Why does cheating make us feel guilty?

Thirty-year-old Inna is happily married, but one day at a retreat she could not resist the charm of her colleague. Since then, Inna has been tormented, trying to justify her fleeting betrayal. “I was young, shy and melted when a confident older man started courting me,” says Inna. “However, I feel very bad after this story, I feel terribly guilty.”

A serious word is «guilty». So, we are not so liberated? Not so easy to deceive your spouse or partner? Gestalt therapist Marina Baskakova is sure that guilt is just evidence of the value of relationships: we value them and fear that we could harm them.

“If we say “treason,” then we are talking about an established couple. While the choice of a partner has not yet been made and we are comparing opportunities, including sexual ones, we do not call it cheating and do not feel guilty.

Providing unfaithful spouses with convincing alibis has even spawned a special kind of business — there are agencies that offer such services. And this despite the fact that the law no longer considers adultery a crime. Divorce has become so commonplace that it surprises no one, much less outrages, and on dating sites, many men and women do not hide their status as married.

Maybe infidelity is something like a fashion to follow, discarding morality and suppressing guilt? However, sociologist Charlotte Le Van interviewed dozens of unfaithful spouses and now claims the exact opposite: “It struck me that today, except for those whom I called “principled traitors,” that is, hedonists who have elevated the search for pleasure into a life principle, no one enters into extramarital relationships. just. It is not easy to decide on treason, it does not remain without consequences and always requires some kind of justification.

What pushes us to change

Psychologists seek to explore the underlying causes of infidelity. “Behavior is influenced by many hidden motives,” notes psychologist Maryse Vaillant, “and sometimes the true essence is far from what is on the surface. Maybe the lover of women seduces them because he is driven by a desperate desire to return his mother’s love, and not just because of the sexual dissatisfaction that he says he feels in his relationship with his wife.

According to Marina Baskakova, infidelity sometimes turns out to be a way … to keep a couple! «Family therapy uses the concept of ‘invited third’,» she says. — This secret accomplice in family life helps to defuse the tension that accumulates in a couple, and thereby maintains the existence of the union. Moreover, this tension is not always sexual in nature. A «traitor» can make up for the lack of interest in his affairs, care, recognition.

For someone who chronically cheats for the sake of new experiences, I would first of all ask how creatively he is realized: in this way, the lack of creativity in life is often compensated. And for women who have sacrificed, for example, a career or personal development for the sake of the family, betrayal can be a way to free themselves from the role of the guardian of the hearth, a return to their own essence.

Secret and obvious

As long as we do not want to change our relationship in a couple and avoid hurting a partner, we are able to hide our adventures on the side. “If “evidence” appears: traces of lipstick on the collar, unerased sms on the phone, this is not at all an accidental oversight, Marina Baskakova is sure. — This is a kind of message for a partner: “Something went wrong! Pay attention to me!»

Often, betrayal becomes an occasion to discuss relationships, to overestimate their importance to each other. “Guilt is a complex experience,” says the Gestalt therapist. “If we analyze it, we will find that there is a lot of excitement, animation, even joy in it. To better understand this, you can imagine a child who ate a candy without asking or went for a walk without elders. And the reaction of the one who is deceived is also a strong feeling. The strength of these emotions gives the couple a new surge of energy that can move a frozen relationship off the ground.”

An open discussion can lead to different results. Perhaps the partners will recognize that their union no longer brings satisfaction, and will come to the idea of ​​parting. But it happens the other way around: feelings for each other come to life. “If a couple manages to resolve the conflict, the connection between partners becomes stronger,” says Marina Baskakova.

I know that you know

47-year-old Ilona tells how she discovered the disappearance of her love diary. “It was all written in the form of appeals to a man, an affair with which lasted about a year. Even when we broke up, I continued to lead him for some time. Very eloquent photographs were also pasted there — we looked at each other with loving eyes. The notebook was hidden under my linen in a dresser drawer.

One fine day I wanted to re-read the diary, and it turned out that it was not there! I had no doubt that my husband had found him. There was simply no one else. I can’t describe how I felt then. Anger and guilt, shame and fear… I was preparing for a decisive explanation, a frank confession and the fact that it could lead to a break. However, time passed, nothing happened, the husband was silent.

About a month later, I guessed to look in his desk — and for sure, the diary was found in one of the drawers. I picked him up and took him to his parents. My husband and I did not say a word about this incident. But I realized how much he cares about me. It was very important for me to make sure that our relationship means so much to him that he is ready to give up his pride in order to keep it.”

Cheating is not something that one of the partners does out of any connection with the other, it is something that happens to a couple. “Not “with him” or “with her”, but “with us,” emphasizes Marina Baskakova. “Therefore, accusations and self-accusations are meaningless. The feeling of guilt of one partner can turn him into an object of manipulation of another: changed — make a gift, fulfill the request.

But only by asking ourselves why this betrayal happened, that I am trying to find what need I want to satisfy, do we get a chance to understand the meaning of what is happening to us as a couple.

A new definition of love

Like all primates, we are naturally polygamous, but morally and socially, we function as monogamous creatures. It turns out that we live in a state of constant conflict: our biological nature is in conflict with the value system. And we need explanations to ease our consciences.

“When desire conflicts with our social and moral selves, we are forced, under the threat of a mental breakdown, to rationalize everything, to look for an explanation for everything,” notes Maryse Vaillant. We accuse our partners of imperfection, based on the false premise that if they satisfied us, it would never occur to us to look for sexual pleasures on the side.

There is a process of consuming love and turning it into a tool for serving our needs. We are supposed to get full satisfaction from love. And if this is not so, then we are trying to make up for this deficiency, sometimes with the help of betrayals. However, the path to a real relationship opens only through the contact of the unconscious of two people. This is what we should strive for, this is what, if it does not protect us from betrayal, it will help to feel our relationship with another person in all their depth and complexity.

And maybe this will lead us to a more “human” form of love: true, but at the same time aware of our inner structure, not deceiving us about the person we should take care of first of all … about ourselves.

Arguments of infidelity

Kirill, 58 years old, TV presenter

“I remained faithful to my wife for twenty years, although after our daughter was born, Marina began to devote less time to me. It’s hard for a man to deal with this. Once I met a younger woman, and we began a stormy romance. I told Marina about it. I was hoping to awaken something in her in this way. But this led to a terrible crisis.

We broke up, then got back together. The same was true with my mistress. Jealousy attacks, breakups, returns … For a year I rushed between two women, then turned to a psychotherapist. Little by little I realized what was really happening to me.

When I was four years old, my mother, who was too busy with her work, assigned my aunt to raise me. The apparent lack of love on the part of the wife revived in me the memory of the same lack of love on the part of the mother. In addition, I felt how time was running out, I was afraid to grow old. The new novel is a revival, albeit an illusory one. You feel young and beautiful.

I broke up with my girlfriend. I realized that Marina loves me. She could have left me, but she didn’t. Besides, I couldn’t leave her and my daughter. This story, among other things, taught me how to grow old. This, however, does not prevent me from constantly looking at the girls. But just look!”

Vera, 40, restaurant owner

“I am from Belarus. I met my future husband when I was 23. We got married, our eldest daughter was born, then we moved to Moscow. That was not easy. I did not work, my husband often left. He was very attentive, always brought gifts, called me. I got pregnant again.

One evening they called me and told me that my husband had been deceiving me for three years. It was a shock. All the trust I had in him vanished instantly. The second daughter was born, our life returned to its previous track, but everything went awry, we no longer had sexual relations. Every evening I went out to have fun. A year later, I started my first affair. It wasn’t revenge, as I no longer cared how my husband felt.

Then I had a real romance that lasted three years. I wanted to love and be loved, but not be bound by obligations. When my lover left his wife and asked me to live together, I stopped everything. Since then, I have no one. I still live with my husband. I am not interested in his life, he is not interested in mine. We do not get divorced: we have a calm relationship, the children have both parents …

But I can’t even think of creating something new. I don’t want to take any more risks. I can’t call myself happy or unhappy. I protect what I have.»

Zhanna, 37 years old, university lecturer

“I have been married for fifteen years. I love my husband with all my heart and he loves me back. He is the man of my life. We have two kids. Our sex life is rich, full of love, we have sex often, and I am always surprised when I listen to my girlfriends talk about their relationships with their husbands. Sex often does not bring them joy. They are rather indifferent to it, it is a routine, an ordinary thing.

There is only one «but» … In order to live normally, I need meetings with other men. I meet them online or at work. I need to constantly feel that I am desirable, seductive, I need new physical sensations. You see, even if you love chocolate cakes and you can eat them at any time, you still sometimes want candied fruit, or meringue, or cotton candy.

There is nothing humiliating for my husband in what I do, quite the contrary. None of my novels have lessened the desire I have for him. It seems to me that this cannot be called treason — after all, nothing changes in our life, and I am not doing this in order to get rid of him. He doesn’t know anything. And I can’t imagine that I’ll ever tell him about it. I value my family very much.”