There Is No Such Thing As Accidental Cheating

We're always trying to justify why cheating happens. We're obsessed with it.

Sometimes I've found myself obsessing it over. Analysing why my first boyfriend did it to me, even though he said he loved me and wanted to marry me. Yeah, at sixteen, too. What a guy.

I've also spent time wondering why I cheated on my boyfriend when I was nineteen, for a guy who was terrible for me. But I couldn't pull myself away from him.

It's always about the why. Then someone comes along and tells you there is no 'why' in cheating. It was just a big, fat (and usually drunken) accident.

There was no foresight, no planning and zero reasons for it. It just happened.

Yeah, I call bull shit. Here's why.

The opportunity problem

Some cheaters will claim their cheating wasn't intentional. Instead, the opportunity happened to present itself.

• A hot girl came up to them in a bar.
• A co-worker kissed them at the office Christmas party.
• She found herself alone with him in a restaurant.
• It was all opportunity converted into cheating.

This "opportunity" sounds spontaneous. But it isn't. 

Opportunities are literally everywhere. 

There will always be a co-worker who flirts with you. There will always be a hot person at a bar. If you want to look for it, you can find it everywhere.

Self-control, huh?

You know when you walk into the supermarket to buy salad and you end up with chocolate? You've broken your promise to yourself; you had no self-control and bought what you shouldn't have.

The supermarket is a prime example of opportunity versus action. There is a temptation to eat unhealthily everywhere but you choose not to. You remember what you care about more and let that care guide your action.

In short, you have to want to act upon the cheating opportunity when it appears. That want is why it's no accident.

The cheater wants to be there. Deep inside, they want to keep themselves there and not walk away from the opportunity. Put it his way; they bought up the whole candy store.

The problem with self-control

People are going to make you think they have self-control, but not when it's an accident. Accidents are events you can't control, right?

Cheating is an event and action completely within our control. But cheaters choose not to do so.

By the way, we are idiots for believing them. We know opportunities for cheating are everywhere. As if you haven't found yourself in a situation where you could cheat if you wanted to. 

Yet, you've exercised your self-control because you don't want to hurt someone else.

What about the last-minute moments?

And some cheaters will claim the decision to cheat on you came at the last minute. 

Split decision. A flip of a coin type of decision. Because it was so last minute, it had to be an accident.

Here's how a cheater justifies it. Whilst the person didn't leave home that day looking to cheat, the intention to cheat only came to them when the idea literally fell into their lap.

Hidden deep down is no accident

Just because they weren't hunting to cheat when it happened doesn't mean they didn't want to cheat somewhere deep down inside. 

They could have been waiting for the right moment. The right person. The right time when they assume they could get away with it.

Calling it an accident? Liars.

But it's so easy to paint cheating in this light that the cheater will use this excuse to cover themselves. Especially when it does not look so unintentional.

Looking for an admission of guilt? Good luck.

Saying you cheated is admitting to a relationship crime. You wait for your partner to play judge, jury and executioner on your actions. And your life. No one wants to go in front of an angry and hurt judge either. It never ends well.

So your cheater pleads not guilty. 

They claim someone else, another factor, an opportunity is to blame. Had it been an average, ordinary day, they wouldn't have cheated.

Here's the bleak reality. Every day is an average, ordinary day. 

Even when you've had a fight. Even when you hate each other. Even when you haven't seen each other for two weeks. There's no excuse to blame someone or something else for cheating.

It wasn't an accident. It happened. 

And the cheater needs to own it.