I'm cheating on my husband and loving it. Is that a problem?

I've been a cheater since my very first boyfriend and no one has ever found out.

Published October 9, 2007 10:54AM (EDT)

Dear Readers,

A quick note on last week's Christian daughter column.

I was surprised by the vehemence with which atheists took exception to what I thought was fairly logical advice. I advised the father to go to church with his daughter not because I think his beliefs should change, or because I have a concealed wish for his conversion or a bias toward religion born of my addiction recovery or my personal beliefs. It is because I believe that in social and ideological struggles, as in the hard sciences, direct observation and firsthand experience are the best route to detailed, nuanced knowledge and understanding.

If something is affecting a relationship with somebody you care deeply about, then go get some firsthand experience of it -- you and that person together. Find out what that person is getting out of it. That's pretty much my whole deal right there. There was rampant speculation on my part and, OK, a bogus football metaphor, but really, my whole deal is: Go where your daughter is going and spend time with her there in order to know what she is getting out of this thing, and how it is affecting her, and if she is in danger or if she is OK.

Atheists, I just have to say: I got no problem with you. Maybe you got a problem with me, but I got no problem with you. I got no problem with church people either. Spiritually, I'm Switzerland.

Now to today's column.

Cary,

I am a cheater. I've never had a boyfriend or husband that I didn't cheat on. When I was younger, it would just be making out behind a boyfriend's back; as I got older, I would sleep with men that were not my husband. I am also a "lapper," in that I tend to start a new relationship while still in the previous one.

I've been with my current husband for almost seven years and married for two. We started dating while I was with my first husband. I would imagine he could infer from how our relationship began that I am not the most faithful of types, but I don't believe he suspects anything. And for the first five or six years of our relationship I was faithful.

Then last year, I slipped back into my old ways. No particular reason why -- I love my husband and am still very happy with him -- but an opportunity arose to sleep with an old friend, and I didn't want to pass it up. That seemed to give me a free pass to fool around with other men -- another old friend (just out of curiosity), random men in bars (for fun), a client (terribly unethical, but that makes it even more exciting).

The strange thing is that I really don't feel any guilt. And I don't want to leave my husband. I've never been caught and I don't think I ever will be. I really haven't had any fallout from these illicit acts -- it hasn't affected my work or my personal life. Part of me thinks I do it because I always act so responsible and upstanding in all other parts of my life -- that I need some sort of release. I suspect I may stop if we have kids (we're in our mid-30s), but I don't really see a reason to. Is there something wrong with me?

Cheater

Dear Cheater,

You have three choices. You can split up with your husband so that you are free to engage in these activities without causing great emotional harm to others; you can confront your husband about this behavior and tell him that you've been in the grip of something seriously injurious to him and you're scared and you want to make it right and stay together; or you can secretly begin working with someone qualified to help you understand and change your behavior and figure out, as you go along, how to disentangle yourself from this behavior and do the least amount of damage possible, with the likelihood of eventual disclosure.

Whichever option you choose, you must understand this: The current situation is untenable. You're just playing the odds right now, and you have been lucky. Luck is not a workable plan.

So the choice is yours. Not knowing you in particular, or your husband, and having no overarching moral belief about monogamy, I can't say which choice is best. You are a free being. I do believe, though, from an ethical standpoint, that if you want to continue as you are, you have to become unmarried.

On the other hand, if you want to change your behavior, then you either have to tell your husband what has been going on now, or you have to enter into a course of therapy or deliberation or counseling of some sort.

Those are the choices, my friend. They are fairly stark. They are not great. About all they have to recommend them is that they are preferable to maintaining the present course.

I am not even remotely qualified to diagnose people psychologically. But I will say that it crossed my mind that you might be one of the estimated 4 percent of Americans who are sociopaths. But a quick read of an interview with author Martha Stout, who wrote "The Sociopath Next Door" and who popularized that statistic, led me to believe that, because you have recognized that you have a problem, you are probably not a true sociopath.

Here are the relevant passages from Sara Eckel's 2005 Salon interview with Stout:

"What makes you decide that a person is or isn't a sociopath?" Eckel asks.

"Conceptually, for the purposes of the book," says Stout, "I'm talking about people who have exhibited symptoms such as extreme chronic deceitfulness, lack of remorse, lack of personal responsibility, and a general desire to control people and make them jump."

Deceit, Stout says, is the central behavior of sociopathy: "More scientifically, the best I can offer is the rule of three. If someone lies to you once or twice, it could be a misunderstanding. If someone lies to you three times, then chances are you're dealing with a liar. And deceit is the central behavior of sociopathy."

Based on that, my thought was, wow, maybe you are a sociopath! But read on:

"What I have found," Stout says, "and what breaks my heart, is that I'm hearing from good people who are afraid that they are sociopaths. They are feeling disconnected from people for a variety of reasons and are questioning their own dark sides. But if you're questioning your attachments to others and questioning your dark side, you don't have very much of one. That is not a concern that a sociopath would have."

So, my friend, according to this expert, if you are writing to me, you are probably not a sociopath.

"Do you ever see sociopaths in therapy?" asks Eckel.

"Not unless the court refers them," Stout says. "They feel just fine about themselves."

They feel just fine about themselves! Actually, it sounds like you feel pretty darned good about yourself, considering. But you had the wisdom to compare your behavior with that of others and ask if anything is wrong. So perhaps you are simply a person who has a functioning conscience but is caught up in a habitual behavior from which you simply have not yet had any educational consequences, such as losing a husband or a job, or being ostracized, or feeling in deep emotional pain.

As I say, I'm not qualified to say. I do think, however, that if consequences happen, and you are not a sociopath, you are going to feel it acutely, and it is not going to be pretty. And you are going to hurt a lot of people.

So best to take steps now.


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