Love and Infidelity

What has love or the lack of it got to do with infidelity?

There are people who say: "If you really love me, you will never cheat on me."

These are the people who believe in absoluteness, no ifs and buts. Perfect love is equated with complete faithfulness regardless of the situation and circumstances. They will find it impossible to forgive a cheating spouse when the betrayal destroyed the illusion of perfect love.

There are those who say: "If you love me, you will forgive me if I cheat."

These are people who presume that their spouse owe it to them to forgive all their faults. They think their partners should be able to understand their weakness and accept them for who they are. These are people who love only themselves and will never understand how much their infidelity hurts their partners.

A lot of cheaters have been heard saying: " I love my wife but I can't help myself from cheating on her."

These are the people who see infidelity as a purely physical or sexual arrangement. They believe that they are able to separate the act from the emotion, not realizing that others cannot necessarily do the same and thus experience pain. They will continuously cheat on their spouses but will not be willing to permanently cut the ties by separating.

A good number of cheated people have been heard saying as well: "Because I love my spouse, I will forgive him/her for cheating on me."

These people are either genuinely in love with their cheating spouses or feel that it is their duty and obligation to stand by them whatever happens. These people can have it both ways depending on the erring spouse. If the cheating spouse is truly repentant, the readiness of the cheated spouse to forgive and accept makes reconciliation a lot easier. For spouses who have the misfortune of being married to abusive serial cheaters, they can expect to be doing the forgiving act a lot and will find themselves miserable the rest their lives.

While love has often been used to threaten cheaters by withholding it, it can also be used by cheaters to perpetrate abuse in a relationship. The funny thing here is that love doesn't even appear in the equation when people cheat. Cheating is usually about an opportunity and taking advantage of it.

But oh, let's not forget the people who say : "I cheated my spouse because I love my lover!"

Oh well, people never run out of reasons anyway...