Cheating, which is a kind of violation of marital boundaries, means breaking promises made within the relationship and destroying dreams, whether it is clearly present or assumed. As mentioned before, infidelity has an important place among the reasons for the breakdown of marital life and divorce. Although it does not always result in divorce, infidelity always affects relationships, and for most couples this effect is negative and painful.
When men suspect that their wives are sexually cheating on them or are aware of the existence of an extramarital affair, sometimes domestic violence occurs. and can pave the way for sexual coercion.
In addition to behavioral consequences such as cheating and aggression, it brings with it a combination of various distressing emotions such as sadness, anger, anxiety, shame, revenge, hurt, jealousy and embarrassment. It stimulates feelings such as the threat of abandonment, separation anxiety, and generalized anxiety in the cheating spouse, and may cause old fears to re-emerge. It is humiliating to the spouse by making him/her feel that he/she is not in control of his/her destiny. Although the painful feelings that arise in infidelity may be intense at first for some, they disappear over time, and for others, they leave permanent scars on people's self-concept. However, no matter what, it can be said that the pain caused by the cheating experience cannot be completely erased, it is hidden somewhere in the past, and triggering situations can remind old pains even in people who seem to have digested this event.
The way cheating is learned seems to play a role in the impact the event will have on the relationship. Accordingly, catching the spouse in a cheating situation and learning about the existence of a cheating relationship from another person are the types of learning that create the most negative consequences on the quality of the relationship and are the most difficult to forgive. Compared to these, learning about the existence of cheating by asking questions about the relationship is less harmful to the quality of the relationship, but learning in this way is more damaging than if the cheater spontaneously confesses the situation. When it comes to evaluating the way of learning about the cheating relationship as a reason for ending the relationship, the spouse's spontaneous confession is irrelevant. It is the type of learning that takes the least amount of time. Finding out about the spouse after being told by a third person is usually the type of learning that has the most devastating effect on the relationship.
Learning about the cheating relationship can also pave the way for problems to arise in a wider environment outside of the deceived person. For example, it can cause serious suffering in children, extended family, friends, and people in cheating relationships. Even if children do not clearly learn about the existence of cheating, they can react to this situation by noticing the change in the climate at home.
Cheating can lead to negative situations on the cheating party as well as on the cheating spouse. The cheating spouse experiences feelings of loss and shame at the same time, as he is both labeled and faces serious judgment.
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