Cheating Isn’t Human. It’s Just Weak.

You know how you get to use a get-out-of-jail-free card in a game of Monopoly? Many cheaters seem to think this option exists when confronting their sin against you. It’s this tired old fallacy:

“I made a mistake. I’m only human.”

As if cheating is some inevitable by-product of being alive. As if we’re all just ticking time bombs, helpless against our urges. Spoiler:

It’s a framing that seeks to alleviate the burden of remorse that a cheater should face. It’s a lot easier for them to live it down when they think of cheating as an inevitable act of misplaced passion instead of a selfish betrayal for their own pleasure.

Most humans are above cheating

One key trait that separates us from mere animals is the capacity for restraint. We don’t eat every biscuit in the tin, we don’t punch every annoying colleague, we don’t spend every penny we earn. The ability to override a primitive impulse is how civilisation has developed. We learned to store food for the future, form stable communities and build trust, loyalty, institutions, families. We evolved because we could think beyond the now. Cheating isn’t a sign of our humanity. It’s a rejection of it. It’s primitive. It’s what you’d expect from a creature driven only by instinct and expediency. Not someone capable of reason, empathy or foresight.

Millions of people live their entire lives without cheating because they made a choice to respect themselves and their partner. Most people have the capacity to cheat. Just like they have the capacity to steal, to lie, to abuse, to kill.

If hurting and betraying are seen as inescapable characteristics of humans by someone, you probably want to avoid that person because they will always reach for that flawed line of reasoning to excuse their actions against you.

A trite excuse for a cowardly betrayal

Having the potential to do something awful doesn’t make it excusable. It just means you have the option. What defines your character is what you do with that option.

We don’t look at rapists or murderers and go, “Well, everyone’s a little tempted sometimes.” That would be unthinkable. Yet when it comes to cheating, some folks lean on this absolutely banal notion in order to attempt an excuse for their deliberate action.

Furthermore, there’s nothing deep about cheating. It’s just a self-serving choice dressed up with flimsy excuses. And frankly, it’s exhausting listening to people romanticise their own betrayal like they’re the protagonist in some tortured love story.

Infidelity defenders get poetic and pseudo-philosophical, talking about unmet needs and the ethics of polyamory. Yet, there are few situations where cheating is justified, as opposed to leaving due to incompatibility or coming to mutual agreement on an open relationship. In these alternatives, there is mutual consent and respect.

The making of excuses for cheating often lapses into victim-blaming, whether intentionally or not. To the victim, this isn’t some academic posturing or philosophical hand-wringing. It’s a trauma foisted upon them, with the accompanying physical and mental detriments. To be further gaslit into thinking that they are overreacting to such a severe treachery is an act of cruelty.

A protracted lie isn’t a mistake

I think it’s especially egregious for a cheater to maintain a lie over a long period of time, and then chalk that up to a mistake. To be sure, cheating does lie on a spectrum, though the victim of cheating always retains the autonomy in choosing how to respond to acts across the spectrum. While I personally drop any partner who has been unfaithful, others may have more forgiving stances and that’s okay. Some attribute cheating to a single moment of giving in to temptation, a split-second reaction that could be driven by System 1 thinking. I may disagree, but I can see that perspective.

However, it should be the norm that for cheating to be considered a mistake, the cheater should immediately inform the victim. That’s a demonstration of contrition and remorse kicking in, and keeps the possibility open that the cheater acted in a single, anomalous moment of folly. I have seen too many outrageous cases where the cheater hides the betrayal for many years, and then has the audacity to label the cheating as a mistake. You lose the cover of impulse if you have had days, weeks, months, or even years to come clean but continue to lie. Such deception is to me patently unforgivable and a sign of deep, fundamental character flaws. These cheaters are the ones that should be dropped pronto.

Cheating is definitely not a universal human characteristic, even if it may be an immutable trait in some individuals. If someone claims that betrayal and dishonesty are an inherent part of them, you should believe them, and then keep your distance.