Are you being groomed to cheat?

Although movies and popular media often portray affairs as a product of ‘happenstance’, the reality is very different.

Some researchers have found that as many as 75% of affairs are premeditated and planned. In other words, they were not an “accident.”

Before any cheating occurs, there’s the obsessing, plotting and planning that go into an affair long before they happen.

One form of the plotting and planning is ‘grooming’. When the cheater begins grooming others, it is noticeable. What is often not so noticeable is when a cheater is grooming you.

Unfortunately, one of the more common ways a cheater grooms you is through friendship.

Why?

Because it allows them to gather information on your marriage and yourself without raising too many alarms with you. It also gives them access to you when they need something – from an alibi or someone to discuss the affair with.

Cheaters continue grooming you to cheat can happen in a couple of ways. When your spouse wants you to cheat or when a cheater is preparing you as a victim of them cheating. In either case, you’re being exploited.

The following are some of the more subtle ways that cheaters groom you for cheating.

In the case of your spouse, the grooming often starts with them ‘softening’ you up with talk about affairs. Other times, the information is more subtle or even inadvertent.

When you’re involved with someone that has already cheated, often they will tell you how much their spouse hated sex, did drugs, was frigid or some other negative aspect of your marriage as a way of feeling out where your marriage is as well.

They may expose you to a plethora of movies about affairs, increase your alcohol intake and increase their talking about affairs. When they talk about affairs with you, it is more about the benefits in terms of what it will do for your marriage, or how happy it will make them for you to do it.

They may even go into how beneficial an affair would be to you and your marriage. This includes how it will make you feel like more of a man or more of a woman. The line that an affair will increase your passion is a time-worn favorite.

Along with the talk often comes grooming in the form of improving your appearance and dress. You may think that they are just wanting you to look better, when their ulterior motive is more sinister.

Looking better appeals to everyone. Eventually the looking better changes into dressing with greater sex appeal.

When someone other than your spouse is grooming you for an affair, it often starts with giving you attention. They will talk to you and be pleasant. They may even go out of their way to be nice to you and compliment you. The grooming may also include gifts or thoughtful gestures.

The purpose of the attention, gifts and gestures prepares you for the next step.

Once they have developed some rapport, the potential cheater often starts testing limits. The limits will be tested in conversation and in terms of physical contact.

They will gain access to your personal space and then start touching your hair, then proceed to your body in more and more personal areas. Since your rapport with them has been friendly, you may not even notice their advances until too late.

Their goal is getting into your personal space. The distance between you is an important one. Think about the difference in having someone stand at a foot away from you, as opposed to six inches or less.

When they are able to touch your body or hair, that’s when you’ve crossed over into their comfort zone and further down the path of grooming for an affair.

When they are able to be in your personal space without you being anxious, this stage is complete.

In some cases, they continue making advances until they wear you down, since you don’t want to ‘alienate’ them due to their appearance of being a friend. One woman shared with me, “I felt sorry for him” after her paramour wore down her resistance.

They take conversations with you into areas that are typically reserved for your spouse. By doing so, they begin assuming the role of spouse in your head. Sure you know that you are not married to them, yet, in terms of conversation and topics, they have inched their way into that role.

In the event that they purchase gifts for you, those gifts will take on an increasingly personal nature. They also may use alcohol as part of their grooming and seduction. For once they have mentally and spiritually seduced you, the rest is mere follow through for them.

They know that once you want them or enjoy being with them, you will turn off any defensiveness. Having you turn off your defenses and boundaries is much easier than them working through them.

Another areas where limits are tested is that of where the two of you interact and the circumstances of that interaction. Initially, the two of you will meet in public places.

Once you are comfortable with them, they may shift where you meet to private places, secluded places or want to meet late at night. You will also find that with increasing frequency, it is just you and them. In such circumstances, it is often only a matter of time before they wear you down.

In terms of heading things off, the first place to start is by being aware. Secondly, you will need to be sensitive to boundaries and maintaining them.

This includes physical, conversational and emotional boundaries. You will also need to be wary of where you meet and what the circumstances are. Putting these things in place will make all the difference and end those exploiting you.

And BTW, one more thing: if you fell for being groomed to cheat, all is not lost. Your marriage can be healed. There are things that can start turning your relationship around.

Have you been through an affair?

The pain of the betrayal is overwhelming. You may feel like your world has come to a crashing halt and that there’s no way out. It’s hard to imagine how you can ever trust again or even love again. But it doesn’t have to be this way! There are ways for you and your spouse to heal together, restore intimacy, rebuild trust, and grow stronger than before.

We want to help you get past the affair crisis so that you can move on with life as a happy couple once more! This video training (Getting You Past the Affair Crisis) will guide you in the early days soon after discovering it. It guides you through the shock and adjustment while giving hope for what lies ahead if both spouses work together on their marriage.

Action: Click here now for immediate access!

 

Best Regards,

Jeff

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3 Responses

  1. Great article! Being groomed to cheat and using alcohol as to inebriate the chosen victim is crossing the line to Sexual Assault/Rape.
    When does seduction cross the line to grooming?

    What is the difference between cheaters whom groom and exploit victims and “stranger rapist” perpetrators?

    1. Priscilla,

      Thank you for writing. The line between grooming and sexual assault is indeed fuzzy. In my mind the difference is that with grooming, the mental and emotional seduction are completed prior to the physical seduction. With sexual assault, the physical seduction is done prior to the emotional and physical seduction is completed.

      With seduction, the target is aroused on many levels. Once aroused, there is some willingness on their part to participate. With sexual assault the willingness isn’t there. Sexual acts are done with less than a majority willingness.

      In the case of grooming to cheat, the victim often knows the groomer. The grooming may take hours or months. The longer the grooming, the greater the likelihood they know the groomer (e.g. someone they work with, a neighbor, etc.).

      I hope this clears things up for you.

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