You seem to be under the assumption that cheaters dislike their partners and cheat because they prefer to be with someone else, but this is not (always) the case. In fact, I’d dare to say that most of the cheaters actually prefer their partners over the person they are cheating them with.

I’ve been both a cheater and a cheatee. And it seems like life has a weird way of balancing things out, because I cheated on two of my partners, and two (different) partners cheated on me. Guess you could call it karma. The truth is, the experiences made me learn a lot about human behavior and the reasons why we do something so horrible.

The first time I was cheated on, the reason was curiosity. My gf and I were very young, and, while my gf actually liked me and saw a future with me, we were each other’s “first loves”. At some point, we both started wondering about how it would be to be intimate with someone else, but she was the first to falter. I have to admit, with time, I’d have probably done it too. After I found out, she, with tears in her eyes, told me something that’s almost a cliché: “but it meant nothing!”. We broke up.

I was the one who cheated on my next gf. The reason was insecurity. She was the quintessential perfect girl: beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy. Back then I had just started working, I was struggling financially, and her family saw me as little more than a baboon. I couldn’t shake off a constant feeling of inadequacy. So I started working on myself: I went to the gym, I quickly escalated the corporate ladder, and the problem was… instead of gaining her family’s respect, I started gaining attention from a lot of women. At some point, even though I felt I loved my gf, I slept with one of these women. Just because I loved the self-esteem boost. When my gf found out and confronted me, I found myself uttering the exact same words I heard from my first gf: “it meant nothing”. We broke up.

Later on, I was a cheater again. This time the reason was, simply put, lack of sex. I was with a great woman, and we were even talking about marriage. I loved everything about her, except for one thing: she had a very low sex drive. Initially, I thought that didn’t matter, that I could somehow adapt and handle it, but at some point it started driving me crazy. At this point in my life I was about 27 y/o, the gym was quite noticeable, and I had a stable job with a high pay, so it wasn’t hard for me to find options. I became sort of a chain-cheater, but all I was looking for was sex. As it always happens (because it always does), my gf found out. I never said the words this time, but guess what? none of those women meant anything to me. We broke up.

Next, I was cheated on. By my wife. The reason was, again, insecurity. We had just entered our 30s. I had a very high-paying job, still went to the gym, and was kind of a model husband. My wife, on the other hand (and as per her own words) was feeling old, ugly, and inadequate. She started cheating on me with her tai-chi instructor, a 25-year-old guy who didn’t have a dime, because the act was boosting her self-esteem. When I found out and confronted her… can you guess what she said? I could. I could hear the words even before she said them. “It meant nothing”.

And then the weirdest thing happened: I could completely understand her. I had been there before. It’s truly not about replacing you, it’s more about filling a hole in your life. And you think it’s going to work, but it really doesn’t. Then, you get caught, and it’s over. And when it’s over and you realize what you lost, reality hits you like a train: I lost everything, because of something that meant nothing. It’s a devastating feeling, honestly. But one that you only understand at the very end.

So yeah, why do cheaters not leave their partners? Because it means nothing.