I've been called a homewrecker in my comments more times than I can count. A whore. A piece of shit. I've been told to find God, to repent, to go to hell. And in almost every one of those comments there's a second character. The wife. Poor her. She was probably home crying, begging him to come back. She's probably so broken.
Nobody ever said that. Not once.
And nobody's coming for him.
Where Societal Expectations Around Infidelity Come From
On last week's episode with Lauren LaRusso, we talked about how society has expectations on almost everything. How you should feel, what you should think, what you should say, how you should live. I got curious. Where do those expectations come from, and who gets to enforce them? So I did some research.
Labeling something used to need an institution behind it. The church. The courts. The press. Now anybody with a phone can write a comment, and everybody else can jump on the bandwagon.
The research also says a rule breaker is how everyone else learns where the line is and confirms they're on the right side of it. That's infidelity exactly. Maybe I'm not perfect in this area, but at least I'm not doing THAT. It becomes a way to measure how bad you are compared to somebody else.
Why Infidelity Is Judged Harder Than Divorce
Rules get louder when people feel threatened. Research across dozens of countries shows the more a group feels something important is at risk, the harder it enforces the rules around it. Marriage is the thing American society protects most, legally, financially, and emotionally. So affairs get the tightest enforcement.
National polling shows 89% of Americans still call affairs wrong. Same number as 25 years ago. In those same 25 years, divorce, sex outside marriage, and babies outside marriage all became acceptable. 75% of Americans say divorce is okay.
A few months ago I had a guest on whose husband cheated. They divorced. Then the moms in her friend group did a complete 180 on her. They treated her like the one who wronged the relationship. She was baffled. Just because she was single now didn't make her a threat to their marriages.
Why Don't People Who Cheat Just Get Divorced?
I know what some of you are thinking. If you're married and you want an affair, just get a divorce.
A lot of the people who say that will never be in that position. If you've been through a divorce yourself, you're nodding right now. Divorce is hard regardless of what role you play in it. Being the one who wants out doesn't make it any less sad, heartbreaking, or hard to get through.
And the judging is so much louder than the behavior. About one in five married men and one in eight married women admit to cheating, yet nearly everybody condemns it. People who've had an affair and never got caught aren't announcing it at the holiday dinner table. Research shows people who privately bend a rule are often the loudest at enforcing it publicly. So the person who never got caught gets to condemn the friend, neighbor, or coworker who did, and still feel morally correct.
Why Is the Other Woman Always Blamed for the Affair?
Man or woman, if you're the affair partner, everybody blames you. Hard.
Think about what that says about the married person. That they're so weak, so unable to own their own behavior and emotions, so easily influenced by somebody else. Because that's what you're saying.
What about him? He played a role in this too. It wasn't just me.
When someone ends up in an affair, something in that marriage isn't working. Maybe it's internal, and they can't communicate it to their husband or wife. Maybe it's structural, and the marriage itself stopped working. The affair is the symptom. But looking at the marriage is too much. Where was the breakdown? Who was struggling? Nobody wants to go there. So it's easier to just blame her.
When people tell moral stories, there's a villain and a victim. The affair partner gets villain. The betrayed spouse gets victim. And the person who actually stepped out of the marriage just disappears into thin air. Nobody asks why he did it. Nobody asks why he thought it was okay. Nobody asks why he stayed five years with me.
Your Brain Fills In the Blanks
Every affair is different, just like every relationship between two single people is different. Not every affair ends in catastrophe. Not every affair ends with lives turned upside down.
If you've listened to the whole show, you have a pretty good picture of who I was when I got into that relationship, how it started, and how I chose to end it. If you've heard one 20-minute episode, your brain filled in the blanks. Then you roasted me in the comments for a story you made up. Not a single one of you has gotten it right.
Social media rewards it. Someone leaves a comment, a hundred and sixty people like it, it climbs to the top, and the commenter decides a hundred and sixty people agreeing means they must be right.
Remorse After an Affair, and Why I Don't Have Any
People want remorse so badly. They want to hear I'm so sorry. I regret this. I feel so guilty. One woman has told me multiple times that I should repent.
Okay. Why?
Research shows remorse works as a safety signal. It tells people you're not a repeat risk.
That's why my stance bothers people. I'm not remorseful, so they don't listen to what I actually say. I'm not sorry. I spent years learning who I am and working on the things I didn't like when I looked in the mirror. I came out the other side with a much higher level of self-respect and self-worth.
I would never get into a situation like that again. But an old version of me did. I'm not going to fault her, and I'm not going to apologize for her. She grew so much over the course of that relationship that she eventually ended it, because she knew it was never going to get her to the next step she was ready for. I'm so proud of her.
So no. I'm not going to waste the one life I have living it in regret because strangers tell me that's what I'm supposed to do.
How to Support Someone After an Affair With a Married Man
I spoke at a mastermind recently and shared my story. One of the most thoughtful questions came from a man whose sister had just gotten out of a relationship with a married man. She was really struggling, and he wanted to know how to support her. What a great brother. He saw that she was in pain instead of judging her.
Listen to what she has to say. People think these relationships are just about sex, that they aren't real because you're not sharing a home or paying bills or raising kids together. They're wrong. The feelings are real. When it ends, it can be heart-wrenching in ways you can't understand unless you've been there.
And refusing to let strangers tell me how to feel doesn't make me a threat. I have no interest in a man who is married, or in any kind of relationship. I know who I am. I built a great life where I don't need somebody. I just want somebody.
Society's not going to tell me who I am.
FAQ
Why is the other woman blamed instead of the cheating husband?
When people tell moral stories, they want a villain and a victim. The affair partner gets cast as the villain, the betrayed spouse as the victim, and the person who actually broke the marriage vows drops out of the story. Blaming the other woman also means nobody has to look at what wasn't working inside the marriage.
Why don't people who cheat just get divorced?
Saying "just get a divorce" is easy when you've never been through one. Divorce is hard regardless of what role you play in it, including for the person who wants out. Most people who say it will never be in that position.
How many married people cheat?
About one in five married men and one in eight married women admit to cheating. At the same time, national polling shows 89% of Americans say affairs are morally wrong, a number that hasn't moved in 25 years.
Why do people expect remorse after an affair?
Research shows remorse works as a safety signal. It tells people you're not a repeat risk. When someone doesn't express remorse, people often stop listening to anything else they say, even when they've said they would never do it again.
How can I support someone who just ended an affair with a married man?
Listen to what they have to say instead of judging them. These relationships involve real feelings, even without a shared home, bills, or kids. When they end, the heartbreak is real.
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