The easiest excuse? Denying it. \u201cMost cheaters immediately deny wrongdoing,\u201d New York\u2013based relationship and etiquette expert of Relationship Advice Forum, April Masini, tells Bustle. \u201cIt\u2019s the easiest excuse to get out of their mouths, quickly.<\/p>\n
And for victims who are not ready for the truth, that denial may give them relief, at least temporarily. And, if it does bring them relief, they\u2019ll back off, making the denial a great tool for cheaters who don\u2019t want conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
When my husband accused me of being out of my mind for thinking he was cheating, I lost it. Not just because I knew I wasn\u2019t, but because I\u2019m so tired of men gaslighting women. Gaslighting isn\u2019t just messed up, but a form of abuse, and when someone calls your mental stability into question that\u2019s exactly what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
As Masini says, \u201cCheaters who try to make accusers think they\u2019re [out of their mind]\u2026 will not only deny any wrongdoing, but they\u2019ll try to spin the truth to make it seem like the accuser is out of his or her mind and is really losing it.\u201d Basically, gaslighting is designed to make you think your instincts are out of whack, Masini says.<\/p>\n
Cheaters who have long relationships with their betraying partners, because those partners are work colleagues, spouses of friends or neighbors, for instance, may try to slough off the cheating as a \u2018just friends\u2019 situation,\u201d says Masini.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may try to get you to believe that late-night phone calls were innocent and that receipts from dinners or hotels were simply platonic situations that the accuser is misinterpreting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although love and sex can exist without the other, does it \u201cjust being sex\u201d and \u201cjust happening once\u201d make it OK? It depends on your relationship, tolerance, and ability to forgive.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheaters who are caught red-handed and can\u2019t use the denial, gaslighting, or downplaying a relationship to just good friends, may admit to indiscretion, but lie about the frequency and timeline of the illicit relationship,\u201d says Masini.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheaters who are chronic cheaters may actually end the cheating, or else just tell their partners that they\u2019re ending the cheating\u2026 but they don\u2019t,\u201d says Masini.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may intentionally lie about ending the affair, or they may intend to end it, but succumb to desire instead. Either way, the excuse, \u2018It\u2019s over,\u2019 doesn\u2019t stick. When victims have heard this excuse more than once, it becomes harder to accept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Again, we have an example of sex being just that: sex. But while that may be true, from a physical aspect, it doesn\u2019t erase the fact that deception and betrayal are part of the equation.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheaters who subscribe to the \u2018don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u2019 mentality, resort to this excuse, \u2018It didn\u2019t mean anything,\u2019 more often than other cheaters,\u201d says Masini.<\/p>\n
Last, but certainly not least, is the cheater playing the victim to gain sympathy, while promising to sign up for sex addiction therapy, as we\u2019ve seen so many times with celebrity couples where one partner has cheated.
\nBut just because someone cheats, it doesn\u2019t necessarily make them a sex addict. If anything, claiming such an addiction because one lacks self-control is severely insulting to those who actually struggle with sex addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheaters who, when caught, say, \u2018I need help!\u2019 try to turn the empathy onto themselves, so that they don\u2019t have to take responsibility for their behavior,\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I Didn\u2019t Do It. It Wasn\u2019t Me. The easiest excuse? Denying it. \u201cMost cheaters immediately deny wrongdoing,\u201d New York\u2013based relationship and etiquette expert of Relationship Advice Forum, April Masini, tells Bustle. \u201cIt\u2019s the easiest excuse to get out of their mouths, quickly. And for victims who are not ready for the truth, that denial may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-daily-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4329,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4327\/revisions\/4329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}