The Illogical And Ridiculous Reasons Cheaters Stay With Their Partner

When someone cheats, everyone assumes it's because they're unhappy with their relationship. There's something wrong with it, a fundamental flaw, and the cheater has to find someone else to make them happy.

Well, that's a big assumption.

And it's an unfounded assumption too. Because if that were true, if the cheater was using their infidelity to get something they aren't already getting from their relationship, they would end up leaving.

They find something that makes them happy so they go, right?

If not when the cheating happens, with some grand wake-up call, but eventually.

Yet, some cheaters never leave. They end up staying in the relationship that they keep betraying. Forever. 

They have no intentions of leaving, either. Even when forced with an ultimatum over their love life, they pick the relationship they're committed to. 

Despite the fact that everything they did suggests a lack of commitment in the first place.

It doesn't make sense to most, especially those who haven't cheated. Or for those who've cheated and left the relationship straight away out of guilt and sorrow for their actions.

So why do cheaters stay in the relationship they've destroyed? Or keep lying to their partner forever?

From the confessions of a reformed cheater, I'm here to tell you why.

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By the way, I didn't always stay in the relationship after I cheated. 

I'm married now to a man I couldn't even imagine being unfaithful to, nor have I ever been. With that knowledge, I obviously ended up leaving eventually. 

Yet, I stress the word eventually. 

It wasn't like it was a week later and I was out. In some relationships, it took years before I could walk away.

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Believe it or not, they love their partner

Cheaters don't cheat because they don't love their partners. Or they have fallen out of love with them. Sure, we could reason they don't love them enough not to cheat. 

But it doesn't mean the affection and emotional connection aren't there. That rationale is too black and white to make.

And often cheaters stay because they enjoy the life they have with their partners. They love doing all those things couples do, that you don't do in an affair. 

They love:

• Building a house and home together
• Going shopping together and making joint decisions on things like furniture, homewares, what to eat for dinner
• Having someone to come home to that knows them
• Having someone to be there when they're sick
• Having a best friend to grow old with

They can't do these things with someone they're cheating with. 

It's not possible to have this connection with someone you met in a bar and slept with one drunken night. 

And even long-term affairs lack this type of behaviour. The person you do all your normal, everyday life with can't be someone you hide away from the world. 

It's logistically impossible.

Kids and money and family and…

Relationships become more complicated the older you get, the more committed you become and the more money there is on the table. 

As much as it should be a simple decision, to walk away from the relationship at any given moment, it's not.

It's unromantic to say, but as a relationship turns into a family, you don't always want to leave that. 

Sure, you've broken the relationship agreement with your partner, but there is a bigger picture. 

• What about being a parent? 
• What about a financial provider to the family? 
• What about being emotional support to the people who need it? 
• What about the plans and goals you have as a unit?

For some cheaters, walking away from that isn't what they want to do. 

They don't believe they should have to sacrifice having their current situation over an indiscretion. Or many. They think they can have both. 

And they do.

Way to ruin the relationship 

I would say their cheating has ruined the relationship. Yet, cheaters who stay in relationships don't always share my logic.

For the ones who stay, what they did hasn't ruined the relationship until they tell their partner about it. And when they decide to leave.

If it remains a secret, then it can't harm the relationship. They can live without spilling the beans. 

And they know the secret won't get back to their partner, so why make it more complicated?

Cheating does make everything more complicated, I can't argue there.

 But to deliberately keep the secret to avoid confrontation, fights and a partner leaving them, that's cowardly. 

Though I understand their logic to stay; no one likes being the bearer of bad news. Or having to admit they've stuffed up.

But because you can justify bad behaviour doesn't mean you should.

Avoiding another relationship 

I don't want to admit this happened to me. But a guy I was with avoided telling me he left his partner because then he would "have to" date the woman he had an affair with. 

Ok, it was a little more complicated than that. 

I was having an affair with a man who was also having an affair. This wasn't my finest moment. I was young, dumb, unhappy and content with destroying everyone's life. As I mentioned earlier, that stage of my life is well behind me.

But this man and I had a bond that was strangely unbreakable. Despite the fact we both refused to leave our partners, we also couldn't leave each other. We were weirdly connected and had our timing been better, we could have made something from our union.

And suddenly, like that, the timing was right. He broke up with his girlfriend. But do you think he told me? No. 

Because that would mean he would have to face the reality that he might have an opportunity with me.

That's when the ball dropped. He didn't trust me. He loved me as a mistress but not as a girlfriend with commitment, honesty and all that.

I couldn't blame him, though it sucked to learn at the time. But how could I blame him? 

If had known he was available, I would have thought about a relationship with him.

It's not a good reason to stay with someone by the way. 

Avoiding another relationship by staying in your current one isn't wise either. It shouldn't be about working out which path is less painful.

Yet, that's what cheaters do.

They get everything. Literally.

This is when cheaters are the most selfish people in the world. They are literally having their cake and eating it too. 

Within the relationship, they have the life they want. If they became single, if they hit the market, what they enjoyed would evaporate.

Being single isn't the same thing as cheating, by the way. 

Some people assume that's why cheaters do what they do. It's because they have this innate desire to be free and sleep with whoever they want.

Again, it isn't that simple. And whilst the reasons for cheating are so varied, if someone wanted to be single, they would be. They wouldn't need to cheat. They would go out and be single.

Cheaters do what they want to do, as you might have gathered. They wouldn't stick around if the thrill of cheating wasn't so high.

Do I think cheaters should leave their relationships?

In short, yes I do. 

Or at least tell the partner when it happens and let the pair of you decide what happens next. 

It's not fair to keep a relationship going with that secret between you and your partner. You're meant to act and live as a team, and cheating violates all that teamwork.

And if a partner doesn't want a cheater as a partner, they shouldn't have to live with them. 

But when the cheater stays around, they remove that choice from them. It's probably worse than the lying itself. It's this power, control position that means one half has all the say, and the other doesn't.

I believe cheaters should always do the right thing by their partner and their relationship. 

They cheated though, which isn't anything like doing the right thing. 

They have no perception of what's right and wrong. Because if they did they wouldn't have cheated in the first place.

If a cheater can't stop themselves from cheating, it's a stretch to ask them to do the right thing. 

And that's the only logic I have in this situation, I'm afraid to say.

Whilst on the subject of cheating, I know you're going to find the following articles seriously helpful: