Resisting Revenge When Your Spouse Cheats

When I get word about couples that are cheating on their spouses, my first gut feeling is to feel bad for the spouse that doesn't know. You know the one that is continuing their life in a blissful-type of existence, misled by the assumption that their spouse is as loyal and true to them as they are. 

It's a pleasant feeling, seeing and reading of other couples disloyalty problems, not considering for even a moment that it could be happening to you.

Until reality sets in.

If the actuality of unfaithfulness or doubt has bitten your relationship, it’s time to bite back.

It may be a steady feeling of nervousness, a noticed brief instant of eye contact between your spouse and another person, a remark out of context by a buddy or colleague, a story that doesn't quite add up. But in that short moment, the base of assurance placed in your spouse and marriage starts to fall apart.

After the first shock that it could even be happening, many people declare payback, vengeance, and one of the more universal reactions in terms of payback is the attraction to have an affair in revenge.

A retaliatory affair would seem the most improbable thing to do, bearing in mind the pain that the first matter caused, but it seems to be an escalating phenomenon, at least from the partial research I have done with members who have kindly offered feedback. To be frank, a retaliatory affair was the last kind of response I would have expected.

Sure, the fury is real, as are the thoughts of hurt and disloyalty, but fascinatingly many women and men who spoke to me were single-minded that they wouldn't be seen as victims. Far from it, in fact, and many were firm to retaliate and do it in such a way that their spouse may feel some of the hurt that they feel at the time.

Let's be truthful. Every one of us have times in our lives when we see someone that we believe to be very attractive, either a beautiful face, a gorgeous grin, a wonderfully balanced body, or a confident appearance that seemed both magnetic and fascinating. Good looking people are all around us. Yet it would never come to our minds to take our initial thought or attraction to a person to the point where we would consider entering into a sexual bond with them. After all, being married is a vow, a pledge of loyalty, a vow to honor one another.

We see good looks, but we don't feel the pressure to act on it.

However when your partner departs from this promise in such an appalling and upsetting fashion, it leaves many questioning their beliefs, and certainly their fidelity. If their fidelity has resulted in them being cheated on and hurt so badly, certainly it is okay to sleep with someone else to 'even out the playing field,' so to speak?

That co-worker that has made brief eye contact with you at the printer machine, the shop assistant that has involuntarily flirted with you, the friend of a friend that has made a point of talking to you at parties and notes on your looks, an ex whose phone details you still have or remember, all of these people are now possible playmates. After all, if it's good enough for your other half to do it, surely there's nothing wrong with you doing it as well?

The one resolve for people in this position is that if they are going to have an affair they will do it better and with someone hotter.

Now I'm not saying all sufferers of cheating end up doing this, because many don't. But the hasty reaction to go out and have an affair as well is a frequent reaction that many people gravely think about and follow through.

Your first response should be to get rid of all doubt.

But does sleeping with someone else really make the betrayal hurt less? Does it make you feel recovered? Or is it one of those things you do at the time that you later live to lament?

I'm not going to tell you if it's right or wrong, as it's a opinion call that each of you are called to make as you chew over the reality of faithlessness in your marriage.

But if it is something that you are gravely contemplating, have you given it enough consideration? How are you going to feel at the instant you are cheating on your spouse? How are you going to feel after? Can you live with the awareness and the penalty of your actions?

For many, it's a 'yes.' But for many others, it brings a whole new raft of issues to what is already an emotionally-charged condition.

Interesting thought though. Is revenge in the form of an affair okay or not? Would it make you feel superior or worse?