Spinning stories out of S*@t

I was asked recently why people cheat. We had been having a conversation about how cheating is fantasy, how affairs are a distraction from uncomfortable feelings, such as grief, or loneliness, or anxiety, or depression. The common denominator, I had said, based on so many of the stories I read on this site, was that the affair had far less to do with the actual affair partner than with what she represented: the opportunity to be someone else, even briefly. To exit the real world into a fantasy and become someone who wasn't saddled with a mortgage, a special needs child, an ailing parent, a dead-end job, a beer belly. The change to be who we always thought we'd be – exciting, interesting, successful, sexy. That's what we're chasing when we're cheating, the fantasy of our other self.
Yes, was the reply, but we all have those feelings. Lots of us have suffered disappointments, lots of us have stressors in our lives. But why do some cheat and others don't?

Let me present this caveat: I am not an expert. I don't have years of schooling to help me understand human behaviour. What I do have is more than a decade curating your stories on this site.
And here's what I've learned:
People who cheat are those who've created a narrative that somehow makes cheating okay. Or understandable. To put it in the vernacular: They believe their own bullshit. 

Bullshit story #1: "My wife doesn't love me." 
So cliché, right? It's the story of every pathetic guy on a barstool hitting on the 20-something woman beside him. And he's probably convinced himself it's true. No matter that this wife is likely sitting at home while he's out getting sauced at his corner pub, no matter that she has at least as much incentive to cheat as he does, this is the tale he tells. He's unloved. Unappreciated. Unwanted. Disrespected. And so...who could blame him, right? After all, his wife probably wouldn't even care. She'd probably be glad to be off the hook, to not be saddled with his sorry self. 
These are the guys who are utterly bewildered when D-Day arrives, the proverbial cat is out of the bag and their wife is devastated. This is where the story they've been telling themselves falls completely apart. When it's revealed as a fiction.
Because this bullshit story is about entitlement. When you're the unappreciated husband of a total shrew, you deserve a woman who appreciates you, don't you? What red-blooded man wouldn't cheat under those circumstances? 
Guys who believe him are so busy feeling sorry for themselves that they can't fathom the role they play in their lives. They're just good guys and life has let them down. They wallow in the self-pity of their fabricated narrative. 

Bullshit story #2: "We couldn't help it"
Ah yes, the "we just fell into bed and never intended to hurt anyone" story. This was the story offered by my husband's OW. "We never meant to hurt you," she told me, in all sincerity. To which I cried, "bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing. And, since your husband had already done this to you, you knew exactly how much it hurt."
Nobody "falls into bed" without having to cross a whole lot of red lines before you get there. Whether those lines took minutes or months to cross doesn't matter. 
But here's another consideration: Did she know how much it hurt? Was she so divorced from her own emotions that doing to another woman what had been done to her might have tasted like vindication more than betrayal. This was a woman who spent most of her free time on her way to the bottom of a vodka bottle. She wasn't someone who closely examined her motives or considered the repercussions. And, frankly, neither did my husband. Affairs were distractions, self-medicating, a way to avoid thinking. Because to think might have revealed that what they were telling themselves was total bullshit. 

Bullshit story #3: "It's harmless"
A friend confided in me a few years ago that she had met someone interesting on the plane who held an important position for our city. Flying high above their day-to-day lives and released from routine responsibility, the two laughed and shared stories. My friend felt invigorated by the exchange. This man was attractive. He made her feel interesting. He suggested they meet for drinks. My friend told me that she was considering it.
"But you're married," I responded. "And so is he."
"It's would be harmless," she said. "We're just friends. He wants to help my career."
Those of us who've been down this road likely have alarm bells sounding at that exchange, huh? There's so much wrong with this. She found him attractive. She was at a vulnerable point in her marriage with her husband travelling frequently for work. She was intoxicated by his interest in her.
Harmless? Nope. Bullshit? Yep. 

Affairs are like little bubbles of alternate reality into which you've invited someone who is not your wife. It might be shared confidences, it might be an after-work drink, it might be a lingering look, it might be a genuine physical attraction (it's not wrong to feel attracted to another person, it's wrong to act on it in any way that your marriage partner wouldn't thumbs up). 
No matter where it starts, an affair has required both partners to step over lines that should be signalling a clear boundary violation. It has required the construction of a narrative that makes cheating not only somehow okay but inevitable. It requires a belief that we are not agents of our own behaviour but someone helpless against forces stronger than ourselves. When we have successfully absolved ourselves of responsibility, cheating becomes something that happens to us rather than a choice we make. And with the bullshit belief that cheating happens passively comes an inevitability and the chance to throw up our hands and feign shock that we're eyeball deep in an affair that, frankly, is starting to get a bit tiresome. 

Cheaters traffic in bullshit even when they're unconscious of it, especially when they're unconscious of it. They've lied to their marriage partners, they've lied to their affair partners, and, frankly, they've mostly lied to themselves. 
Which is why the antidote to a cheater's toxic thinking is to pull it into harsh glare of daylight.
Your wife doesn't love you? Where's the evidence of that?
It just happened? Then why hasn't it "just happened" for the rest of us?
It's harmless? Then why is your wife falling to pieces, your kids aren't speaking to you, you're at risk of losing your job and the lunatic OW is making wedding plans on Facebook?
Part of a cheater's responsibility in the wake of D-Day, if he's truly committed to understand how he allowed himself to cheat when it violates his own value system, is to look at the bullshit stories he told himself, to begin to understand how those narratives gave him subconscious permission to cheat, and to become aware when he begins spinning those stories again. 
Only when he can smell his own bullshit can those of us married to these guys begin to feel safe enough to trust them again.