Cheating is a very complicated topic. We probably know someone who has cheated or perhaps you’ve been cheated on yourself. If you’ve experienced the latter, you know how painful that experience can be – it feels like the ultimate betrayal and an indication that your partner doesn’t love you.
But, that’s not always the case. Although cheating is always the wrong thing to do in a relationship, one expert has explained how it’s more complicated than it’s made out to be.
TikTok user and relationship expert @askkimberely responded to a comment which stated that you can’t love and cheat – and although you might find it hard to believe, the pro argued that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
In her experience as a therapist, she’s found that cheaters actually loved their partners.
The relationship expert explains that “cheating isn’t one of those things where you do it for a time on people that you don’t love and all of a sudden you meet the love of your life and you’re totally transformed and you never cheat again.”
According to Kimberly, cheating usually highlights a weakness in your character.
“It’s usually the inability to have a completely difficult conversation or you have such an inflated sense of ego that you think you can do or say what you want and doesn’t matter who you hurt along the way,” she adds.
She goes on to say that cheaters can change but only if they do the inner work to understand why they cheated.
But what prompts people to cheat? Couples therapist Laura Colquhoun previously told HuffPost that it’s a difficult question because we all have different motivations.
“One of the main issues when we are on the receiving end of infidelity is that we believe it is about ‘us’, what have ‘we’ done wrong or not done right, how are ‘we’ lacking and what does the other person have that ‘we’ do not?” Colquhoun says.
Cheating is often more about the person cheating than it does about the person being cheated on, she says.
“So why might someone cheat? Well, it could be a need for variety, commitment issues, anger, self-esteem, lack of love, sex addiction, or a need for validation,” she says – you can never really know why someone cheats on you, but it’s up to you to decide if you want to end the relationship.
“If you are able to both be honest with each other then if you are able to move on from the infidelity it is possible to recover from an affair and for lots of couples it can be the wake- up call to fix the things that need to change in the relationship,” Colquhoun adds.