Asking why he cheated won’t give you the answer you’re actually looking for.
I spent a lot of time in the early weeks asking why. Going over everything, looking for the thing I missed or the thing I could have done differently. It’s what you do when you’re trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.
Eventually I stopped. Not because I found the answer, but because I found something better — the understanding that the answer was never really mine to find.
I came across this piece from Huffington Post during that season and it said what I needed to hear clearly and without softening it. I’m sharing it here with attribution because it helped me, and maybe it’ll help someone else going through the same thing.
The following is based on an article by Cathy Meyer, originally published on Huffington Post.
The first thing to understand is this: knowing why he cheated won’t stop it from happening again, and it won’t make the pain smaller. That’s a hard thing to accept when your mind is still running through every possible explanation. But the reason it won’t help is simple — you’re not a cheater. You respected the boundaries of your relationship. And because of that, you will never fully understand how his mind works from the inside.
What you can understand is this: cheating is a character flaw, not a relationship problem. It comes from poor impulse control, an inability to sit with discomfort, and the mistaken belief that going outside the relationship will solve something inside it. The guys who cheat aren’t asking themselves why — they’re too busy using the distraction to avoid dealing with whatever they don’t want to face.
Here are five reasons it happens, none of which have anything to do with you:
1. He convinces himself his needs aren’t being met. So he goes looking elsewhere and tells himself it’s justified. In his version of events, as long as you don’t know, no one is being hurt. It’s a delusion that keeps the relationship intact on the surface while he avoids doing the actual work of fixing anything.
2. He has no real respect for boundaries. He knows the rules. He just doesn’t feel bound by them. And the harder you try to explain why he should treat you better, the more you unknowingly signal that he can keep doing it.
3. He likes the thrill. For some, it has less to do with the other person and more to do with the act itself — the secrecy, the risk, the taboo of it. It’s about the chase more than anything else.
4. He ties his identity to how many people want him. His sense of self-worth runs on external validation. Every proposition he entertains feels like confirmation that he’s desirable. It’s not about you at all — it’s about what he needs to feel like he’s enough.
5. He’s hiding something about himself. Sometimes cheating is less about the relationship and more about something he hasn’t been willing to face or disclose. He may genuinely care about you and still go looking for something elsewhere because he hasn’t been honest with himself.
Whatever the reason, it belongs to him. Not you.
If he ever tries to tell you it happened because of problems in the relationship, remember this: you were living in that same relationship. You had the same problems, the same frustrations, the same bad days. And you didn’t cheat. That choice was always available to him too. He just didn’t make it.
That’s on him. Not you.
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