Cheating in Abusive Relationships

By Christine Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

When we started looking more closely at the experiences of the participants in our research who reported sexual abuse within past abusive relationships for this month’s focus on “Healthy Sexuality, Healthy Relationships,” one experience jumped out as common for many participants. Many of these participants reported that their partners had been unfaithful to them once or more throughout the course of their relationships.

Now, the question of whether any form of infidelity is a form of abuse is one that we could debate (for example, see these posts from First Wives World and Your Tango). Infidelity is a violation of the trust and commitment that a person makes to his or her partner. Also, the person who has been cheated on often is emotionally devastated and may face physical health risks (e.g., sexually transmitted infections) and financial losses (such as when the unfaithful partner spends the couple’s shared money on the affair) as a result of the infidelity. Certainly, there are some parallels between infidelity and abuse, but we can save that full debate for another day.

For today, I want to focus on some of the stories we heard from survivors of intimate partner violence who participated in our research. One aspect of their partners’ abuse and mistreatment of them involved infidelity. What’s more, as the following quotes show, often the infidelity was weaved into other abusive dynamics in their relationships. The following quotes came from participants who reported sexual abuse in their past abusive relationships:

• “After many times trying to leave I had grown strength to leave.  The last situation was me going to his apartment and being confronted by a woman who stated she was sleeping with him and that he was cheating on me.  He denied it with her right there, but she stated many intimate details about his sexual preference that pretty much confirmed him cheating.  (I had known he was cheating before but didn't have proof or was too weak to leave).”
  
• “He chose one of his affair girlfriends over his marriage.”
  
• “He cheated on me and I ended the relationship”
  
• “Caught him cheating.”
  
• “When my second daughter was just a few months old my husband beat me and told me he had found someone else.”
  
• “He had an affair but refused to leave, we tried to reconcile for 12 months but we finally split when he assaulted me for the umpteenth time.”
  
• “He blamed me for the failure of our marriage and asked for divorce, but I later discovered  he had been in a 10 year relationship with another woman and he had possibly fathered a child with her.”
  
• “He was emotionally abusive--cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend, very critical, especially about my appearance, said derogatory things about women, changing his mind all the time about what he wanted the relationship to be.”
  
• “He was a cheater and a abuser.”
  
• “Also had a baby with a 16 year old girl while we were  married. Slept with my only sister and my best friend while she was pregnant.”
  
  

These quotes illustrate how infidelity can become part of abusive relationship dynamics. One aspect of this that is especially troubling to me is that we also heard from many of our participants about just how controlling their partners were of their own actions, whereabouts, and social interactions. Consider, for example, the following participants’ quotes:

• “He controlled everything and did what he wanted to do, no need to discuss it with me.”
  
• “My abuser controlled finances, transportation, and face-to-face contact with family and friends.”
  
• “I had little say in decisions that were made, either larger or smaller day-to-day decisions.”
  
• “My every single move was controlled.”
  
  

It seems all too common in abusive relationships that an abusive partner wants complete control over their partner’s lives, and yet they still get to live life by their own set of rules. This is a dangerous double standard--one person can do anything they want, including being unfaithful, while the other person’s every move is monitored and controlled.

All too often victims and survivors are blamed for their partners’ behaviors by their abusers, their friends and family members, and others. We need to continue to work to ensure that every person who chooses to use violent, hurtful, and abusive behaviors within relationships is held fully accountable for those actions. As the experiences of the participants quoted here show, we need to ensure that infidelity is included in our understanding of these abusive behaviors.