Everything I Assumed About Cheating and Affairs Was Wrong…

Years ago I wrote a romance with a cheating spouse. She was my heroine. Either readers sympathized with her, or more often than not, they hated her.

I loved her.

In my mind, and my book, Hannah was a woman in an unhappy and emotionally abusive marriage who was striking out to find herself. Along the way, she met a good man who could love her or save her, or maybe a little bit of both. I thought it was sweet. She solved the marriage problem she hadn’t addressed head-on, bonded with her dog, found love, and then got her happily ever after. In my mind, the crappy husband she had deserved it.

Then how I thought of affairs changed. Why?

I met a cheater. Met, dated, broke up with, whatever. (FYI, he was one month into his separation when I met him). Let’s call him Carl.

Before I met Carl, I’d thought very little about cheating. I wouldn’t do it. I assumed my ex wouldn’t do it. The idea was relegated to thought experiments that surfaced when watching shows like Oprah.

The debate, it seemed, was whether women (and these hosts mostly focused on women) should leave or whether they should stay and work on the marriage. It was the kind of thing I’d debate in my head for a few minutes, then when the talk show was over, I’d move on to prepping dinner and getting on with the remainder of my evening.

The cheater I met cheated from day one right until the end. Carl spun tales of duplicitousness, deception, justification, and entitlement. His wife had kids and a job and ailing parents and couldn’t focus on his needs 24/7 which in his mind, meant he deserved to seek attention from other women.

The cheater’s tales were… jaw-dropping. It’s like reading true crime, then meeting a serial killer. Entertaining from afar, scary as hell up close.

In the two-plus years since I published Abused, tens of thousands of you have downloaded the book. In it, one of the point of view characters, Lulu Mueller is the other woman. The married man who pursued her, Richard Sinclair is full of the usual justifications, his wife doesn’t understand him, her job as a surgeon keeps her too busy to attend to his needs, and their marriage is dead. For all of my readers who email and ask what happened to Lulu, I’m writing the book that answers the question right now, called His Last Mistress.

Writing this first draft has thrown me into the deep end of thoughts on infidelity. A Google rabbit hole led me to a blog, ChumpLady.com and the author, Tracy Schorn’s book, Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life: The Chump Lady's Survival Guide.

Reading a few (okay 100+) posts on her blog and the book was like a slap in the face. She had two views.

First, she believes many therapists, advice columnists, and charlatans (collectively the Reconciliation Industrial Complex) are in the camp that cheaters cheat because of marriage deficits. The betrayer need only apologize, and the person betrayed only commits to working on the marriage, it can be saved., many say.

Second, Schorn posits, that cheaters cheat because they can. They want to have their cake and eat it too. Folks who step outside their marriage like to keep the status quo. They want their spouse at home cooking, cleaning, child caring, sexing, and catering to the cheater. They also want an outside affair partner who can idolize, sympathize, and provide admiration, affection, sexing, and catering to the cheater. All the cake!

It was as if someone had turned a blurry lens before my eyes and all became clear. Schorn’s descriptions of cheaters gave me shivers. It was as if she’d been sitting as a third person at the table as the cheater I dated, patiently and slowly explained to my obviously thick head why he insisted that he was in the ‘right’ all these years to have put his needs above his wife and family’s.

ChumpLady pointed out that cheaters were almost always dishonest in other parts of their lives.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Carl didn’t pay bills, was on the verge of bankruptcy, stopped paying the mortgage on the house he still owned with his wife without telling her, and committed insurance fraud not once, but twice in the few months I knew him.

This was not the noble, misunderstood soul, I imagined cheaters would be. These were people who would lie to the one person they’d pledged monogamy, expose their spouse to STDs, and steal money from the marriage as a cherry on top of that sh*t pie.

Lessons learned, I will go forward with a much more critical eye toward those who betray their marriage vows. Richard Sinclair’s character will face the blazing heat of a thousand suns from my keyboard.

Oh, and to answer the question I’m sure you’re asking, yes Carl promised, swore that he’d never cheat on me because I was perfect. (LOL).

Though I knew once I’d turned my attention to anything but him, he’d seek out solace elsewhere. I moved on long before that happened. Unfortunately, I don’t know if Lulu Mueller is going to do the same.

Aime Austin is the author of the Casey Cort and Nicole Long Series of legal thrillers. She is also the host of the podcast, A Time to Thrill. When she's not writing crime fiction or interviewing brilliant creators for her podcast, she's in a yoga pose, knitting, or reading. Aime splits her time between Los Angeles and Budapest. Before turning to writing, Aime practiced family and criminal law in Cleveland, Ohio.

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