Are You the Cheater?

    While a recent study shows therapists of both genders often tell clients they should confess affairs to their spouses, many who have been on the receiving end of infidelity — the cuckolded spouse, as it were — may come to the conclusion that they would rather never have known.
 
“Telling the spouse can be more damaging than keeping it in”, says Dr. Tracy Latz, author of "SHIFT: 12 Keys to Shift Your Life" as well as a member of the Department of Psychiatry faculty at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center  who has counseled many patients in all stages of affairs. “People often see themselves as victims when they go out to cheat. They feel they are not getting enough attention, that no one cares about them.”  

For the one who has been wronged, a cheating revelation can be devastating to the psyche, Dr. Latz says. “The initial response is almost always intense anger and an incredible sense of abandonment,” says Dr. Latz.   

If the couple splits, especially quickly, they bring that anguish into the next relationship and sometimes, if they have not worked on the issues, patterns repeat themselves. “They will carry with them an attitude that says, ‘I am less than,’” she explains. “They start to believe that all people cheat, they will always be abandoned may unwittingly reflect that scenario and recreate it.”  

Those who believe all people eventually cheat are only half right. According to a few recent studies, somewhere close to half of all married people will be unfaithful at some point during the course of their married relationships. For men, that number is slightly higher, anywhere from 50 to 60 percent. Of those who will admit to cheating in a survey, it is unclear how many of their spouses know or how many marriages ended because of it. 

But one thing is clear: cheating is rarely the problem itself, Dr. Latz says. Rather, it is a symptom. “There is never just one person to blame,” Latz said.  

Once thought of as a deal breaker, an affair does not always have to be, says Dr. Latz. “Often, I have a patient tell me how guilty they feel about cheating,” she says. Of the many patients Dr. Latz has seen over the years for infidelity, roughly one-third of the relationships have just ended. Another third have tried to work to improve the relationship. And one-third have managed to stay together. “They use the whole situation to grow,” she says.  

For the third scenario, Latz says it is often better for the cuckolded spouse to know as little as possible about the affair. For many couples who do split up, the cuckolded spouse brings a host of issues into a new relationship. It may be better for them never to even know. Still, Latz says, “It is very different if the spouse already knows or will find out.”   

After years of counseling patients around these topics, Latz had to put some of this advice into action for herself over the past couple years in going through her own divorce.  For her, finding out that her husband had been having an affair did mean the end of the marriage. But it was not the only problem, she says. “The infidelity was a sign and symptom,” she says. “There is always some other issue below the surface.”  

In Latz’s case, it was the stress of raising three children, two thriving careers and romance that seemed to get lost in the shuffle. “It is so easy to disconnect when you are exhausted,” she says. “It was not my top priority to pay attention to him.”  

For Dr. Latz, it was important to follow the advice she gives to patients, not to make knee-jerk responses and to try to learn and grow and even assign herself some of the blame to avoid taking on a victim mentality. ”I developed an awareness of how I contributed and how he contributed,” she says.