Reply #80: You never can get it.

[jobycom]

That's why cheating ends the relationship, even if you stay together. You never understand why they did it, and you never trust them again. They aren't the same person to you, the one you committed to, the one you believed loved you. They are someone else. And you become someone else. You become an "other" to the person you thought you were special to, and that destroys everything you think about yourself, as well as them.

It's not about the sex. I've known swingers who sleep with dozens of others, and have wonderful marriages, and I've known people who have an open relationship, spoken or unspoken. It's about the betrayal of the partner's belief in you. It takes that person out of their place, and puts them somewhere else. It makes everything they've done a lie, or a joke.

Why people do it, I don't know. Love, sex, acceptance, power, need to belong, selfishness... Probably different for everyone.