Why People Cheat

On the heels of yet another politician cheating, Dr. Steven Treat examines why people cheat. Though this has been hashed out a million times both here and everywhere else, Dr. Treat breaks it down in some ways that really hit home for me on the backside of my own breakup over cheating.

First, he says, people cheat because of some deficeit they’re feeling. They don’t feel good about themselves and someone comes along and tells them something that makes them feel good. They don’t feel smart and someone tells them how smart they are. And then for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or a weekend. It’s usually not a spouse or partner because you’re caught up in everyday life with them.

And they do it despite the incredible cost. Cheating can cost a marriage or relationship, your career–everything you’ve spent your whole life building. They lose the consequences of what happens. Dr. Treat says you get caught trying to get immediate satisfaction by filling up the deficeit.

While Dr. Treat says that people of power or money or wealth may be more suceptible, I think I disagree. Back in the day, when I cheated in my marriage, I too risked everything. I risked my marriage, my career, and my life. And I lost it all.

If you’re in a relationship and are feeling that you aren’t getting what you need, if you are feeling a deficeit, the first thing you need to do is be emotionally honest with yourself and with your partner. Go to your partner and tell them you aren’t getting what you need. People are traditionally very bad at asking for what they need. When they don’t put their needs out there, they assume they’re not going to be met and it starts a whole cycle. Needs don’t get met, mostly because they don’t tell their partner what those needs are.

Almost as an afterthought, Dr. Treat says that in a real relationship you have to deal with everyday stuff, you have to deal with life. Those are the real intimacies dealing with life over a long period of time. I think that this is what trips us up so often. We expect fireworks and romance and the magic we felt at the beginning to always be there. When they fade, as they always do and we’re left with life, we fight to find it elsewhere instead of building that real intimacy.

Thoughts?

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Posted by lisaq on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 and is filed under Featured, Latest Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Why People Cheat”

searchingwithin July 3rd, 2009, 10:21 am

I don’t believe that the deficeit always has to do with what their spouse is not supplying them. We all wear masks concealing our doubts and insecurities from the World, some of which we are not even consciously aware of, not to mention the fantasies that we all secretly have. Throughout it all we fight daily to keep everything on track, when what we really are wanting to do is let down our guard, and be able to live and have the good life that others appear to have, especially every time we turn on the TV, or open a magazine. Then along come someone that appears will take us away from it all, at least momentarily, and the desire all of a sudden outweighs the costs.

Either way, cheating is a behavior that only the very needy display, that I myself was guilty of at one point in my life, which I will eventually write about on my blog, and yes I was very needy at the time. I experienced personally what type of person fall prey to its lure, and I don’t like or respect what I saw, therefore, one of the reason I am soo very critical of cheating. That coupled with the fact I have also been on the receiving end of the deception. Neither place is a pretty place to be, and either place, is not an easy place to get over. Betrayal is ugly, no matter where you fall into the equation.

Best Wishes

searchingwithin´s last blog post..I Am Not Tempted By Anything But Temptation