Are People Who Cheat "Abusers?"

Yeah, we need to revisit this topic. Again.

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

There’s quite the fashion these days, of pointing out many common tactics cheaters often use once they realize a.) they’re having an affair, and b.) they don’t want their wife (or husband, in the case of a woman) to find out. And then likening them and comparing them to tactics of men who commit domestic abuse.

And then connecting some mighty fuzzy dots so that we may declare that, because the cheater does things such as gaslighting the suspicious spouse and then blaming the devastated spouse once they’ve confirmed the affair, and domestic abusers also perform some of these same behaviors …

Lo and behold! All people who cheat are Abusers!!!

I have spent five years advocating for a little common sense on this topic, and, yep. I am continuing to do just that.

People, really. Let’s admit the facts:

There’s a very far cry from most cheaters attempting to hide an affair and this:

And also this …

Unless maybe somebody’s an extreme narcissist or a borderline or something similar such as someone with psychopathic tendencies, or a flat-out wife beater who also has affairs. Those are the kinds of people doing the stalking and harassment kinds of behaviors and that is not your average person who is having an affair and trying to hide it from his/her wife/husband.

Can we please agree there is a W-O-R-L-D of difference between some poor slob from a difficult home life who doesn’t know how to address tension in his marriage, and has an affair instead of counseling or divorcing, and what is depicted in the above figures?

Because those figures are what most people think of when they call someone “an abuser.”

Look, a couple of friends of mine were actual victims of domestic abuse. One of them was almost choked to death and lost her only pregnancy during that attack.

Her family got her out before he killed her.

I’m pretty sure she would not have equated finding out he was sleeping with someone else to that.

When we use overlapping language, we run the risk of throwing everyone who’s ever had an affair in with everyone who’s almost choked their wife to death. When the two are many, many orders of magnitude apart in pathology and prognosis.

I mean, come on, now, people with psychology degrees. AmIright???

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know, I know. The betrayed suffers terribly. She questions her entire marriage. She questions whether she can ever trust herself and anyone else ever, ever, ever again. It destroys her memories of what she thought her marriage was when she later discovers he was sleeping with someone else at those times. She (or he) feels as if the spouse cheated not only on her, but on any children they have as well.

I’m not taking anything away from that.

But my friend who was almost choked to death relived the physical memory of almost dying for the rest of her life.

She never had another normal relationship. She never married and had kids.

She died of cancer a few weeks ago, and one of the last things she ever wrote me was that she didn’t want to die with that having been her only significant relationship in this life. But, because of that and all her other trauma, it was.

Betrayed wives whose husbands aren’t actually violent, I get that you are in a lot of pain, but it’s several orders of magnitude away from regular beatings, and almost dying.

Your husband just lost his way. Most of these guys recognize their error, come back to the family, and are much better people afterward.

I don’t think you can say that at ALL of the average guy who is actually hitting his wife.

When we do this, we are comparing apples and oranges and telling everyone they’re the same thing, and it’s not so. It’s not.

So do we need to equate, in the mind of the lay person, the guy who has an affair — who can be brought into counseling and do much, much, much, much better (and generally really does want to once he’s had the experience of sneaking around long enough with an unhappy mistress) — and the guy who’s so goddamned violent he will literally kill you?

Do we really need to demonize cheaters by telling them and society at large that they are actually as bad as someone who would beat their wife literally to death?

I do not believe we do.

I’ve spent over five years advocating for better language, better terminology, and better delineation than that, and nobody’s abuse piece has convinced me yet that I am wrong to do so.

I mean, gee. Let’s tell every guy who’s not known how to address tension in his marriage, and dealt with it by having an affair, that he’s as much as choked his wife to death.

Let’s tell his wife the same thing and the whole family while we’re at it. Let’s broadcast that message to all of society while we’re at it.

How is that going to help?

I love this series of videos by the late, great marriage therapist Mark Smith. He has a lot of compassion for the betrayed, yes … but he also has some useful thoughts about victim mentality, why and how we choose a spouse who will eventually cheat on us, why infidelity happens, and how it shows us where we need to heal in our lives.

Please go and have a look.