5 Reasons Why People Cheat
A couple of weeks ago, I shared my thoughts on if “once a cheater, always a cheater” is true, and today I’m continuing the conversation around the reasons why people cheat in a relationship and getting curious around what’s driving these behaviours. For some people this may be a challenging episode to listen to, so please make sure you’re in the right mindset to listen.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Wounds around worthiness
Disconnection and loneliness
Feeling like it’s the easy way out
Being seen through rose coloured glasses
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course -stephanierigg.com
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
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You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here. It's hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking all about infidelity.
0:00:34.49 → 0:01:40.88
Now, this is a big topic and it's a really sensitive topic and for some people it's a really hard topic if you have been in the position of being cheated on or otherwise grappling with some sort of betrayal in your relationship. So I just want to say at the outset that for some people this might be a really challenging episode to listen to and so obviously be discerning and make sure that you are in the right state of mind. If you are someone who does struggle to talk and hear about this and might be challenged by what we're going to talk about today. So I'm going to be sharing five reasons why people might cheat in a relationship. And there are so many disclaimers that I want to add here, because I think that it's so important to understand that when we seek to get curious about why someone might do something like cheating in their relationship, that that curiosity is in no way intended to justify, to explain, to excuse behaviours that are harmful and that do amount to a breach of trust, do amount to a betrayal.
0:01:40.96 → 0:02:44.94
So letting both of those be true, right? Holding in one hand the curiosity while also allowing yourself to feel if you have been cheated on, allowing yourself to feel all of the things that you feel, because that's perfectly understandable and very human for that to be an extremely painful experience. So in no way is any discussion of reasons why someone might do this intended to excuse or explain away that behaviour, to justify it or make it okay. But I think that it's important for us to get curious because the simple fact of the matter is that cheating is really, really common, much more so than we'd like to believe, but it is very, very prevalent. And so I think we have to get curious around what's going on here, what's driving these behaviours and how can we seek to understand that and maybe seek to build relationships with ourselves and with others that don't fall prey to this.
0:02:44.99 → 0:03:38.70
And again, I'm choosing my words very carefully because in no way am I suggesting that if you've been in relationship or you are in relationship with someone where there's been infidelity, not suggesting it is your responsibility to improve the relationship single handedly so that your partner doesn't cheat, right? This is complex. That's why I am treading lightly because there's a lot in this, and particularly if you're someone who is more anxiously attached, there's a good chance that you are experiencing a lot of self blame and a lot of responsibility taking. If this has happened to you feeling like you should have done more or could have done something differently, or that it was your fault in some way if your partner cheated on you and feeling that urge to fix it and to close the gap between you. So that was a bit of a long intro, but it speaks to the delicacy and complexity of this topic.
0:03:38.76 → 0:04:24.99
So please know that I'm going to do my best to deal with this in a sensitive way while also asking the hard questions and delving a little into what can be under the surface. And my hope is that in doing so, we can depersonalise a little. Because as we'll see in today's discussion, none of these five reasons are because their partner is not good enough, or because their partner is not attractive, or their partner is insert whatever harmful thing you might have been telling yourself that makes this your fault. Right? In the vast majority of cases, I would say people cheat because of their own stuff, whether that's unmet needs or disconnection or shame or unworthiness or any of the other things we'll get into today.
0:04:25.14 → 0:05:05.74
I think it's very rare that it's as simple as, oh, I'm just not attracted to my partner, or oh, I just want a cheap thrill and so I'm going to go and have a fling with someone. I think those cases are really the minority. I think oftentimes there's much more complicated stuff going on on an individual level under the surface that drive people to these patterns. It's really very much a sign of our shadow working. So hopefully, even if it is hard to hear, it will help you to see that if you've been cheated on, if you've been in this situation, that a lot of it is not about you and probably mostly all of it is not about you.
0:05:05.79 → 0:05:58.22
So it might, at the very least, alleviate some of that self blame and shame and the low self worth that can flow from these situations. Before I dive into the meat of today's conversation, a couple of quick announcements. If you're listening to this, by the date that this is released, I will be in Italy running my first retreat, which is very, very exciting. Then I will be travelling around Italy for the month of June and I've decided while I'm away I will continue to have podcasts coming out, but I'm going to offer 50% off on all of my Master classes and my Higher Love course, which is my Breakup course. So if you use the code June 50 on my website on any of those three Master classes, or my Higher Love course, you can save 50% on those.
0:05:58.27 → 0:06:30.53
So that is as big a discount as I ever give. So, as a great opportunity over this next month while I am travelling, to get in on some of those programmes at a great price. So you can head to stephaniereg.com or via the link in the show notes and use the code June 50 to save 50% on any of those online products. Second quick announcement is just to share the featured review for today, which is I'm so grateful I found this podcast. As a therapist, it's been really helpful in deepening my understanding about attachment in a gentle and non shaming way.
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The podcast is very relatable and easy to digest. Not only do I personally get so much from the podcast, but I can also recommend it to clients. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for that beautiful review. I'm honoured that you are not only finding it personally helpful, but are able to share it with the people that you're working with.
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That's beautiful to see the ripple effect of this work and to see it helping so many people. So thank you for your support. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com. My team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes of your choice. Okay, let's dive into this conversation.
0:07:06.65 → 0:07:28.67
Five reasons why people might cheat in their relationship. Now, again, I know that I tend to go heavy on the disclaimers, but I think when they're important conversations like this, and heavy and sensitive conversations, it's important to frame them appropriately. This is not an exhaustive list of if you've been cheated on. It must have been one of these five reasons. It's not the only five reasons.
0:07:28.77 → 0:07:42.14
These are five reasons why people might cheat. Okay? So take all of that with all of the grains of salt, be discerning. As always, I will trust you to take what works, what is helpful from this and leave what doesn't. Okay?
0:07:42.27 → 0:08:30.67
The first reason why people cheat in their relationships is unworthiness. So this can show up in a lot of different ways. And I think that most of us have some level of unworthiness, some kind of wound around worthiness. If you listen to my previous episode with Vienna Farron, she talks about the worthiness wound as one of the key origin wounds and how we all have some level of worthiness wound. But for those who really struggle with extremely low self worth, there can be a sense of I don't feel that I am worthy of the relationship that I have, I don't feel deserving of the relationship that I have, I don't have any self respect, I hate myself or I don't like myself.
0:08:30.82 → 0:09:26.21
And so I may as well do this thing that maybe because it feels good, maybe because I get attention, maybe because I get validation, maybe because I just feel so thoroughly undeserving of the person I'm in relationship with. But that unworthiness wound can have a lot of tendrils or tentacles that come from it that can lead us to really behave in shadowy ways. So it can just lead us to kind of want to blow things up for ourselves, or maybe not to see the point in trying in relationships or to just do what feels fun and cheap and easy rather than what feels in integrity. And again, I think that can really come from a lack of self respect and a lack of self trust and self boundaries. All of these things that I think are symptoms of a fundamental sense of unworthiness.
0:09:26.79 → 0:10:13.71
So noticing that and really recognising, that an unworthiness wound. While that's not going to drive everyone to infidelity, it certainly can be a way that we can sabotage our relationships from a place of feeling like we don't deserve them, that we're not worthy of love. And whether that's trying to destroy what we have, or whether it's desperately seeking the cheap win of someone else's attention or validation, I think that unworthiness can definitely be a factor in driving people to infidelity in their relationships. Okay, the next one that I want to share is loneliness or disconnection. So this one's probably more relational than the others.
0:10:13.91 → 0:11:01.37
So in circumstances where we feel disconnected and I think that this probably is more true of more avoidant leaning people, that there can be this sense of I feel disconnected from you, I feel like you don't like me anyway, you're always angry at me, you're always upset with me. And so I feel kind of like you don't care anyway. I feel so far away from you, we're so unhappy I may as well cheat because our relationships kind of in the dust anyway. And so there can be these mental acrobatics that people do of you wouldn't care anyway. Our relationship is practically over.
0:11:01.49 → 0:11:33.27
It's all a sham anyway. We're going to break up. So I might as well just follow this thing. Whether it's again like a cheap one off or whether it's exploring a connection with someone new. I think that sense of the primary relationship being really frayed and disconnected that people can justify infidelity as not so much revenge, but a sense of someone being so indifferent towards them for such a long time.
0:11:33.31 → 0:12:21.99
And the immense loneliness that flows from that and the immense disconnection. And I think that loneliness within a relationship is very, very sad and very, very common, that people feel so much suffering because the person who is meant to be their source of safety and comfort, their rock, their stability, that source of companionship is actually the source of a lot of pain and disappointment and sadness and grief. And I think that the loneliness that flows from that can be so immense that we want to blame that person and we want to justify our own selfish behaviours by pointing to that and saying, well, what would you expect me to do? You haven't paid attention to me in years. Or, you never even care when I do this.
0:12:22.03 → 0:12:57.78
Or why would you care if I go and have an affair? With someone or cheat on you. So I think that that kind of story, that version of events is usually coming from a place of loneliness or disconnection. The next one that I want to share is sabotage. So for some people, and this can be conscious or not, for some people, they want out of the relationship or they feel so overwhelmed by the relationship, maybe they feel very triggered by it, maybe they struggle with avoidance and they can't bring themselves to actually end the relationship.
0:12:57.91 → 0:13:40.51
So they just try and torpedo it with behaviour that they think is going to be a non negotiable deal breaker for their partner. So they might sabotage the relationship by cheating, by doing something really reckless, by making a bad decision. And sometimes they can do this in a way that they feel like they're going to get caught and they almost want to get caught. Again, that might be conscious or not. But when we feel like we don't want to directly say to someone, I'm not happy, or I don't want to be with you, or any other thing that might make them very sad and upset and hurt, sometimes turning ourselves into the villain or into the bad guy feels like the easy way out.
0:13:40.63 → 0:14:28.94
Somewhat ironically, obviously, it's not a situation that we think of as pleasant or easy, but in a twisted way, sometimes making yourself into the villain feels like an easier option than just going to a partner and saying, I don't love you anymore, I'm not happy here, or I want out of this relationship. Sometimes leaning towards a big blow up that sort of takes the decision out of your hands and makes someone just so angry and furious that you've crossed a clear line and there's no turning back. Sometimes that allows us to bypass some of the messy stuff of just being vulnerable about how we're feeling in a situation. So that sabotage. And again, this can show up in a lot of different ways, a lot of different permutations and situations.
0:14:29.00 → 0:15:23.89
But I think that wanting out of the relationship and sabotaging it through infidelity as a way to really tip you over that clear line of a breach of trust that will hopefully remove a lot of the conversation and the negotiation that might otherwise happen. That is a strategy that some people can use and that can be one of the reasons that people might engage in infidelity the next reason why people might cheat. And I think that this is one that's really overlooked a lot of the time, is that they like who they get to be with the other person. So it's not so much about like, oh, this other person is so amazing and they're so attractive and they're so much better than my partner. It's this other person sees me with fresh eyes, this other person thinks I'm incredible, I'm not saddled with the baggage with this new person.
0:15:23.96 → 0:16:32.01
They don't feel frustrated with me, they aren't disappointed in me, they don't see me through the lens of a long term relationship with unmet needs and fights and conflict loops and all of those things that can lead a relationship to feel a bit heavy and exhausting sometimes. So there can be this sense of having a clean slate with another person, or even better than a clean slate, having that newness of when you first meet someone and connect with them. And you have such rose coloured classes. And so not only is it how good it feels to be attracted to someone in that way, but to have someone be attracted to you in that way, to be so excited about you, to think that you're incredible and really put you on a pedestal. If you've felt for a long time like your partner is only critical of you, or your partner doesn't see you in a very positive light or is consistently disappointed, then it can be very, very attractive to gravitate towards someone who does see you in that positive light.
0:16:32.08 → 0:17:49.13
So again, this is certainly not to suggest that it's the person who has been cheated on's, fault for driving someone to cheat on them. I don't think that that's a fair allocation of responsibility. But it can be a relational dynamic if the relationship has become really unloving or it's just not an atmosphere that has a lot of positive emotion and admiration and respect that's freely given and exchanged between partners, that the allure of someone who sees you with clean eyes and even rose coloured glasses can be very, very alluring for people related to that. One is not only do you get to present yourself anew with someone, but you might be able to experiment with new ways of expression that feel a bit vulnerable or edgy with your partner. I had an episode a little while ago with Vanessa and Xander Marin, she's a sex therapist and she was talking about a pattern that happens in virtually all long term relationships without effort to counter it, which is that our range of sexual expression tends to narrow a lot.
0:17:49.22 → 0:18:59.96
So while we might start being a little sexually adventurous with our partner and having a lot of sexual chemistry and intensity, not only does the chemistry and intensity tend to taper a little, which is normal, but what we do sexually or romantically, physically, we tend to get quite into a routine around that. And in a weird way, it feels much more vulnerable to try new things or to experiment, or to put yourself out there with your long term partner with whom you have these routines and these ways of being. It feels much more vulnerable to show those sides of you to express a fantasy or a desire or anything like that. Way more vulnerable to do that with a long term partner than it does to share with someone with whom you're having a one night stand. So I think that that other aspect of liking who you get to be with the other person or experimenting with who you get to be with the other person without the hangover of it being your partner and having to face them the next day and the next day and the next day.
0:19:00.09 → 0:19:46.21
That can be something that drives people to be really attracted to the idea of infidelity. And again, if we dig into that a little we can see that shame and embarrassment and self consciousness is really at the heart of that. So again, not about the partner but really about the individual and all of their shadowy stuff and all of their wounded parts that are using these strategies to keep themselves safe. So the last reason that I want to share is sometimes people will cheat to get their partner's attention. So it might be trying to almost as a last ditch effort to say like I'm here and I need you and why aren't you paying attention to me?
0:19:46.25 → 0:20:42.87
Why aren't you taking seriously all of these things that I'm saying when I say to you that I'm unhappy and that I'm lonely and that I need you and you're not here. It can almost be like raising the stakes or taking things up a notch by cheating. And that might be physical infidelity or it might be an emotional affair, but it can almost be a way of threatening a partner, saying like I have other options so don't take me for granted. So I would say this is probably more likely to be seen among anxiously attached people, this tendency to almost not so much mate switch, which is the evolutionary psychological term for this, but to try and make a partner jealous I suppose is essentially what it is. It's saying like don't get complacent around me.
0:20:42.99 → 0:21:27.57
And when they feel like they're not being taken seriously or being heard or being valued, then they might cheat or take steps towards that as a way to really raise the stakes and get their partner's attention to say, if you don't start taking me seriously, here's what I'm going to do. So you better start listening and paying attention. So that can definitely be a pattern. And as I said, that's more likely to happen around anxiously attached people. And the reason for that is simply that we can contrast a couple of these examples whereas the sabotage limb of this tends to be more for avoidant people, where the strategy is essentially to create distance.
0:21:27.73 → 0:22:17.08
I do this to increase the distance between us because that's what my avoidance strategies would have me do. This more anxious strategy which is cheating or being unfaithful or taking steps towards that to get someone's attention is actually not about creating distance, it's trying to narrow the gap. And again, that sounds crazy, right? It sounds like the opposite of what you would want to do but it's like I'm being unfaithful to try and save our relationship to try and get you to notice me, because I'm terrified that you don't notice me or that you don't care or that you are indifferent to what I do. And so it's ultimately a way to try and close that gap, but obviously not a very healthy or advisable strategy because it can do a lot of harm in the process.
0:22:17.95 → 0:23:07.42
So those were five reasons why people might cheat in a relationship. Just to recap, those were that they have an unworthiness wound and they feel undeserving of their relationship and so their shadow parts kind of grab the wheel and drive them to behave in really reckless ways from a place of not feeling worthy, not feeling deserving of good things. The second one was feeling lonely and disconnected and feeling like infidelity is either a stepping stone to breaking up or feeling like the relationship is dead in the water already. So what does it really matter? It's sort of this sense of despondency and having given up on the relationship and checked out, so it feels like cheating is kind of inconsequential.
0:23:07.53 → 0:24:02.32
The next one was sabotage. So when someone uses cheating as a way to blow up their relationship because they can't bring themselves to actually have the conversation directly and deal with someone's sadness or pleading or anything like that, so they really torpedo it in a way that means it's probably too far gone to salvage. The fourth one was they like who they get to be with the other person that allows them to experience a side of themselves or be seen in a certain way that they're missing in their relationship. And the last one was to make their partner jealous or to get their partner's attention, often as a last ditch way to try and save the relationship or to get their partner to notice them when they're feeling invisible or taken for granted. If you've enjoyed this episode, I hope that it has really been helpful.
0:24:02.38 → 0:25:05.33
And as I said at the start, I know it's a really tough conversation to have and brings up a lot of things for a lot of people, but it really is very common and so I'm hoping that it's at least given you a bit more perspective and curiosity. Again, not to excuse this behaviour, but to understand what might be driving it and what's going on under the hood that isn't simply, I'm not good enough, or they didn't love me, because often that is not at all the driver. And if you're listening to this, and you've been the person who has cheated, who's been unfaithful, who's breached a boundary, and you feel a lot of shame and guilt around that, I'm hoping that today's discussion, equally, has been supportive for you in understanding what some of the drivers might be, other than I'm a terrible person. Because I think we can beat ourselves up about this, when really, as I said, it's incredibly common, and most of the time it's just coming from a wounded place rather than being a cold, heartless person who is out to hurt people. Because I think that is a tiny minority of cases.
0:25:05.43 → 0:25:34.61
And the more that we can be compassionate towards ourselves, the more likely we are to be able to shift that pattern and make sure it doesn't happen in future relationships, rather than letting those shadow parts run the show. So if you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a five star rating or a review. It really does help so much. And a final reminder that you can get 50% off any of my Master classes on my course for the month of June on my website with the code June 50. All one word.
0:25:34.73 → 0:25:57.08
Thanks guys. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephaniergig.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating.
0:25:57.14 → 0:26:01.42
It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.