How Knowledge Can Help You in Coping with Infidelity

Coping with infidelity means that you have to deal with your personal beliefs and ideas about infidelity and cheating. What exactly is it that you know about extramarital affairs?

Coping with infidelity does not begin when you’ve made a decision to either stay in the marriage or get a divorce. It starts the moment you find out about it. This discovery is, of course, devastating and painful. But there are a lot of myths and false notions about infidelity that make it even worse than it actually is.

The most common belief that people have in general is that the reason people cheat is because they “fell out of love” with their husband or wife and “fell in love” with another person. A lot of people see love as this kind of force that none of us has control over, and if someone loses his or her love for another, then there’s nothing we can do about it. And this is the most painful of all. This is what causes depression in most people, and the reason that makes coping with infidelity hard to do, because who would want to find out that they are no longer loved?

Another belief about extramarital affairs is that the only reason why someone would cheat is because the marriage was terrible. Although this may be true in some cases, like in abusive relationships of any kind, what it actually is in most situations is that the cheater is not satisfied sexually.

This implies one of two things regarding the victim of infidelity: that he or she is not capable of satisfying his or her partner’s needs, and that it was his or her fault that the extramarital affair happened because of this. This adds even more to the person’s depression over the affair, especially so when the affair is not purely sexual in nature. When your partner develops a deeper relationship with the other person and begins to confide in him or her, the betrayal cuts even deeper and the pain gets much worse. How will coping with infidelity be possible then?

There is also the idea of the seven year itch, which is what a lot of people blame infidelity for. Although there is no real basis for this, there are still those who accept it as a legitimate excuse for their partner’s infidelity. Because maybe accepting this reason will make coping with infidelity easier for them.

And then there is the belief of incompatibility. The cheating spouse suddenly makes the realization that he or she is not compatible with his or her partner when he or she meets the other person. They get along well, they like the same things and don’t like the same things. And this leads your partner to believe that they are compatible, that they are “soul mates.”

All these ideas of why infidelity happens are not necessarily true and are definitely not applicable for everyone, but it is still what most people believe to be true. And this is what makes coping with infidelity more difficult that it really should be.

Do not be caught up in all these misconceptions about extramarital affairs. The best way of coping with infidelity is to know about it. Learning the truth about infidelity will not only give you power but it will help you focus on what is important.

Here are three things that you need to know about infidelity:

1. There are different types of affairs. Each of which is different from the other when it comes to its purpose for the cheating spouse.

2. The motive for cheating is also different and only the cheating spouse understands it completely.

3. These motives do not depend on the situation of your marriage. They do not have anything to do with you either. These motives lie on the cheating spouse and no one else.

Once you understand these things and you discover what patterns or experiences in the past have lead your partner to cheating, only then will you be fully able to try coping with infidelity and be successful at doing so.