How to Deal with the Guilt of Cheating on Your Husband
The definition of cheating is pretty simple. If you’re pursuing romantic or sexual relationships with anyone other than your spouse, you’re cheating. Admittedly, there are a few exceptions to this rule. However, if you didn’t say your vows after agreeing to an open marriage, you’ve no excuse for playing away.
It’s thought as many as 60% of marriages are affected by cheating at least once. Men are the most regular offenders, with around 6 in 10 men enjoying at least one extramarital dalliance. However, women are equally capable of cheating. More than 4 in 10 women will cheat on their partner at least once in their life. What’s more, these statistics only take into account actual cheating. Even more men and women admit they’d gladly cheat on their partner if there was no risk of getting found out.
How to Deal with the Guilt of Cheating on Your Husband
Whether you’re looking to cheat on your husband because of a stifled sex life or simply want to experiment, cheating can put the spring back in your step, without you having to bring a marriage to an end. However, it’s not all smooth sailing. Even those who succeed at keeping their affairs a secret have to deal with guilt. Below, we’ll explore the reasons for cheating, the main causes of guilt, and what you can do to manage your feelings.
Reasons for Cheating
People cheat for many different reasons, but most affairs fall into a few key categories. A general feeling of unhappiness in a marriage can cause people to cheat. In fact, even feeling disconnected from a long-term relationship can cause someone who’s never considered cheating to look elsewhere. However, unhappiness is a fairly broad feeling that could be many things. You may actually simply be unsatisfied emotionally or sexually. Some people may even be suffering from clinical depression and misunderstanding the root of their feelings.
A healthy relationship needs to be built on strong foundations. Clear communication is key here. If you and your husband aren’t actively talking to each other, a lot of stuff is going to be left unsaid. This creates distance in a relationship and the emotional gulf between the two of you will gradually widen. Over time, you may feel like your spouse simply isn’t interested in you. If you’re having trouble at work, you may not feel comfortable engaging your husband about it. This all compounds, leaving you feeling even less valued than before.
Nobody wants to feel unfilled. If your spouse is failing to meet your needs, be it emotionally or in the bedroom, the urge to cheat can increase. Again, communication plays a role here. If you don’t feel like you can bring up the topic of a lackluster sex life, the issue isn’t going to resolve itself. Eventually, you may find it easier to simply look elsewhere to have your needs met, rather than brave the subject with your partner.
Maybe you’re simply feeling curious. This is relatively common, especially with people who’ve been in relationships for many years. If you got married at a young age and have little sexual experience with other people, you may feel like you’re missing out on something.
Sometimes, affairs just happen. The workplace is one place where many affairs get going. You might think you’re engaged in a platonic relationship, but the other person may have a different idea about where things are going. Before you know it, an innocent friendship has evolved into emotional infidelity. In no time at all, that intense emotional connection might boil over into physical intimacy.
The Guilt of Cheating
If you’ve pursued an affair with someone else, the threat of being exposed is a constant worry. This can take the fun out of their arrangement, no matter how fulfilling the affair is. However, it’s often the associated guilt that causes the biggest headache.
Feeling guilty about cheating is perfectly normal (unless you’re broken like me and never feel guilty cheating). Unless your other half has given you good reason to stray, you’re betraying them, and your marriage vows. However, don’t give yourself too much credit if you’re feeling guilty. Many people feel guilty because they’re worried about getting caught (read our piece on the places to cheat on your spouse without getting caught) out or that they’re being judged by other people. This can be their affair partner or a friend they’ve confided in. Guilty feelings can often give way to shame. For many people, this is too much to deal with and they eventually end the affair.
You need to be able to lie well and know how to cover your tracks if you want to keep your affair a secret. According to some studies, more than half of people who’ve entered into affairs report never being found out. For serial cheaters, this leads to a repeated pattern of infidelity. However, for most people, the worry of being found out leads to crippling guilt that takes all the thrill out of extramarital relationships.
Your self-esteem can also take a beating if you’re struggling with guilt from carrying on an affair. If your spouse has given you no reason to play away, then these feelings are yours to deal with. That being said, not everyone who cheats is leaving a loving and attentive partner in the dark. If you’ve been driven to cheat because of abusive home lives or emotional neglect, your infidelity is arguably justified.
This doesn’t mean you won’t have to contend with guilty feelings. Because you’re carrying on a secret relationship, it’s easy for you to accept and carry the blame for the entire situation. You become the sole reason a marriage isn’t working and, in your mind, your affair becomes the thing that could ruin a family. Ultimately, your mental health suffers and you emerge from the affair with dramatically lowered self-esteem.
Coping With the Guilt
Dealing with guilt is a tall order. However, you can make things easy on yourself by taking a step back and paying attention to your feelings. This is usually easier once you’ve brought an affair to a close and have some distance between you and your infidelity.
If you’ve moved past an affair, try and consider why you cheated in the first place. Was it because you won’t get enough attention at home? Was your sex life non-existent? If the reasons are clear, you can focus on repairing damage to your marriage before the urge to stray rears its head again.
Sometimes, there might be no chance of overhauling things at home. In these cases, consider whether it’s best to cut your losses. You don’t necessarily need to start talking about divorce, but some time apart can do wonders for a relationship that’s hanging by a thread. Most of the time, these breaks lead to permanent separations, but more than 1 in 10 couples do manage to patch things up.
If you can’t deal with your feelings by yourself, remember that a problem shared is a problem halved. Talking it all out with a trusted confidante is something to think about. However, you need to be absolutely sure the person you tell will keep your secret. Involving mutual friends and family members is never a good idea. If your affair is exposed and their involvement becomes known, you’re ruining more relationships besides your marriage. What’s more, there’s also a chance that these confidantes will end up having to deal with feelings of guilt themselves.
If money allows, think about talking to a therapist. Not only do you benefit from the doctor-patient privilege, but you also get the insights of an expert who can help you identify the triggers that caused you to cheat in the first place. If you want to address the reasons for cheating and change your behavior, a therapist is a valuable investment. A good counselor will take you to task, forcing you to accept responsibility for your own actions and assign blame where it’s due.
Whether you’re looking to end an affair or have brought one to a close already, now’s the time to make amends with your husband. Even if you don’t see a long-term future for the two of you, making peace will help you deal with feelings of remorse down the line. The last thing you want to do is walk away from a broken marriage feeling like you destroyed it through reckless behavior.
Finally, it’s important to forgive yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you cheated because you were driven to it, or played the field just because you could. Once you’ve reflected on the situation and delved deep into your feelings, the only way forward is self-improvement. Forgiveness is one of the most important steps to take. Regardless of whether you’ve admitted to your indiscretions or not, you can’t honestly guarantee that you’ll remain faithful without forgiving yourself.
Is Cheating Worth It?
People cheat for a multitude of reasons. You might be feeling unfilled or have a long list of unmet needs. If communication is non-existent at home, this can make any existing problems much worse. The greater the emotional distance between you and your husband, the more attractive the prospect of an affair becomes. Sometimes, people are simply curious. Other times, affairs just happen. If you’re currently engaged in an extramarital relationship, there’s a good chance it began at the office. After all, the vast majority of affairs do.
Regardless of what triggered your affair, the one constant that unfaithful partners have to deal with is guilt. The fear of being exposed is a constant presence. After all, you’re betraying your spouse, so you’ll never escape the feeling that you’re doing something wrong. This constant nagging feeling can destroy your self-esteem and mental health if you’re not careful. Even if you bring an affair to a close on your own terms, guilt remains. More often than not, this turns into remorse.
You can use coping mechanisms to justify continuing an affair or make sure you don’t strike up a new one. Reflection is a must. Step back and consider what really happened. Why did you cheat? What caused you to cheat? If you can’t resolve it by yourself, talk things out with someone you trust. If you don’t want to bring someone else into the equation, speak to a professional. Not only does what you say remain confidential, but you’ll also benefit from some home truth a lifelong friend probably isn’t going to tell you. The main thing here is that you need to be accountable for your actions. If you can’t shoulder the responsibility for what happened, you’ll almost certainly act on the urge to cheat again.
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