Indulgent Infidelity: I Deserved to Cheat
It’s been stated that people lead lives of quiet desperation, and this sentiment can also apply to relationships, especially long-term relationships and marriages with heavy obligations and commitments. So after years of dealing with raising kids, PTA meetings, working overtime to pay for the extra expenses your family needs and supporting your spouse in their own pursuit of happiness, you feel entitled to some satisfaction of your own. Thus, you’re more than okay with enjoying some tail on the side.
It’s not that your husband or wife isn’t satisfying to you or that your marriage is even rocky; you’re probably just feeling overworked and underappreciated, and need some release, something naughty and discreet to keep a small smile on your face while you’re busting your tail to make everyone but yourself happy. A simple need for release is one of many causes of infidelity.
If you think about this “naughty indulgence,” do you feel guilty afterwards? If so, do you still feel as if you deserved the affair for some reason? Do you enjoy the pleasure you derive from your secret encounters, yet feel you would be alright if it ended suddenly? Should you say yes to these questions, then this affair was more than likely an innocent affair. (Not innocent in the sense it was pure and just and morally acceptable, simply in that there existed no intentional desire to inflict harm on your spouse or anyone else for the sake of your pleasure.)
According to relationship and marital infidelity expert Mira Kirshenbaum, overwhelming feelings of guilt mislead cheating men and women to give more credence to their affairs than is necessary. Handling an indulgence affair is a simple feat: write it off as just that- an illicit indulgence that has no real meaning attributed to it. It was something you needed at the moment, for whatever reason, and move past it. If you feel pressed to investigate your infidelity, take a moment to reflect on why you were unfulfilled in your primary relationship, and take the time to restore that missing element to your marriage.
Although you have cheated on your husband or wife, and feel entitled to have done so, you may still feel burdened with confusing, tumultuous emotions on how to heal from your infidelity and move on. Mira Kirshenbaum’s book, When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships
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