How Cheaters and The Other Woman/Man Copes

This has been an interesting project for me because it was challenging to find research on exactly how men/women who cheat feel, and even more difficult to find out the feelings of those who are “other men”.

Also, in order to determine how a cheater might cope, I had to find out what kind of affair they were in – there are many different kinds of affairs. That lead me to the reasons behind an affair, of which there were also many. For all intents and purposes, in this post I will focus on men and women who are in affairs because of something called a split-self. This will take a little bit of time to discuss, so I’ll begin with how the other man/woman copes.

According to my research, the other man either doesn’t care that he’s sleeping with another man’s wife or he is anxiously waiting for her to leave her marriage. In both circumstances, it doesn’t appear to be as difficult for them to deal with as the “other woman”. I attribute this to a man’s ability to compartmentalize. In contrast, some of the other women go through a myriad of emotions as well as highs and lows. Others seem to be content in their relationship. For the other woman who is devoted to the man in the affair, her level of satisfaction and happiness (and this is whether he is leaving his spouse or not) seems to be tied into whether or not she believes he cares about/loves her (and/or has romantic feelings for his spouse/partner if it’s also an emotional affair), how much time he spends with her, and/or how much attention he gives her. When any of these things are in question, the other woman questions the relationship. If she crosses emotional boundaries and ends up falling in love with him, she is happy when she’s with him and unhappy when she’s not, unless she finds a way to balance the (sense of) abandonment. I can personally support this theory: in the affair that I was in (which I have posted about), somehow, I found a way to reach a level of equilibrium whenever we had to be apart. I had no choice – because I am a passionate person, which includes being passionate about who I care about/am in a relationship with, it was imperative to find that balance or I wouldn’t have been able to function when he was physically absent. But, I was/am also the type of person who will leave a relationship when I am truly unhappy. Unfortunately, there are women who aren’t like Sam and hang on to an affair that is making them very unhappy – even if the affair is causing them severe anxiety and/or depression.

As I previously mentioned, one of the main reasons for affairs is called the split-self and is found a bit more often in men than in women – it is now becoming more frequent among the latter. The cheater who has a split-self affair is someone who separates rationality from their emotions. Rationally, they want to do the right thing because that is what they were taught to do, even if it means sacrificing their own emotional desires, wants, and needs. As these individuals get older, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep their emotional (and even sexual) needs at bay. These people are usually very successful in every way – they are educated, have great careers, and are extremely bright and ambitious, but they may have had to keep their emotions at bay growing up…because that’s just what you do, you do the “right thing” for your mother, for your family, for society, for your wife/husband. In their mind, they don’t know how to combine the thing that they think is the right thing with their emotional needs, thus, an affair ends up being the result because one person takes care of the rational part(s) of their mind, and the other person takes care of the emotional (and/or sexual) needs they have. The partner/spouse is usually representative of the mother or father whom they had to either please (or do what the parent felt was right for them), while either stifling their emotions and/or denying themselves some of the things they may have wanted and/or needed. And this is how a cheater (in a split-self affair) copes – this person NEEDS the affair. Until they learn how to combine what they believe is right with what they need emotionally, they will continue to fall into this pattern. While I was doing this research, I found it fascinating that all of the therapists insist that the spouse/partner in the affair should NOT end the affair! If the spouse in this situation has knowledge of the affair, this is the biggest obstacle they must overcome; they have to allow their partner to continue the connection because it is beneficial to their partner…if they truly love them. The rationale behind this is that the affair partner has invested in the third party person emotionally and is now bonded to them, so to ask them to break that bond would be too devastating; it is, after all, a relationship that they have been needing and wanting since childhood but are either too afraid to have or convince themselves that it doesn’t have as much value as the “right thing”. The bottom line of how this particular cheater copes…having the affair is exactly how they cope!

I continue to be interested in the split-self affair as it is, for me, a very new way of thinking about relationships and cheating so I will continue to research this phenomenon. In this type of affair (I am speaking specifically to the split-self affair), I just can’t say that I believe that cheating is wrong- this isn’t even gray, really – it’s pretty black and white to me: If one person appears to be the “right thing” to do/be with and the other person is someone whom you have connected with emotionally, how can you separate the two? When I imagine myself in that exact same scenario, I can’t begin to fathom how *I* would end either relationship because to me, if I truly believe something is the right thing, it just is what it is – however, an emotional connection can be a spiritual identity. So, there’s no way I could or would judge someone else in a split-self affair. We tend to be judgmental creatures when it comes to things of such nature, particularly in the United States (I’m also finding that Europeans tend to be much more liberal and understanding where these types of relationships are concerned). I strongly suggest that if you are reading this and you’ve had an “A-HA” moment…do yourself a favour and keep it to yourself. Hey, you can always send me a message and vent to me (you can even do it anonymously); at least SOMEONE in the U.S. understands what you’re going through!

“A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak.” Michael Garrett Marino