"Do you believe once a cheater always a cheater?" A girlfriend whispered the question to me the other day while we sat idly waiting for a bride and groom to walk down the aisle at a wedding reception. The couple, who were about to say their "I dos", are so sickly in love it's enough to make one want to gag - especially someone fresh from a break-up like my friend. Now she was wondering whether or not she should even entertain the idea of dating a man who had cheated on his last girlfriend. Personally, I wasn't so sure. If someone can do it once, will they do it again? Or was the whole cheating escapade just a symptom of a bad relationship? And if so, will a good relationship prevent him from giving into temptation the next time around?
Professor of Psychology John Buri writes in Psychology Today magazine that it all depends on the type of affair taking place. He reckons there are four types of affairs, all with different reasons and consequences ...
"It's just sex"
For men, this type of affair is all about sex and ego. For women, it's all about power. Either way, for either gender, the same cliched excuse is used: "But it was just sex!" While the excuse might be a little more appropriate for the men (considering men have a better ability to separate sex from love), Buri calls female philanders "spider women" and warns all men to stay far, far away from their dangerous webs. "Recall what female spiders do with their mates once they are done with them," he warns men. Enough said ...
The mistress infidelity
Mistresses abound, from the news to the neighbours, with reasons stretching from not getting enough sex in their current relationship to feeling undervalued, not appreciated, resentful, addicted to sex or simply being bored. Most interesting to me is the example of a man who recently told me he was a male mistress to a married woman. While he knew she was deeply in love with her husband, she still craved some excitement and he was able to give it to her.
As for who is to blame, he said this: "I just flirt with everyone. And when I flirted with her, she did the only thing women need to do: she said 'yes'."
Accidental affairs
You know the deal: you're out with friends or you're away on holiday, you have too much sangria and suddenly you're rolling around in a bungalow with your pants around your ankles doing the dirty with someone other than your partner.
"It just happened!" you might protest. "But I don't have any feelings for them whatsoever!" Right. So is it still wrong? And why does it happen? Buri claims that these sorts of affairs can happen whether you're in a good relationship or a bad - it's about how much the other person is willing to overlook. Unfortunately once accidental sex occurs, it's pretty difficult to ever trust your partner being out of your sight again.
Falling in love with someone else
While both men and women can be prone to falling in love with someone else while they're married, it's been found to be a far more common issue for women. She meets someone else, he gives her more attention, affection, sex and security than her current partner; her ego is fed oodles of confidence and she ends up falling in love (or lust) with the dude who may or may not be doing it all for the right reasons. But she still fears ending her current relationship (whether because she has kids with him, a mortgage together - whatever) so she engages in two relationship side-by-side for as long as she can stand it. And in the end, everyone gets hurt.
What causes an affair?
All this leads me to my next question: do bad marriages cause an affair? Or do affairs cause bad marriages?
Rielle Hunter, the mistress of former US senator John Edwards and mother of his love child, believes that it's not the affair itself that shakes up a marriage, but a bad marriage that causes the affair.
"It is not my experience that a third party wrecks a home," she told Oprah Winfrey during a recent tell-all interview. "I believe the problems exist before a third party comes into the picture."
In one fell swoop, Hunter managed to wash her hands of her place in the affair and simply put it down to the fact that his marriage wasn't working so he was entitled to it all. She disregarded the fact that she stuck her claws into the heart of a married man. Cue the spider metaphor.
Now that Hunter believes she and "Johnny" (as she likes to call him) are so in love, does that mean he won't cheat on her with someone else? Is once a cheater, always a cheater?
Only time will tell...
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