There are times when simple question open up profound truths and insights. Today one of those simple questions came in that really has some profound ramifications.
My wife and I debated both sides of the question and the ramifications of how you answer it. Your answer to it determines your whole approach to cheating and dealing with it.
The question posed by a reader is “Is cheating a disease?” Before I rush off into the answer, let’s consider a few things.
First, cheating involves making a choice. The cheater chooses to continue obsessing over someone other than you. The cheater makes the choice of opening their heart or their pants to someone who doesn’t belong there.
Since the modern concept of disease includes the idea that you can’t control when it happens to you, cheating doesn’t fit within that concept. Although pop culture wants to say “You can’t help who you love”, the reality is that you can and do choose who you love.
You make choices at many levels. You choose whether to work through marital issues, whether to honor your commitments or not.
In order to cheat, a series of choices are made. The cheater may make them so quickly, it feels like it’s beyond their control. The brain is tricky like that.
Cheating brings damage with it. It changes the cheater’s brain, it changes their relationships and damages the bonding of their marriage, but it’s not a disease since choice is involved.
If cheating were a disease, the cheater is a victim. As a victim, they can’t help themselves. They can’t control who the affair is with and when it happens. Their lives are outside of any control.
If I believed cheating were a disease, there would be no hope of recovery from them. The cheater would be doomed to cheat for the rest of their life.
The cheater is then doomed to have to have affairs without warning. Their genes and the disease remove any hope of making changes.
Fortunately, I view cheating as a choice. When you view cheating as a choice, changes are possible. Different choices can be made. The direction of their lives can change.
This also means that there is hope for marriages like yours. When you know where to make changes and how to do it, those old patterns change. You don’t have to stay in the role of victim, feeling hopeless and out of control any longer.
Change can begin when you download The Affair Recovery Workshop and take action on what you learn. Changing the choices starts when you choose rejecting the “Cheating is a disease” myth.
Reject the myth and start your affair recovery.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
