I Can’t Stop Cheating

 

If you’re in a love relationship and you can’t stop cheating, the first step is to consider the idea that you have an emotional problem. Plainly put, you have an underlying problem with emotional intimacy. If you can accept that you have a love life problem, with enough self-dedication, you’ll be able to change your “Psychological Love Life.” That’s your “internal love life blueprint” that unconsciously recreates the love life you will inevitably experience. The only real way to change your love life for the better, is to identify your own unique Psychological Love Life and change it.

Now there are a couple of different kinds of cheating, and one is harder to change than the other. Type 1: The most difficult kind is cheating as an addiction or compulsion. This mean you cheat because you have to. It’s just what you do when you fall in love. You don’t even have to think about it much. It always happens when you’re in love, period. The reason this is harder to cure is because there’s something about emotional intimacy that scares you and you don’t know why. By that I mean, you’re good at putting it to the side, and not thinking about it. Or you tell yourself you just haven’t found the right person yet.

Like any other addiction, you won’t make any headway changing yourself until you can stop cheating, at least temporarily. Take a break, because you now know cheating, as a compulsive activity, is unhealthy and will ruin your love life. Chances are you’ll be alone, older, and still trying to cheat, if you don’t. When you take a break from cheating, and dedicate yourself to changing your Psychological Love Life, the temporary absence of cheating as a defensive distraction away from your emotional intimacy problem, will permit your relevant personal issues to emerge into your consciousness so you can work on them.

Once conscious, you can start to figure out what all the running away from emotional intimacy is about in your love life. You might find out that at one point or another in your life, starting at the beginning of your life, you’ve experienced some kind of unresolved hurt in love that keeps you from ever needing somebody again in such a vulnerable way. Keeping love relationships superficially intimate, focused on attraction instead of relationship, and with several people at a time, is an effective way of trying to “avoid” additional anticipated hurt.

Also, consider the possibility that you may have learned that cheating is part of a person’s love life in adulthood. Perhaps that was  taught to you by a parent or somebody else you looked up to when you were younger. This kind of learning, especially if it’s unknown to you, can strongly reinforce the compulsive need to keep this defensive habit going, no matter what.

Type 2: Then there is cheating because you are not getting what you “need” from someone you are in a love relationship with. Cheating being the easiest way not to solve the problem of emotional intimacy by burying your resentment and adding another person to your love life. Now this kind of cheating, called infidelity when you’re married, always occurs in the context of a particular, supposedly committed, love relationship. It exists because of an unresolved relationship or marital problem.

In most instances of this type of cheating, the person you are in a love relationship is loved by you, with no intention of being “laid off” by you, so to speak. Without really thinking about it, you simply feel you can’t solve your relationship problem in any other way. Of course, your relationship problem can exist in many different forms: less sex than you feel you should get or need (a common reason among male cheaters), a feeling of not being loved (a common reason among female cheaters), etc.

It’s also common for this kind of cheating to produce what I like to call unhealthy “love triangles.” Example, a committed man and two women, one being his wife. Or a committed woman and two men, one being her husband. Apart from all the emotional pain this limited love triangle will produce, it will never solve the original emotional intimacy problem that continues to exist.

Lastly, the “cure” for this type of cheating can be difficult for most Type 2 cheaters. It requires open admission of cheating to a partner, then a motivated effort to solve the emotional intimacy problem with your love partner in or out of couple therapy. By the way, the admission of cheating is important, and understandably most people try to get around it. By removing the secrecy, it puts the decision to stay or leave the relationship evenly in two people’s hands. If you tell your love partner you’ve been cheating on him or her, and sincerely want to work on your relationship with him or her, taking the risk to admit the reality, gets you started on the road to recovery. The rest depends on whether or not your partner decides to risk staying in a love relationship with someone who has already lied and is promising not to lie again.

Comments? Tell me about your love life experience…

Dr. Thomas Jordan, clinical psychologist, interpersonal psychoanalyst, author of Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life. Telehealth Love Life Consultations are available. They’re strictly confidential and convenient. Contact me at 212-875-0154 or drtomjordan@lovelifelearningcenter.com       for details.

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Dr. Jordan

Dr. Thomas Jordan is a clinical psychologist, certified interpersonal psychoanalyst, author, professor, and love life researcher.

11 Comments

  1. Paul on February 28, 2023 at 2:37 pm

    I would like help for my cheating

  2. Blanca on October 29, 2024 at 9:39 pm

    I’m having an affair with a married man. Please call my number is 7862470657

    • Dr. Jordan on October 30, 2024 at 9:18 pm

      Tell me something about your situation. DrJ

  3. Ellen on January 22, 2025 at 8:08 am

    It’s just in my dna lol

    OH

    • Dr. Jordan on January 29, 2025 at 7:12 pm

      Hello Ellen, Using men, or otherwise exploiting them, is a love life problem because as an habitual activity it will inevitably interfere with emotional intimacy. My guess is there is some underlying hurt and anger involved. Problem is, the hurt and anger are not being resolved as long as the exploitation is ongoing. In my experience, once a person becomes aware of the hurt underlying indirect aggressive acts like exploitation, they can begin to heal the hurt and release their love life from the feelings involved. If you are willing to acknowledge to yourself that using men is a problem that is currently dominating your love life, you could then find a counselor or therapist to help you resolve it and move past it for a more satisfying love life. Dr. Jordan

  4. Ellen on January 22, 2025 at 8:10 am

    Call me on +44 7388 516673

    I need to stop using men it isn’t right

    OH

  5. Bradley on March 9, 2025 at 4:09 am

    I can’t stop I could really used your help.

    • Dr. Jordan on March 9, 2025 at 5:11 am

      Tell me more about what you are going through.

      Dr.Jordan

  6. Jules on March 11, 2025 at 12:39 am

    My husband is a type 1 and it kills me inside each and every day. He doesn’t seem to understand how he is hurting me but it’s a compulsion I will also never understand… I used to hire PIs to help with anxiety but now I’m so numb on the inside that I don’t even recognize myself anymore.. I pray he stumbles upon your blog…

  7. Max on April 2, 2025 at 3:13 am

    I am married, my wife is amazing in everything and i do love her but i still cheat. I really love her but i feel embarrassed to try the things i do with other women with her. I feel i am not able to do these things to her, i genuinely love her, worry about her but i for some reason i cant think of having sex with her. I could go and sleep with women less attractive than my wife but when it comes to my wife i really find it hard to want to have sex with her.

    • Dr. Jordan on April 2, 2025 at 5:17 pm

      Hello Max, thank you for visiting my blog. I think you have several questions to ask yourself. First, do I have a sexual addiction? If yes, it means that you are practicing compulsive sex and it should be looked upon as an addiction like any other form of addiction. One sign is that you would cheat no matter who you were married to. This kind of addiction will put severe limits on your ability to have a committed love relationship and you should seek out help to control it. Next question, did I learn somewhere in my younger years that men cheat in adulthood love relationships? Sometimes we get this kind of learning in the family of origin because the older men in the family cheat and it gets passed down as the thing to do when you are married. Next question, is your marriage a relationship you can work on? What that means is, if something (s) changed in you, in her, would it make a difference to you and whether or not you seek out extra-marital affairs? If the answer is yes, I would look into hiring a couple therapist or marital therapist to see the both of you and figure out what can be done to improve your marriage. That of course would include sexually but not exclusively. Sometimes, limitations in how emotionally intimate you can be with somebody you love will affect how comfortable you are having sex with them. Also, sometimes, people change when they get married. For example, I’ve known couples to have great sex before they were married then the sex starts going away after being married for a while. Not just because of being together for a while, but because of some issue like kids come into the picture and the couple forgets what it is like to be romantic (just parental) or it gets harder to have the kind of sex you used to have when you were freer and more open now that family life and motherhood has become a priority. Sometimes, people let themselves go after getting married (appearance changes, no more sexiness, or romantic interests). Just things to think about as you contemplate how you might fix this problem. I am assuming your wife does not know about this problem. She may suspect. I have known men who took a chance and revealed the truth usually in a couple session and reported that it helped them change. Think about what would work for you. Good luck Max, Dr. Jordan

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