When you first learned that your spouse, whom you felt you could trust with every ounce of your being and never have to worry about, cheated on you, there is a surge of negative emotions that engulf you. You feel so angry and let down. Then it hits you: What were they thinking? Why Did They do it? How could someone you love hurt you so terribly? Why would they gamble their marriage for a few stolen moments? You may be racking your brains trying to figure out the answers to those questions. When you are faced with the reality of an affair in your marriage, it is normal to want to know 'why' at some point in the healing after an affair process.
A cheater will make up all sort of excuses and come up with different reasons as justification for their cheating. Some people say they cheat because of:
Low self-esteem
Perceived or real shortcomings in their marriage
Just for the thrill of it
The opportunity presented itself
Their spouse supposedly not meeting their physical or emotional needs
No matter what the reason, cheating shows a lack of character. The cheater has a serious flaw in his or her character that needs to be fixed. There is never any excuse for his cheating. There are always better ways to deal with our relationship struggles and disappointments than cheating. If you are the injured party, trying to understand why your spouse cheated on you could be an exercise in futility. You may come to some understanding of your spouse's actions, but you will probably never fully understand why they engaged in the affair.
You don't need to know why when healing after an affair
Spending time and energy trying to figure out why your spouse cheated is probably not the best use of your resources. Instead, why not focus that energy into rebuilding your marriage and your relationship with your spouse? Both of you have a lot of work to do to heal and repair the breach in your marriage. When healing after an affair, you want to turn all of your energy into making your marriage better than it was before the affair and also to put safeguards in place to prevent a future affair from happening.