An article from a few years ago in PsyPost caught my attention with the title “Study finds that cheaters are hypocrites when it comes to judgments about infidelity”. The title is definitely edgy.
The article talks about a study of 325 persons. It found cheaters responded harshly to cheating incidents, when their behavior was similar or worse that those they judged. The cheaters condemned the cheating incidents they were exposed to.
The author of the study attributed this unusual finding to a phenomena known as ‘self-serving bias’. Rather than stopping there, the author of the article, Beth Ellwood went on to label the cheaters as hypocrites.
The article raises an important point about how people evaluate those who have been unfaithful to them. We may be quick to judge a person for cheating, yet our own actions could be just as bad or worse than the ones we’re judging. It’s also possible that we are not aware of this hypocrisy in our thinking.
I saw similar results in my survey of over 500 respondents concerning cheating. Beliefs about cheating didn’t deter them from infidelity. They often disapproved of what they did themselves.
Rather than jump to calling them ‘hypocrites’, it struck me that infidelity happens no matter what a person’s values are concerning the topic.
The values betrayers profess aren’t always the one’s they live by. With some of the comments from my survey, I found that the cheaters are good at compartmentalizing what they did.
They section off parts of their lives to the point that they have a secret ‘second life’. In Scripture this is referred to as being ‘double-minded’.
The take away from this article and my survey is that people are complex. We can’t always predict how we will behave in a certain situation, especially if it’s related to infidelity. It’s important to be aware of the discrepancy between what we profess and our behavior.
When you attack cheaters with the label of being hypocrites, it comes across as a personal attack and makes it look like intentional and under their control. There are times when their straying it is intentional and malicious (as in exit affairs).
At other times, the cheater themselves are so caught up in their deceptions, they can’t see straight or make good choices. They are trapped in that ‘second life’.
When they can see straight, their passions control them. Whatever the passions want, it drives them to fulfill it, despite their values.
When they say one thing and do another, I see it as hopeful. They still have a conscience in them. Their values are intact. The challenge then is to wake them up to the reality of what they did instead of attack them with allegations of ‘hypocrisy’.
In such cases, the video “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery” is a better choice than attacking your spouse. Click and download the video and within minutes your marriage can be looking for solutions rather than who to blame and attack.
The video guides the cheater through the challenges of coming to grips with what they did and it’s impact on others. They’re often oblivious to the FULL impact of their choices.
It’s not that they’re stupid or ignorant, this is part of the power of denial. It keeps them from facing the full reality of what they did and how it hurt others.
You can join with Beth and attack the hypocrisy or start working on a solution. What kind of marriage do you want?
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
