What you don’t know can’t hurt you. I never could wrap my head around this saying. If there’s a tiger behind me and I don’t know it, it will most certainly hurt me. The same goes for cheating.
People who cheat rarely confess this to their partners. Why would they? These are the kind of people who live their lives hoping that they can eat their cake and have it too. They don’t want to admit that they cheated because they don’t want to face the consequences of their actions.
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When caught, most of them will tell their partners that they didn’t confess earlier because they didn’t want to hurt their feelings. That to confess would’ve been a selfish act: it would’ve made them feel better and their partner worst.
How generous! Newsflash: if you don’t want to hurt your partner, don’t cheat on them! Is not the revealing of the truth that makes them unhappy, it’s what you reveal.
Living in ignorance is not a blessing in disguise, as the cheaters might want to convince you. There’s harm even before the discovery of the betrayal. When they are cheating and rationalizing it as being something harmless that has nothing to do with the relationship as long as it is kept a secret, what they are really doing is withholding relevant information.
Their partner acts and feels as if the bond between them is unbroken. They might even sacrifice important aspects of their lives in order to make the other happy. Don’t they have the right to know what is really happening? Don’t they have the right to have the choice of saying no, this is not OK with me?
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Adultery is not only about betrayal, about breaking the promise of monogamy. It’s also about not respecting the other enough to tell him or her the truth. By keeping relevant information from them, what the cheaters do is to put themselves in a position of power. The power to manipulate their partners into thinking their couple is something else than it actually is. They feed on their partner’s belief that the relationship is a priority for both of them.
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Facing the consequences of an affair is not pretty. But you know the other saying that applies in this case: if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Confessing an affair may end a relationship, but it can also save it. After the initial storm, the cheated partner might forgive the cheater because they appreciate their honesty. Share this if you agree!
