When you mix cheating with drugs, alcohol, or any other addiction you have potential problems. When you mix cheating with mental health issues, or legal issues, you also loose. Mixing cheating with any myriad of issues means that you loose. Those other issues often complicate the dynamics. Most often, they reduce the amount of responsibility your spouse is willing to assume. In their mind, somehow having a disorder or addiction lets them off the hook. They do not have to assume responsibility for their choices, let alone responsibility for the affair.
Years ago, in the book, Games Alcoholics Play, the author (Eric Berne) talked about such games. He used the term ‘wooden leg’. The wooden leg game is when the cheater uses the problem like a ‘wooden leg’ to avoid responsibility. Much like ‘you would not expect a person with a wooden leg to …, you can’t expect them to accept the responsibility/blame/etc. for the affair”. Cheaters often use their problems like crutches or ‘wooden legs’ to avoid the heat for their choices. It is only when the cheater accepts full responsibility for their choices and actions that you will see changes start to happen. Granted, an affair can not happen with just one person, and there are some things the other party choose to do. What matters is whether or not your spouse assumes responsibility for what they did (or did not do). Did they return the call, meet at a dangerous place, drink too much, talk to much, etc.?
When they do have secondary problems, those issues will need to be addressed on their own terms, NOT used an an excuse for the affair. (The only exception to this are cases where brain damage literally changes the functioning of their brain. Even in those cases, they still make some conscious choices).
What all this means for you is that you need to hold cheaters accountable. You may be tempted to let them off the hook based on secondary problems. When this happens again and again, you are being played. The wooden leg game is at work on you.
If you are caught in one of these games, take steps to stop the game playing. Recognize gaming when it is happening, rather than swallowing their excuses and games. There are other games that cheaters play. This will begin opening your eyes to this threat.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
