Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from wives and women who ask me if cheaters have a conscience. But there seems to be a special category in this question for husbands. People seem to think that infidelity is a worse offense if a husband cheats. After all, he has made a lifetime commitment to be loyal to one person and he has broken that commitment by cheating. Not only that, but many husbands are also fathers. Many people feel that, in a sense, they are cheating on their family as well as their spouse.

I often hear comments like: “does my husband have no conscience at all? We are going through a huge amount of stress in our lives right now. He knows that I’m struggling. But instead of having patience and being there for me, he goes out and cheats with someone else. And when I confronted him, rather than being sorry, he made all sorts of excuses. He sounded like he blamed me more than he blamed himself. How could someone with a conscience do this? How could the guilt not be eating him up inside? If I cheated on him, I’m not sure if I could live with myself. And yet, he almost acts like he was justified in his actions.”

I think that in situations like this, what I’m really being asked is whether the husband realizes that his cheating is truly wrong and whether he feels any guilt or remorse. I do have some insight into this topic and I will discuss it more below.

In My Experience And Observation, Cheaters Really Fall Into Two Categories When It Comes To Guilt And How This Affects Their Conscience: I spend a lot of time chatting with others about this topic and I conducted a lot of research on this because of my own life. It’s my belief that you basically have two types of cheaters. The first type is the repeat cheater. It’s not uncommon for this type of person to be unfaithful in the majority of the relationships that they’ve been in.

A lot of the time, people will think that they can change this person. In fact, many relationships start out this way. What I mean by this is that I often hear from women who are dealing with infidelity with men they cheated with in the first place. She might have cheated with him previously and now he is cheating on her. So what you get is a pattern that continues to repeat itself because the person who is cheating is either not rehabilitated or doesn’t respect his relationships enough to remain faithful.

In cases such as this, it’s clear that the conscience of the person who is cheating is not affected enough to stop his behavior. He may tell you that he feels guilty and he may even experience a touch of guilt when he sees how much he has hurt someone else. But at the end of the day, his need for variety, his low self esteem (or the various reasons for his behavior) are greater than any guilt he might feel.

On the other hand, the other type of cheater is not a repeat offender. Usually, these are the people who don’t have any infidelity in their backgrounds. They tend to have long term relationships where they were loyal and faithful. But then something in their life, their circumstances, or their relationship causes them to make the decision to stray. These are the types that are often filled with remorse and this remorse and guilt affects them deeply enough that it stays with them and makes them less likely to cheat again.

Determining Whether He Feels Guilt Or Remorse For Cheating On You: The first basic question to ask is whether this is his first time cheating. Obviously, the more he has cheated, the less likely it is that guilt is having any effect on his behavior or thought process.

The next place to look would be at his behaviors and actions right now. I will say that some men will posture and attempt to act unaffected as a way to diminish your reaction. But usually, once you make it clear that this isn’t going to work, you will see their true feelings and where they actually stand. Every man and situation is different, but generally speaking, a man with a healthy conscience will feel enough guilt to sit down with you and try to explain what happened and why. And, if he’s still invested in the relationship, he will generally eventually be willing to work with you toward saving and strengthening it.

Some men are very demonstrative about their remorse. They will show a lot of emotions and feel anger at themselves and others are more soft spoken and introverted about the whole thing. (The level of emotion doesn’t necessarily correspond with the level of guilt.) But it’s often their actions (rather than their reactions and words) that will be the best indicator of how they truly feel. Men who are truly sorry will try to make this right to the best of their ability. (Keep in mind that their ability might be different than how you would react, but many try as best as they can.)

It’s Not Always Advisable To Dwell On A Man’s Guilty Conscience. Sometimes, This Can Backfire: It’s understandable to want to see some remorse. You want to know that he understands that his actions were wrong so that he is less likely to repeat them. But sometimes, people dwell on this so much that it becomes central part of the relationship.

Yes, he should be sorry, but he’s not going to want to feel badly about himself and dwell on negative emotions for the rest of his life. If you dwell too much on how horrible he should feel, he may begin to distance himself just because he associates you with feeling negatively about himself. No one wants to feel as though they are a bad person. It’s perfectly understandable to loathe the decision he made, but you don’t want to make him feel like you loathe him, especially if you want to save the relationship in the long term.