something new with someone else to get that excitement back, instead of fixing or ending the current relationship. You aren’t to blame for his cheating or inability to get his needs met.
3. He may cheat because of a mid-life crisis.
Most people reach a point in their lives, usually between 30 and 50, when they realize they are getting older and wonder if they made the right choices in life. It is common for these people to ask if there is not something more out there than what they have, or feel like they are in a rut.
They want to recapture the feelings that they had when they were younger, or the excitement they felt as a young lover. This is an internal thing with the cheater, because of their emotional baggage, and is not the fault of the victim of infidelity.
4. Some spouses cheat because they lack impulse control, and never should have pledged monogamy in the first place, they are serial cheaters.
If this was a pattern during the dating relationship, breaking up because of another woman and then getting back together, the pattern will not stop because you take marriage vows.
One person cannot do enough to make another person change. Change has to come from within, and that person has to want to change. This is one area when many women think, “If I had only been prettier, or sexier, or more something, they would not have cheated.” However, that is not the case. It’s the cheater’s issue, not yours.
5. Some men cheat in order to end the relationship.
They have what is referred to as an “exit affair.” Breaking up is hard to do, and some men avoid the confrontation by having an affair. This is the most hurtful way to end a relationship.
It is common for the cheater to want to blame their affair on their wife/girlfriend. However, other than being jointly responsible for the distance that can develop between a couple not working on their marriage, the cheater has to take responsibility for his cheating.
We are each responsible for our own actions and the consequences of those actions.
If you are the victim of cheating, realize that the choice to cheat was not made by you and had more to do with his issues than yours.
Much of the article is true. There’s also this. There are emotional manilulators who will do anything to have what they WANT in life-relationships, jobs, money, etc. They cannot exist without an enabler, a co-dependent. Their deception covers every aspect of their life.
The manipulator cajoles, lies, deceives, over-states, loudly protests, cries, and even gaslights their victim. The co-dependent will self-abuse, changing themselves into something they are not to be “perfect”, offer every sexual favor, and carry 99% of the load of the family to enable that manipulator.
For the enabler, this situation tears at their soul. The maniulator doesn’t want to be caught, but when they are, the cruelty they are willing to impose cuts deep. The facade is torn away and it is ugly. The co-dependent is left to figure out how they could be so smart in every thing in their life except in regards to this person who took everything-the last, the present, and the future once planned.
The manipulator moves on to the next victim without a glance backwards. The co-dependent is bruised, but not broken, devastated but not destroyed. It takes time and tears.