A message from a friend of many years:
“I just found out that my husband cheated on me. It hurts. Am I right to be hurt? He's repenting all over the place, but not until after I found out. We have kids. I don't know what to do.”
I have been cheated on by three different women with whom I had a committed relationship. Seeing as this gives this event an incidence of about 25%, I will take on the mantle of Cuckholdery Expert, and address the topic. I'm told I make a passable Agony Aunt, and my correspondent gave me permission to write on the subject so...
When someone with which you are intimately involved breaks such an important promise to you, there's a whole lot of emotion to unpack. You feel angry and betrayed, but you also suffer from crushing self-doubt. What did I do wrong? Why wasn't I enough? What does this say about what sort of partner I am? The future is suddenly in doubt. All of the future. How will this change me? How, and where will I live now?
Your first, reasonable thought will be to ask why this happened. In my experience, there's no point in such a question. In my case, and in every case I've heard of, the promise breaker will not have a good answer, or at least, will not share it. In my experience, and in every case I've ever heard of, the answer is either, “We got carried away,” or some form of blame shifting, ranging from, “You've changed,” to “I needed something new,” or even some variant of the “you don't own me!” gambit.
No. You don't own them. But you were depending on their promise being kept.
Accept the fact that most people who cheat on you will make you the villain in the story they tell. But they've already demonstrated to you most thoroughly that they're dishonest on an intimate, personal level. They haven't cared about hurting you for some time now. Why should you take on their opinion of you?
Really, you don't need an answer as to why. The fact is, this person made you a most significant promise, and then broke it. What more do you need to know about them?
There are different sorts of promises, of course. For my part, I have always been what I call a “serial monogamist.” I am most comfortable in a situation in which both my partner and I have actually promised exclusivity to one another. The periods of “playing the field” seemed very lonely and unsatisfying to me. Waking up next to someone that you barely know is not the affirming experience that Hollywood seems to think it is. I'm not quite a “no rice, no dice” guy, and I threw away my purity ring the week I got it, but I've never been one to consider sex casual. Sex is big magic, and I respect it. Keep this in mind while considering what I'm writing here. I'm a little odd by current standards.
If there was never an explicit promise, things are much more complex. Were your expectations reasonable? This is why I always advocate being very clear about these things. Ambiguity breeds (pardon the weak jest) complications.
Assuming that there was an explicit promise, then, as I said, what more do you need to know about their character? Thank Hera that you haven't sworn formal vows with this person. Whatever it costs you to leave this person behind, it's worth it. Very few people only cheat once, and obviously, this person doesn't really care about hurting you deeply, if they see an opportunity for a moment's pleasure.
Oh, and by the way, if you wouldn't like to wear the horns, don't give them. If someone will cheat with you, they will cheat on you. Being a homewrecker is of the same moral class as being a cheater. It doesn't make you cool. It makes you an accomplice to dishonesty and unhappiness, a co-conspirator to inflicting a deep wound on another.
“But what if they never find out?” The odds are very good that they will. You're not as clever as you think you are, Lothario. And morally, it makes no difference. You broke your word, even if you “got away with it.”
Things get far, far worse if the two of you have sworn vows formally. If you are married, your lives are intertwined at the legal level. Socially, you are probably considered a single unit. Economically, you are a household, and untangling things like debt, mortgages, pensions, estates &c. keeps lawyers in fancy cars the world over. If you have children, multiply the difficulty, and the amount of hurt exponentially.
So don't cheat. If you want to end something, if it isn't fulfilling anymore, and you've tried your hardest, talk it through with your partner, and if there is no other option, end your relationship, clearly and honestly. It hurts, but it hurts a lot less than knowing that you have either cheated, or been cheated upon.
If you're married, call your lawyers and get ready for one of the most painful, expensive and difficult things you've ever experienced, but if you must, you must.
But what if you've been cheated on? What should you do? In my opinion and experience, both as a lover, and as a lawyer, you need first to disregard the why. You weren't a perfect partner. No one is. You'll probably never know why someone looked you in the face, made an intimate promise, and then broke it. Accept that.
Some people do not value keeping their word, at least not as much as they value a chance at some strange flesh. Such people exist. The world is full of them. Get away from them as quickly and completely as possible.
“But what if they apologize?” Adultery does not happen by accident. In cases where someone claims to have been caught up in the moment, you will probably find that quite a bit of planning was involved. Affairs generally resemble bank robberies in the amount of scheming, conspiring, lying and secret plotting that's usually afoot. This offense against you was committed with malice aforethought. Do not kid yourself.
Maybe someone really did lack self-control to the degree that they “just couldn't help themselves.” Why would you want to be yoked to such a child? Adults are adults because they have some grip on the ideas of impulse control and delayed gratification.
“But they're really, really sorry.” I hope so. And I hope you can forgive them. But continuing in a relationship after a betrayal is playing against the odds. Maybe you're the exception. There is no fault in being deceived once. Twice, and you're a bit of a pigeon, aren't you?
So now, through no action of your own, you're alone. And you're probably lonely and a bit down on yourself. Nothing is more normal. Aside from the boilerplate advice to avoid doing yourself harm – this is a bad time to take up new habits, and the advice you probably won't follow, which is to avoid a self-directed autopsy of the relationship, the most important things to give yourself are space and time.
Talk to a friend, or a therapist if it helps. But in my experience, learning to trust again is a matter of time, and distancing yourself, physically if necessary, from the hurt. When I'd had a particularly bad breakup, I got on my motorcycle, randomized my maps and stayed away for as long as it took me to feel something like normal again. But that's another story.
Take time. Walk in the sunny places. Do whatever makes you feel like the next day holds something for you to look forward to. You'll probably find that while the hurt is painful, it heals more quickly than you might expect.
You'll trust, and be trusted again, if that's what you want. I thought I was done with all that when my beloved Kathleen came along. All the memories of pain and disappointment eventually faded, not into oblivion, but into something I could grow around.
If you've been hurt, it doesn't really matter why. Your first priority is your own peace. Everything else comes after.
I wish you every good thing. There's more that could be said, but let me end with this: the world needs people who keep their promises. It also needs people who have been wounded, and learned how to heal themselves. You can be such a person. Not quickly, perhaps, but keep going. You'll get there.