Generational Infidelity

Discovering that you have a wayward spouse is bad enough. Your pain is even more intense when you discover that your spouse’s cheating is a family tradition going back several generations. (A recent study of Finnish twins found that generational factors account a large percentage of cheating behavior.)

When there is a family tradition of cheating, you are dealing with family dysfunction, not just an immoral spouse or a spouse with impulse control issues. With generational infidelity, you often have generations that turn a ‘blind eye’ to cheating behavior. So there is not just the cheating behavior, there is the family tradition of supporting it either directly or indirectly.

Take a look at the many members of the Kennedy family of Massachusetts. There were issues with infidelity stretching across generations. When as sons, the boys had to find woman for dad, it was no surprise that they ended up having issues with such behavior themselves as adults.

In such families, infidelity has become institutionalized. It has been their way of coping with the dysfunction and pain for years. In such cases, you may feel like the cheater’s whole family is against you, which they are. They have gotten family loyalty and covering up for cheating so intertwined, they can’t separate one from the other. Family loyalty and keeping the peace about cheating are deemed more important than doing what is morally right.

The problem you are dealing in such families has its roots in pain and dysfunctional relationships. You may want to blame the lover or weak morals, poor choices or weak impulse control which are often a good places to start, but with generational infidelity, you are mistaken.

The problem is more in that men and women do not know any other way of interacting with each other in those families. They are doing what is expected of them and what they were trained to do. They are executing the programming that was put in place years before you were part of the picture. In these families, members are expected to follow their training, even if it means covering up infidelity, rather than go against the family patterns.

In such families, they may not even know where the patterns started. They will tell you “that is just the way we do things”. Daring to question strongly entrenched patterns, even when they are dysfunctional often makes you an ‘outsider’ if not being ostracized from the family. In such families being ostracized is viewed as a terrible fate.

This is one of the reasons why all cheating is not the same. They do not have the same root cause, and they often call for different solutions. You will still have to deal with similar issues, and healing, but on a different scale.

Knowing what you are dealing with is often the first place to start when dealing with generational infidelity. Before blasting away at your spouse, find out about family patterns and generational cheating. It will save you great heartache if you find out what you are really dealing with.

If you assume that all the problems lie with the cheater and that once they are straightened out, all will be well, you could be making some premature assumptions. With generational infidelity, the whole family system often exerts pressure to force conformity and loyalty to ‘the family’.

Make no mistake, the family system often exerts tremendous pressure on you to ‘conform’.  (I deal with the issue of generational affairs in the Affair Recovery Workshop. If you are faced with generational infidelity, you will want to consider purchasing this valuable help). Being aware of such family patterns is important. There are tools that can help you with these patterns. The cheater may dismiss such things as “it’s in the past”, or “that is old history” or “that is old news”. Even though it is old, infidelity and its cover-up remains a powerful force that can threaten your marriage.

 

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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2 Responses

    1. Peace,

      I always enjoy hearing from people outside the US. Affairs are a concern world-wide, and not limited to the US by any means.

      In terms of working to save a marriage, such matters are hard to address without having much information and background. I am a believer in marriage, and working through the issues in a marriage when possible. Affairs are terrible, although, they are not the worst thing that can happen to a marriage. Affairs and their effects can be worked through. There are some issues, such as abusive life-threatening violence or murder which create such a safety issue that they are nearly impossible to work through.

      If you want to contact me privately with more background and details, I will be glad to respond with greater detail.

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