Is there Such a Thing as Chronic Infidelity? Looking at Cheating as Sickness

“It will never happen again, honey,” husbands and wives often vow after they have had an affair, and then end it out of guilt. Sometimes, it never does happen again, and the husband or wife has full trust in his or her partner, respectively, after some period of recovery. However, there is no guarantee that cheating cannot recur, and more than three or four or even five times.

Is there such a thing as chronic infidelity? Is infidelity a sickness, or is it a sign of a deeper human weakness? Although no one study has been done to completely identify a Cheating Gene or a Cheating Disease, cheating can be examined at two different levels: one’s own weakness and susceptibility to temptation, and a chemical predisposition to be addicted to certain things associated with cheating.

Looking at Cheating from the Level of Human Weakness

Nearly all people want their lives to be more exciting – and what can add to this zest and excitement but an affair that has to be kept under wraps? And what can make an affair all the more tempting than a marriage that is growing to be more and more boring each day? This need for variation and change can often lead to an affair and make cheating all the more easy to do.

Some people might also mistake affairs as harmless bits of fun that can be sprinkled into a marriage without causing damage. Out of human weakness perhaps, they try to find excuses for their doings and justify an affair as a reward for work, or as something that might strengthen the marriage. At this level, cheating might be considered not so much a sickness, but as something that humans can be prone to doing.

So what might chronic cheating be? It might be a person falling prey to human nature. But like all other faults in our lives that can be attributed to human nature, cheating or the temptation to cheat can certainly be overcome. It’s human nature to want to eat, but we can control overeating; it’s human nature to want to sleep, but we can’t loaf around all day; so why can’t we control cheating

Looking at Cheating from the Level of Addiction

According to many recent studies, people become more prone to succumbing to addiction if they have certain levels of certain molecules in their veins or bloodstreams. This can mean that they are more prone to cheat, perhaps on the basis of being addicted to attention, or being addicted to sex that they might not get so easily within a marriage.

This, of course, does not mean that cheating should be condoned. In fact, author Kay Rutherford (Kmrutherford@viterbo.edu), who has a study on infidelity, encourages spouses to fight back, and even goes so far as to encourage no forgiveness. This can actually save people from the abuse of infidelity, whether chronic or one-time.