Yes, Cheating Happens in "Good" Marriages

Good marriages are not exactly problem-free. They pass off as good because they are able to surpass challenges and come out better in spite of them. They are not however immune to the dangers of infidelity because like any other human being, the people in them are subject to the pitfalls of human weaknesses.

There are infidelity in marriages that shock us because it is almost unbelievable to discover that men and women we hold in high esteem lead other lives that are not as respectable. These people are often recognized by peers and the community thus possessing an enviable public image that denotes high moral standards. They are in a marriage that is only perceived to be good because they have taken specific steps to make such a representation. In reality, there may be a long-suffering spouse trying to keep up an image with no option but to help in covering up the cheating spouse's misdeeds.

How about the infidelity that happens in genuinely good marriages? This is a marriage where the couple seemed to have worked-out just about every aspect of their relationship. They sincerely love each other and would not wish any form of pain or harm to the other. They enjoy being with each other and have long-term plans leading to forever.

And then one day, one of them cheated...

Cheaters in a good marriage should be able to accept that they have committed a mistake and therefore have the responsibility to make truthful amends to their aggrieved partners. Cheated spouses on the other hand, must be willing to give the chance. A good marriage recognizes the possibility that anyone can stumble along the way and the other would be willing to extend a hand. A good marriage is a tall order that is why there are so few.

Incestuous Infidelity

There is another side to infidelity that can make it more disturbing than others. A cheating man or woman who chooses a relation by blood or marriage as an extramarital affair partner is said to be in an incestuous illicit relationship. There is a much deeper implication of unfaithfulness in this context because of the close relationship between personalities involved.

Incest is defined as a sexual relation between people related by blood, marriage, and other legal processes such as adoption. The degree of prohibited relationships may vary between countries and cultures. The essence however of the prohibition is basically the same.

Aside from the moral aspect of incest, the prohibition stands on medical findings that the probability of birth defects in offsprings of incestuous relationships is much higher than those produced by unrelated marriage partners. There are certain efforts by some to distinguish incestuous relationships between two consenting adults although the general belief that it does not constitute much difference remains the same. The most destructive aspect of incest is when it is used as a form of sexual abuse.

This is most often seen when a parent coerces a child to participate in a sexual relationship. Some cheaters who do not wish to bring their inclination outside their homes zero in on the weakness of a child to get what they want. Spouses of cheaters involved in incestuous infidelity have a bigger problem than most victims of spousal cheating. In addition to coping with the personal hurt of the unfaithful act itself, they would have to face the additional burden of protecting the rights of a child and the difficult task of recovery for both of them.

Make Your Ex Regret Cheating on You

When your ex-husband or ex-boyfriend cheated on you and left you for another woman, you may not want him back but you would certainly want him to regret what he did. Call it a need to get even or the need to prove your worth, but it definitely feels good to see him acknowledging his mistake and wanting you back. Before you get to enjoy the chase after undergoing so much pain, you will need to take a hard look on yourself and see what you can do to make yourself feel and look better.

Let's face it, a cheated wife with zero confidence has nothing much to look forward to especially if she allows herself to deteriorate in looks and outlook in life. The single life-changing decision a cheated woman can do is to take better care of herself. You may feel ugly and spent after the betrayal but that doesn't mean you are. In order for other people to see the good in you and how attractive you really are, you must allow yourself to come out of the shadow of depression and loneliness.

Confidence naturally comes from knowing that you feel and look good inside and out. Do not underestimate the power of a sensible makeover to give you just the right nudge towards the right direction. Pursue your interrupted ambitions and interests prior to getting married or find new ones more applicable to your present state. Indulge in things that make you happy in the constructive sense since happiness of the destructive nature are fleeting and counterproductive.

Your ex will regret cheating on you when he sees the new you. He might even wonder what made him stray in the first place. You just have to remember that you have a choice whether to take him back or not if he again shows interest in you. Never again forget however that the new you need not be relegated to the background ever again.

Inappropriate Behavior for Married People

Behavioral actuations expected from married people are not always written. Its many aspects are often implied and dictated by certain moral and ethical standards. We know a certain behavior is wrong when we see it, when we feel it and no words or explanation can say otherwise.

Going out on a date is expected from single people and definitely frowned at when done by married people unless it is a date with the spouse. Flirting with a member of the opposite sex is fun and thrilling for unattached people but very dangerous for married people. Cultivating exclusive emotional attachments with a member of the opposite sex is a prelude to a relationship for uncommitted people but to people who are already married , it is an invitation for spousal infidelity to enter the picture.

Married people do not really need to be given a detailed list of what can be or cannot be done. Essentially, what one finds unacceptable to be done to oneself is likewise unacceptable to be done to the spouse. Thus, if you find something makes you jealous and suspicious, it is a good bet that your spouse will feel the same if you do it.

Married people can save themselves and their respective spouses a lot of heartaches by being more sensitive to each other's feelings. Doubts and suspicions rarely develop overnight and are often a result of several related events instead of a single instance except when actions are glaringly inappropriate. In our world where a single's life is different from a married person's life, we are expected to act accordingly.

The Truth Behind An Unintentional Affair

"I never meant to do it, it just happened," so goes the typical explanation of a cheater. Can an affair be unintentional, accidental even? Many cheaters swear that this is exactly what happened to them. They didn't go out to look for it and yet they found it or it found them.

What we often term as unintentional or accidental is actually the expected result when people place themselves in certain situations. It may be a fact that a man or woman engages in social activities with members of the opposite sex without any intention of cheating a spouse. Socializing after all is part of a well-rounded life. What a person should be on the particular look-out for is not socializing per se but the inclination to develop exclusivity in zeroing in attention to a particular person.

It starts out simply enough - a spark of interest, excitement over seeing the other person, preference in being paired with one particular person in group activities, and many other seemingly innocent indulgences. To the people concerned, their world has become more exciting than usual and they enjoy it. It is only up to this point however that a cheater can claim the lack of intent to cheat for taking the excitement a notch higher is clearly courting trouble.

Once another man or woman comes in the middle of the marriage, the intentions are very clear. The prospective cheater who sacrifices time for his/her spouse to be available to the prospective third party in the guise of an important personal or work-related event is setting the stage for infidelity. Granting that no person can choose what he/she can feel about a certain person, a person has the freedom to choose whether to act on such feelings or not. Married people obviously do not have a choice but the problem is, some think they do.

Admiration or attraction may take anyone by surprise. Infidelity when applied on one's self comes with fair warning. You know what your are thinking and what you are feeling. Where you decide to bring such thoughts and feelings is up to you. Please just don't say that you didn't mean to do it.

The End of An Affair

What signals the end of an affair? Is it the waning excitement for the lover? Is it the feeling of guilt that has finally been recognized? Or is it the engulfing need to confess infidelity to the spouse? When a cheating spouse starts contemplating about the effects of his/her unfaithfulness, this is usually the time when ending an affair is being considered.

A cheating spouse who is lost in his/her own world with the lover is unable to feel for others. It is only about himself/herself. Not even the pain felt by the legal spouse or the children matters at this time when everything is centered on self-gratification. The justification of having the right to be happy is heard like a refrain from songs.

No one knows exactly when it will happen but the time when "sanity" is restored will come. All of a sudden, a cheater feels tired of the instability of extramarital relationships and pine for the comfort of marriage. The unpredictability of the lover which used to create much excitement has become very exhausting and the need to feel the constancy of a dependable spouse is very real. The alienation from family and friends resulting from infidelity can be too much to bear especially when one feels like a stranger among the lover's own circle of family and friends.

The fun is over, what now? Most cheaters will find themselves crawling back to their spouse and family. Fortunate are the ones who are forgiven and accepted right away. For the less fortunate ones, lessons will be learned the hard way when they are forced to work to gain back their family's trust and affection.

So Typically Male, So Typically Female

In the subject of infidelity, there are gender-specific behavior and thinking that can be observed as being poles apart. The marked difference in interpretation, reaction, and significance is largely responsible for the widening rift between the opposing genders when faced with infidelity. Each has his/her own idea about spousal cheating and almost always, they are not on the same level of thinking.

Male cheaters usually defend their cheating as nothing while women view them as everything. The interesting part here is that most men engage in extra-marital sex devoid of any romantic emotions thus the term : "it was nothing". To many men, a one night stand is simply that. A cheated wife will see this act of cheating as a threat to everything the couple has worked for in the marriage. Cheating is one act that undermines everything about the relationship. So here we have nothing vs. everything.

When men lie about their cheating, they see it as a form of protection for the family. Women see it as a form of perpetrating a betrayal. Non-confession of infidelity is often seen by cheating men as a sincere effort to spare the family from hurt and pain. Women see non-confession as a cover-up to prolong the affair. Here, we are facing protection vs. betrayal.

When women cheat, they believe they are in love with their lovers because of the strong emotions involved. Cheating husbands hop into the beds of their affair partners with nary a thought about romance, knowing fully well that they do so for the satisfaction of some carnal desire and nothing else. This is the reason why a long-standing affair should be more cause of worry for the faithful wife because time represents attachments. This time, the issue is about the perception of emotions involved.

Realizing how different genders look at infidelity, it is easier to understand why it is such a complex subject. Even the presumed non-contentious aspect that infidelity does cause pain is being appealed my male cheaters who are unable to understand its emotional consequences. Female cheaters on the other hand, are so preoccupied with being in love with love that it is so hard to convince them otherwise. So typically male, so typically female.

Mission: Destroy Happy Marriages

Is it possible for a woman to feel so destroyed by a husband's betrayal that she would gain satisfaction from wrecking havoc on other people's marriages by being the other woman? She translates the envy and anger she feels into malicious acts that create doubt and suspicion in happy marriages. She doesn't even have to be particularly attracted to the man because her interest lies in making everyone else as miserable as she is. She thinks she is entitled to it because of the pain she has not stopped feeling since the betrayal.

Her main choice criteria: a married man who is willing to give up everything for her.

Her signature touch: drop the man like a hot potato after having successfully wrecked the marriage.

Her next move: find another (happily) married man to lure into her trap and continue the cycle.

Women documented to behave in a similar destructive manner usually have prior records of abuse from male members of the family such as the father or brother, as well persons of authority such as an employer. A husband's betrayal is seen as the last straw that finally broke the camel's back which sealed her belief that men do not deserve to be happy. Her revenge is focused on anyone who dares to be happy when she is not.

Clearly, this behavior has a deep psychological undercurrent that is not easy to resolve. The excessive pain she may have felt has completely clouded her judgment and nothing can stop her mission of destroying happy marriages. Though her action is not in any way to be tolerated, such extreme results in behavior should be food for thought for the man who don't think twice about betraying the woman who has given so much of herself to him because it is possible to hurt someone so much that she will strike back whoever gets hurt.

Infidelity Urban Legend

The story of the revengeful bride or groom exposing the other's act of infidelity on the very day of their wedding has been making the rounds for some time. It had been told over and over again with some claiming to have been at the actual wedding or at least know someone who was there. Until today, the story has never been confirmed thus it remains an urban legend.

Essentially, the story says that a bride or groom (depending on the version) finds out about the other's infidelity involving the best man or the maid-of-honor. The aggrieved party decides to take revenge on the wedding day by exposing the cheats in front of the guests. While the story of the aggrieved bride ends with her shoving her bouquet of flowers on the groom's face and then walking out after announcing the infidelity to the guests, the aggrieved groom makes it more graphic by providing the guests with pictures of the bride and the best man having sex. He then lets the bride's parents take care of the huge bill and then files for divorce.

But why the interest in this kind of story? The story for one has everything in it that makes all those TV soap operas very addicting. There is the protagonist, the antagonist, love, betrayal, revenge, and justice. These are the elements that make up a story that people would like to see through the end if only to have the satisfaction of seeing bad people get what they deserve.

This just goes to show that people basically seek justice that is why it was so easy to identify with the pain and the triumph of revenge of the aggrieved party. It didn't matter if the story involved real people since it represented circumstances that are really happening. Whether this story happened or not, the tale of retribution may just be too hard to pass up and so we listen one more time...