Once You Cheat, Are You Doomed To Do It Again?

Once You Cheat, Are You Doomed To Do It Again?

I cheated on my first husband. I could give you all of the excuses: I’d already filed for divorce. He kept screwing up after months and months of multiple chances. The affair was “only” emotional.

But the excuses don’t really matter.

It happened. I’m not glad it happened, but I’m also not not glad. That marriage needed to end, and if it took an affair to do it, so be it.

***

When my current husband and I were just dating, I went on a ten-day work trip with the man I’d cheated on my ex-husband with.

My partner was worried about me going. I didn’t fault him for that. Here I was, traveling to Europe with the man I’d told my first husband I wanted to leave him to date.

I knew I’d have worried too if the roles had been reversed.

All my partner could do was trust me, and all I could do was be the kind of person worthy of his trust.

I worried though. I felt nagged by the phrase, “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” like when I’d engaged in that affair, I’d somehow flipped a switch to mean I’d never be able to be faithful to another partner again.

***

A study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2017 asked 484 people in relationships about their behavior.

The study found that people who had cheated before were a lot more prone to unfaithfulness again.

Previous cheaters were three times more likely to cheat again in their next relationship.

But the proof that it doesn’t have to be inevitable is that, while about half of the supposed cheaters repeated their behavior the next time around, the other half didn’t.

“Once a cheater, always a cheater” is actually only right 50% of the time.

***

One of the most common reasons people cheat is because they aren’t happy with their relationship.

People who are driven to cheat by circumstance aren’t necessarily bound to do it again as long as they find a partner they’re more compatible with the next time around.

Some, though, those actual “once a cheater, always a cheater” folks don’t do it because of circumstance, but something to do with their personality.

Research has reliably found that infidelity is more common among those who have less care and concern for others and less self-discipline. People with these traits are probably more inclined to cheat no matter what their relationship is like.

***

I went to Europe with that ex.

He made up reasons to talk to me or be near me. I even caught him taking a photo of me.

He wasn’t someone to trust, that I should have ever trusted, so I didn’t allow myself to be vulnerable. I was certain he would have treated my vulnerability like a cracked door he could have wedged the rest of the way open.

I made him uncomfortable by directly ignoring him, and when he still didn’t seem to understand that, I talked to the HR rep who was on the trip with us. That finally shut him up.

Every night, I slid naked between the sheets of my hotel room bed alone and called my partner. I’d been in relationships with other men, yet still never felt as close as I did to this one, thousands of miles away from me, just a voice over a phone.

***

My second husband and I married later that same year. We had a child together 13 months later.

I was the one to break a commitment to my first husband, but that doesn’t mean I’m doomed to cheat again. Neither are you.

I think back to how lonely I felt in my first marriage. How that loneliness ate away the walls I’d erected to honor my commitments. Once they were gone, I left my husband for the very first man that was nice to me.

I don’t like that fact, but I understand it. I was a woman so desperate to not get divorced that I sold off my self-esteem and self-worth in the process. How could I have not done something morally reprehensible?

Some of the good people in our lives complete us or make us. A rare few remind us that we’re whole, worthy, and beautiful on our own. I’d have to sell off my self-esteem and self-worth to do anything to sabotage my relationship with my current husband, so “once a cheater, always a cheater” might be true for some, but not me.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

***

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