Cheating partners. The thing about a partner that cheats on you is that it usually happens to someone else and then you can sympathise and say all of the right noises and show sympathy for them when they come to you very upset when they find out. But all of us risk being that someone else. It is easy to say that if a person is happy at home they do not stray but it is not quite that simple. Some people are very kind, loving, sexy, exciting, a lot of fun, interesting, passionate and do all of the right things for their spouse or lover and yet their spouse or lover will still stray. Why? Either because they are not cut out to be in a 1 2 1 relationship and would not be able to stay faithful to any person regardless of who it is and how they behave – natural players – or they become bored quickly and start to look elsewhere given the opportunity.
But most who stray do so because the excitement and passion has gone out of their relationship and they see this as a solution. One which is very selfish and not thought through! Why do I, an agony aunt, say that? Well for one thing. If a guy is in a relationship with a woman and the sex has stopped he should either tell her that they must sort things out OR that they are separating. Not lie to her and cheat on her behind her back. Also, his relationship with his partner does not get sorted out by him playing away from home. He is merely putting off sorting out what needs sorting and it will get worse if he is at home less and sneaking around. He seems to forget that if he is unable to sort one he will find it even more difficult to sort out two.
There is also another important point re cheating partners. If he cannot make it work with his existing partner and he goes out looking for other (secret) partners he will probably want to en make all of the same mistakes with this new person and spoil that relationship too. But while he is juggling two people and trying to keep them both sort of content as if he is spinning plates in the air he has no chance of really satisfying anyone.
But can you imagine being a woman who is asked by a married man to see him in secret behind his wife's back when he can sneak away because he has no sex anymore with the wife?! All of the agony aunts online would tell a man who chanced to ask her for it to get lost. The same applies to someone who is a professional new age therapist. And those who work as a good old fashioned mystic, one of those mystical agony aunts, known as a clairvoyant reader. No intelligent woman would be interested. Hence the married person may say they will leave their spouse as soon as they can or that they cannot leave because of finances or the children in the hope that the potential secret lover feels sorry for them and foregoes their own happiness to give them what they want. Which is very selfish. Most of the women who contact us for advice about love affairs and relationships do so because they have got involved with such a person and then regret it. Yet they knew that the person they were getting involved with was married or in a relationship when they got involved! Daft eh. Some crave being loved so much that they mistake opportunists and chancers for people who will care about them and really and truly love them.
It would be great if we could ask someone and get an honest answer or fit each new person we meet with a lie detector because many of them will just tell us what we want to hear – or what they think we want to hear – just to get what they want. If you get suspicious they say you are being paranoid and maybe you are, so what do you believe? Many of the people who are in such a situation resort to following their mate to find out if they are meeting someone, checking their bank statements, phone calls, jackets, pockets and maybe even paying a private detective to check them out and find out for sure. All very understandable but unless you mean war or wanting to end it if you find out for sure it is all pointless as finding out and then staying just hurts you all the more.
