What if your partner was a serial cheater?

A 70-year-old man who preferred anonymity confessed on an online blog, Chump Lady that he started cheating on his wife even when he still loved her.
He says the two got married when he was 22 while his wife was 21. He describes her as an extraordinarily beautiful girl but their trouble started when she abandoned her career to become a stay-home mother. He says he became overwhelmed with being a father and taking on other responsibilities all by himself.
Though he still loved his wife, he says he started to fall out of love. The worst part is that she wanted more children yet he did not. “Despite my wishes she stopped the birth control pills, and got pregnant again. Twin boys arrived. I actually started cheating before the twins were born,” he narrates.

As much as he kept cheating, he says he didn’t love the other women. “They were younger and also attractive, but I was really in it to get the sexual fix. All I wanted was the sex, and I found it all too easy to pick up women starting with just a simple compliment. I found them all desperate for the attention and they didn’t worry at all that I was married. I always wore my wedding ring,” he said.
Soon cheating became part of his life and he says that even when his wife found out, he would apologise but go back to cheating thereafter. When his wife could not take it anymore, she filed for a divorce.

Thirty five years later, he says: “I can attest to the fact that a cheat does not feel any guilt or remorse. It is the thrill of having another woman; another conquest. The real problem for a cheat is dealing with the fallout when you get caught. At that point it is all damage control. I didn’t regret the affairs.”
The online confession is one of the many serial cheaters in our societies. Yes, people cheat but there is a special breed that just doesn’t seem to have one sexual partner. When caught, they seem remorseful and even promise never to do it again but shortly after, they go back.

Dealing with challenge
So what happens if you have such a person as a partner? Do you abandon them? How do you cope in such a relationship?
Anice Nakato (not real name) says the first time she cheated on her man, she fell in love and yet could not tell her partner.
“He wasn’t at fault and didn’t do anything wrong. I just knew he wasn’t the right person for me. There was zero sexual chemistry and I wasn’t in love with him. When I met the other man, I immediately knew that my feelings for him were what I should have been feeling in the first place,” she says.

Incidentally, she also cheats on him. I have cheated on him several times, separated for a few months, tried out other relationships, got back together and was “good” for a while, only to end up cheating again.
Much as she cheats on him, she confesses everything about their relationship is amazing. “We communicate well, love and support each other, are best friends, and have each other’s back. We have talked about it, sought counselling, but nothing has changed.”

Counsellor’s take
Hope Nankunda Mwijuka, a counsellor and executive director at Health Promotion and Rights Watch-Uganda. (HPRW-U), says serial cheating is not a condition that one is born with, so there is nothing like one being a cheat naturally. She refers to it as a habit one chooses to adopt and it’s only that same person who has the capacity to stop it.
“All that is required is an extra effort and the will to put an end to the habit. In most cases it has a lot to do with peer pressure, meaning that most of their friends are doing the same and hence have no one to talk them into stopping the habit.”
She, however, says if such people are into marriage, their partners can help them stop. “The best way to help them is to appreciate that their partner has a problem and needs help instead of rebuking and insulting them. The more the partner gets tough and abusive about this situation, the more the habit grows because they will go out to find someone who will not point fingers at them.”

Dealing with a serial cheat
Nankunda advises that if you have a serial cheat as a partner, show them love and care at all times.
“Communicate your feelings towards your partner openly and talk to them about how their character is affecting your relationship. This should be done in a calm way. Offer to spend more time with your partner but without being so nagging. It is also important to seek counseling and pray together. Keep in mind that getting out of the marriage because your partner is cheating may never be a solution to the problem. This is because you may get into another relationship and you find a worse character. It’s never too late for someone to change. Help them and give them an opportunity.

Do cheaters change?
Repetitive cheaters who do not have a sexual addiction may decide that it is a good idea to quit cheating, but their quitting is determined by self-interest rather than by treatment or basic change.
Some cheaters may just “mature out” of the behaviour. Cheaters who are not addicts probably cheat in a lot of areas of their lives. They may be secretive but only because it would be very inconvenient if their partner knew the truth.

Cheaters are not obsessed with sex and they are certainly not riddled with self-doubt and shame.
They are not acting against their value system because they genuinely feel that what they are doing is justified. They do not wish they could stop; rather their motto is “if you can get away with it, do it”.

Signs that a cheater may be a sex addict

Use sex to cope with life. Although sex addicts have a long standing pattern of using sex as a way to cope with feelings and with life generally, they also typically experience their sexually addictive behaviour as in some way “ego-dystonic,” meaning that the addict does not really want to see himself as a cheat. In other words for the sex addict, the behaviour doesn’t fit his self-concept. He rationalises it and lies about it to himself as much as to others.

Generally addicts. Addicts who cheat very frequently have other addictions besides sex. Dr. Patrick Carnes, the founder of the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP) and Gentle Path Press, found that the many sex addicts had at least one other addictive behaviour such as drugs, alcohol, nicotine and work. Scientific evidence is beginning to show that there are neurophysiological and even genetic bases to addiction and that all addictions are similar on some level. So the sex addict cheater will likely show signs of addictiveness to other things.

Important need. Sex addicts typically have a core belief that sex is their most important need. One way this will be observable is that the sex addict will find it hard to completely hide his or her preoccupation with sex. He or she will often tell sexual jokes more readily than people normally do, make sexual references in social conversation when it may not be entirely appropriate and talk privately about the sexual attributes of people to an unusual degree.

Turn people into sex objects. Sex addicts who want to hook up or cheat as one of their sexually addictive behaviours will almost certainly sexually “objectify” the people they meet. This means that they will be sizing everyone up as a sex object or potential sexual partner. This will be most visible in the form of staring and fixating visually as well as flirting in a predatory way. It may be even subtler, taking the form of “intriguing” in which the addict tries to connect in subtle ways like eye contact and innuendo.