Infidelity - why do you cheat?

I can tell you why I have cheated, but I can't tell you why others have...

I cheated when I was angry and resentful and/or in need of validation. I felt entitled to cheat when my needs weren't being met, and I felt justified in cheating because my needs were not being met. And by needs, I mean my needs for love and affection and validation and approval. THAT said, I CHOSE a man who I knew was incapable of those things. So, basically, I created a scenario where I was going to be unhappy, and then when i was unhappy, I cheated.

I cheated because of me, not because of him. I cheated because i was too cowardly to deal with the problems in my relationship and too cowardly to leave. That said, I chose very poorly, and he was not at all a victim - we were both bad in our own ways. We were just wrong for each other, and my cheating was a symptom of the things that were wrong with me, not of what was wrong with him, although plenty was wrong with him and with us.

Does that make sense?

GirlInterruptedNow wrote:I can tell you why I have cheated, but I can't tell you why others have...

I cheated when I was angry and resentful and/or in need of validation. I felt entitled to cheat when my needs weren't being met, and I felt justified in cheating because my needs were not being met. And by needs, I mean my needs for love and affection and validation and approval. THAT said, I CHOSE a man who I knew was incapable of those things. So, basically, I created a scenario where I was going to be unhappy, and then when i was unhappy, I cheated.

I cheated because of me, not because of him. I cheated because i was too cowardly to deal with the problems in my relationship and too cowardly to leave. That said, I chose very poorly, and he was not at all a victim - we were both bad in our own ways. We were just wrong for each other, and my cheating was a symptom of the things that were wrong with me, not of what was wrong with him, although plenty was wrong with him and with us.

Does that make sense?

Rather curiously self-aware. Makes perfect sense, however.

It's not even all that uncommon, actually. I suppose once you reach the point where you're thinking of cheating you should probably step back and ask yourself if the person you've chosen is who you want to be with, or if you should find someone who CAN meet your needs. Of course, our needs can be a little extreme... I'm not sure I'll ever find someone who can meet mine and make me feel like I can fly. So I settle with what I can get and don't wander.

Hi MadMage - I am very self-aware. I've done a lot of therapy and a lot of meditating, and I am pretty good now when it comes to not doing a number on other people.

My issues with cheating now are pretty much about being cheated ON. I get cheated on in every relationship I am in, and usually, it turns out that the guy is cheating on someone else by being with me...so it's not like I drive the guy to cheat! I just pick cheaters.

It's funny that i just figured this out when it's been happening to me for years. I only just now discovered that it is up to me to get out when I see a succession of red flags. And I only just now discovered that my own abandonment issues have made it so difficult for me to do so. Now that I have identified the problem, I hope that I can begin to reject sociopathic men instead of glomming onto their shallow charm.

GirlInterruptedNow wrote:Hi MadMage

Hello!

GirlInterruptedNow wrote:My issues with cheating now are pretty much about being cheated ON.

You and me both. ;-;

GirlInterruptedNow wrote:I only just now discovered that it is up to me to get out when I see a succession of red flags. And I only just now discovered that my own abandonment issues have made it so difficult for me to do so.

Very good realization.
One that I am having as well though I go through the same trouble of leaving.

I guess with me, though I get red flags, I NEED concrete evidence...I need that validation to my suspicions.
But I've learned that that's a bad idea, red flags are exactly as is. If something looks weird, it's because it is. Don't count on a pathological liar to tell you the truth no matter what.
I saw a good quote: "Characterize people by their actions and you will never be fooled by their words"

With all this self-awareness...you can choose to make better decisions now.

I do feel hopeful about that. I never really put it together that way. I always felt the need to ask ask ask and get reassured reassured reasuured -"you're imagining things" and I wanted to move on with the relationship like nothing happened. But even if I wanted that, that was not the right thing to want because I became utterly devestated as his mask started slipping more and more and my own commitment to the relationship began to diminish in comparison to my growing hatred and disrespect of him.

Yeah, as a BPD, we do have that advantage: we can learn to HATE really really good. We lose respect for people and we think of them as dead to us. If we commit to it, we can get ourselves out of danger and stay that way. Many times, I have had one of these men come back to me at some point or another - even non-Sociopathic boyfriends who just didn't treat me the way I wanted to be treated - and by the time they came back, I was already so over them that there was no way I could entertain the thought. And that was a good thing, because a relationship that doesn't work once is likely to never work.

Once that "hate" that we start to feel towards someone subtly outweighs our fear of abandonment, we are ready to go full throttle into letting them go. Sure, there have been moments during this most recent breakup where I longed for him to come back to me so that I could reject him. But I also knew that if he came back before I was over him, I would never be able to reject him.

So even though we are great targets for sociopaths, and even though we can keep ourselves in the dark for a long time for the benefit of staying with those sociopaths, eventually, our true nature - volatile and drama-filled as it is - will help us get out.

My hope is that it won't have to come to that again...that i can stop it before it ever gets to that. I will never "know" if I've succeeded, of course, because when a guy gives those "signs" and "red flags", I won't engage with him. So i won't have to disengage either. It will just seem like the whole thing was barely a blip on the radar screen. This is my hope for myself! That relationships with men who are sociopathic or simply not interested in me for organic reasons, will just never happen with the use of good filtering techniques...

GirlInterruptedNow wrote:I can tell you why I have cheated, but I can't tell you why others have...

I cheated when I was angry and resentful and/or in need of validation. I felt entitled to cheat when my needs weren't being met, and I felt justified in cheating because my needs were not being met. And by needs, I mean my needs for love and affection and validation and approval. THAT said, I CHOSE a man who I knew was incapable of those things. So, basically, I created a scenario where I was going to be unhappy, and then when i was unhappy, I cheated.

I cheated because of me, not because of him. I cheated because i was too cowardly to deal with the problems in my relationship and too cowardly to leave. That said, I chose very poorly, and he was not at all a victim - we were both bad in our own ways. We were just wrong for each other, and my cheating was a symptom of the things that were wrong with me, not of what was wrong with him, although plenty was wrong with him and with us.

Does that make sense?

Thank you. This seems to have really endorsed my feelings towards/beneath the "because we can" comment.


I know it upset a bunch of you, but this type of self-deprecating, impulsive behavior is something that a lot of us are accustomed to. These are the behaviors that I am working on.


Don't forget that us Mods are on our own journeys for change and recovery :0). We are BPD's too, and are still entitled to be human <3.


AMP

CBear wrote: "Characterize people by their actions and you will never be fooled by their words"

Hah! I like that one.

One of my problems is determining where suspicious behavior ends and paranoia begins. An example; I get off work a little early one day an go to see my ex at work; when I get there, she's outside having a smoke break (hate... smoking...) with a co-worker, who happens to be a guy. Pang of jealousy; something seems wrong here. What is it? Body language? They weren't sitting close together... she puts out the cigarette, sits in the passenger seat, kisses me and spends the rest of her break with me. The guy gets in his beat up car and turns some music on. *shrug* I won't think into it too much, I'm probably just being insecure.

Month later, she moves out while I'm at work to go stay at his place without saying a word to me. Riiiiiiiight, so something WAS up.

I don't think about whether I'm being cheated on, if people are going to cheat they're going to cheat, I'd rather they are honest about it.

In the past, sure i "cheated" in some "relationships" - and i honestly don't think my partners really gave a $#%^ (much) more than i did, since they were almost certainly also "cheating" on me. Let's say something good was put in front of them and they'd take it just as much as i did.

In most recent relationship I never cheated. 1. I could tell he would have been bothered by it and 2. he has eyes on the back of his head and would know it happened. Add those 2 together = upset bf and ruined relationship.

The reason I'm posting is the other side of things. I've got a feeling he suspected me of cheating even though with the extent he knows what i'm doing, it would be pretty impossible.

@GirlInterruptedNow

You do sound very self-aware, and I like your thought process. You are able to identify things now, perhaps better than you could have before.

But now it comes down to actions, if you know these things, what will you do and will you act upon it.