INFIDELITY

Stop Making Cheaters The Scapegoats

Pointing fingers doesn’t solve the problem.

When an affair happens, it's so easy to point our fingers at the cheater. And more often than not, it's the middle finger that does the pointing. The cheaters become the scapegoats.

We shame them. We blame them.

But shame and blame are never good motivators to change behavior. And beyond that, when we resort to blaming and shaming, the conversation stops and we never get to the heart of what fueled the cheating in the first place.

Often it goes much deeper than most people realize. When a decent person is having an affair, there’s often a lot more going on than someone simply wanting to get off.

I should preface this by saying I’m not referring to people who are players, serial cheaters, or those who are downright toxic. That’s a different subject for a different post.

Taking the easy path

Many people say having an affair is taking the easy way out. It’s much easier to have one than to do the hard work involved in a marriage.

I would mostly agree with this statement. I know that when I had my affair, I was taking the path of least resistance. My former husband tucked his heart away behind the walls of a well-fortified castle. There came a point in time where I became weary of trying to get him to lower the drawbridge.

And when someone comes along with a wide-open heart and no armor it's hard to resist. I’m not saying what I did was right. I could’ve tried harder to have the difficult conversations we needed to have, but I didn’t. So yes, in many ways I took the easy route.

But when we make the cheater the scapegoat we’re also taking the easy way out. When we point our fingers at the cheater, say it’s all their fault, and fold our arms across our chests, we aren’t acknowledging the hard work of relationship repair — or investigating how the relationship broke in the first place. We assume the cheaters are the problem and they’re the ones that need fixing.

According to Richard Rohr, scapegoating is only a temporary solution to our problem anyway. It makes us feel good, but only for a short time. When we believe that “…this time we have the true culprit, we become more catatonic, habitually ignorant, and culpable because, of course, scapegoating never really eliminates the (problem) in the first place.”

When we make the cheater the scapegoat, it stops us from digging any further to see what else may have contributed to the situation.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should place the blame of the affair on the non-cheating partner. Not at all. Once again, we’d be pointing fingers. What we need is to put our defenses down, stop blaming and shaming, and have an honest conversation.

“Blame is the water in which many dreams and relationships drown.” ~Steve Maraboli

To have an honest conversation about affairs, we need to identify the fuel that sparked them in the first place. I’ve spent some time grappling with what the catalyst was for mine.

For a fire to ignite, certain things must be present. But in my case, the opposite was true. My affair was fueled by what my marriage was missing.

It was missing vulnerability

“Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the hard conversations.” ~ Brené Brown

If anyone knows about the importance of vulnerability in a relationship, it's Brené Brown. She’s studied it extensively. According to her research, being vulnerable isn’t a weakness. Instead, it’s the only way to have a meaningful connection and intimacy with someone.

Being vulnerable was tough for me, though. I was often too subtle when asking for what I needed. I struggled to tell him how I was feeling. I was unsure of how he’d respond when I told him what was in my heart. I didn’t trust that what I’d share would be met with openness and understanding.

My former husband had a hard time with vulnerability, as well. He saw it as a weakness. Showing me his soft underbelly left him feeling too exposed. As a result, his heart stayed protected behind his castle walls.

Without vulnerability, there was no way we could have a meaningful connection or any amount of intimacy.

It was missing validation

“Validation is the most important thing we can give to each other.”~ Oprah

In all her years of conducting interviews, Oprah has said that the one thing everyone has in common is the need for validation. We all want to be seen, heard, and to know we matter.

When an affair takes place, validation is often a missing piece. I know for sure it was for me. I did not feel seen or heard and what mattered to me didn’t matter to him.

But my affair partner did see me. He listened to me. He understood me. And it’s amazing how life-affirming and comforting it was to know I mattered to someone. It was a magnetic feeling and it drew me in. When someone was there to give me this missing piece, resistance was difficult.

It was missing appreciation

“If not shown appreciation, it gets to you.” ~Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

More often than not, what I hear from those who have had affairs is that they didn’t feel appreciated. Try as they might, they could either never do enough or what they did was never acknowledged.

Although I’m a giver by nature, I still like receiving a simple word of thanks when I’ve done something for my partner. It feels good to know my efforts have been noticed and appreciated.

Yet words of thanks were so rarely spoken to me. Over time, feeling unappreciated turned my giving nature into resentment. I felt like so much of what I did naturally was being taken for granted.

It’s difficult to be a bottomless well of giving. Without any form of appreciation to refill my tank, I became depleted.

It was missing sex

“ The ethic of marraige is hedonistic, not monastic.” ~David Brooks

If I’m going to be honest, the lack of sex in my marriage was a big reason for my affair. It wasn’t the only reason, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it played a part. Our inability to be vulnerable contributed to our lack of intimacy, which in turn, led to an absence of affection and sex. I tried with subtle hints and sometimes even direct requests but he was too closed off. Sex just didn’t seem to matter to him.

This was a critical issue because sex is the one thing that makes marriage different from any other type of relationship. For me, skin time is a very basic human need. It’s not a want. It helps me feel connected to my partner.

After 25 years of enduring a famine in the bedroom, I was starving for intimacy. I hungered to feel someone’s skin on mine. And like someone who’s staving for food, I fed my need for touch with the crumbs my affair partner willingly gave me.

I was missing boundaries

“It is necessary, and even vital, to set standards for your life and the people you allow in it.” ~ Mandy Hale

Of all the ingredients that fueled my affair, this one was solely on me. My former husband’s castle walls clearly delineated his limits. Mine, on the other hand, were as wide open as the surrounding prairie.

I didn’t have well-defined boundaries. My bar for what I would and wouldn’t tolerate was low. I had values, but I didn’t always have the courage to adhere to them. I was too focused on trying to people-please.

Boundaries are tied to self-worth, of which I had little. They’re about protecting ourselves and our values. And without them, I let myself be treated in ways that didn’t honor me and act in ways that didn’t reflect my values.

I’ve made mistakes. There are things I could’ve done better. But if I’m made to be the scapegoat for why my affair happened, it completely takes my former husband out of the equation. There were things he could’ve done better too.

When affairs come to light it’s difficult to get beyond the pain. It’s much easier to blame and shame the cheater. If our relationships are worth saving then we’re going to have to stop making cheaters the scapegoats. We need to look at the whole mix and not just one part. We need to talk about what fueled the affair and what must happen to reconnect. We need to get comfortable with uncomfortable conversations.

It won’t be easy.

But as Teddy Roosevelt so rightly said, “Nothing worth having ever comes easy.”

Kasey Sparks, © 2021

Thank you for reading. To quote Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.” If you’d like to join me on the journey, click here. If you’d like to access thousands of writers and their soul-stirring stories on Medium, click here.

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