You may have been asked or thought to yourself “Why does the Ashley Madison hack matter?” If you live with a cheater, you know that it matters. What is not always clear is the reason that it matters.
It matters for a number of reasons.
First, it was a massive hack. It involved 37,000,000 cheaters. That is huge. It amounts to a little more than the population of Canada. When the account information of that many people is made public, that is a massive number of lives involved.
Secondly, the information released was not just who signed up for the service, but also what their sexual preferences and proclivities are. That is huge amount of personal information released. Not only is it a massive amount of information, since it is now in the public arena, many behavioral scientists are eager to use it since it is in the public domain now. There are mixed reactions to this ethical swamp of a problem.
Thirdly, many of the Ashley Madison users were accessing the service from work. It is one thing if they did it on their own time, but accessing the service while at work raises many concerns. That kind of behavior shows some ethical lapses and concerns.
When you consider that some of those were employees of the US government, it becomes even more concerning. They had a member of the Department of Justice, and Homeland Security. In all there were 15,000 government employees who accessed the site. Think about the conundrum to have Department of Justice or FBI figures investigating a hack like this when they are personally involved.
When accessing the service from secured servers and computers, the cheaters opened up holes in protective firewalls. There is a reason those firewalls are there in the first place. Perhaps these cheaters who did not respect the firewalls of their marriage do not respect government or their employers firewalls either.
When cheaters are in positions of power, there are potential problems. You already know they have no qualms about lying to cover their activities. They also show a disregard of boundaries and sworn oaths. When someone is not willing to keep their oath to God, what makes you think they will keep an oath to their government, the Constitution or to you?
If their cheating is a matter of brain chemistry, then do you trust their brain functioning in other areas. If they have already shown dysfunction in one area, what assurances do you have that they will not have dysfunction in other areas? You don’t.
Think about the kind of behavior you have seen from your cheater, but now imagine a cheater doing their cheater games in a position of power and influence. There is still a double standard. When public officials like pastors or priests are caught cheating, it is a major scandal, yet when non-elected government employees are doing the same thing, you hear very little about the scandal.
If their cheating was driven by character issues, how can you trust them to respect the boundaries of the office they hold, or your boundaries. When they have shown an inclination to poach on other people’s property, what makes you think they will respect yours?
When people in power cheat at work, they are already cheating their employer. When they are public servants, it is you they are cheating on. What will it matter if they cheat just a little more, or abuse a little more of the public trust? Keep in mind that cheating has a progressive nature. It wants more and more.
The Ashley Madison hack does matter. Cheating matters because it destroys lives, damages relationships and destroys communities. When the bonds of trust are broken in a marriage, there is a ripple effect that continues through families and into the community.
If your life has been touched by cheating, you can do something about it. Consider the Affair Recovery Workshop to get you started on your road to recovery.
Best Regards,
Jeff
