Wayne Mitchell - Cheating in a Nutshell: What Infidelity Does to The Victim

Copyright 2019 by Wayne & Tamara Mitchell

First published September 2019

Interior and Cover Design: Istvan Szabo, Ifj/Fiverr

Cover Photo: Marie C. Fields/Shutterstock

ISBN 978-1-948158-03-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-948158-00-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-948158-02-2 (kindle)

ISBN 978-1-948158-01-5 (epub)

Published by Third Ghost Press

WayneAndTamara.com

Mens courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must end. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

TAMARAS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thanks to Lynda Buffat, as best friend and first reader, for substantial contributions to the manuscript.

WAYNES ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Two regular readers of our Direct Answers advice column were especially helpful. Thanks to Sandra Stout, first reader of the finished manuscript, for her constant encouragement and helpful suggestions. Thanks to Susan Voskuil for allowing us to see into a readers mind and pointing out how the book applies to other aspects of life.

We never planned on writing an advice column. Twenty years ago, the creative director of one of the largest U.S. newspaper syndicates saw something we wrote and asked us to submit sample columns. Creating those columns lit a flame. It became the first step in a service project that continues to this day.

After a month passed without hearing anything from the syndicate, we distributed the column ourselves. An hour and a half after sending out a few emails, we had our first newspaper. Six weeks later, we were in five or six papers in the U.S. and Canada. Two years later, the column was in newspapers in twelve countries.

Before long we were straining to answer all the letters we received. The letters came from musicians and chefs, ranchers and housewives, business people, factory workers, and a minister performing weddings, even as he doubted his own marriage would last. Some letters were full of misspellings; others ended with an imposing title and a corporate address.

Over the years, one group of letters stood out, not simply because there were so many of them but because the writers wounds were fresh even when their injury had been inflicted years before. These were the letters from those betrayed by the person they were dating, living with, engaged to or married to.

The letters followed a predictable course. Though our feelings often surprise us, our emotions follow universal patterns. Betrayal feels like betrayal for a reason, and there are reasons it is so hard to forget.

In Cheating in a Nutshell, we retell stories we were told. None of the stories is exceptional; each is typical of the experience. Many times we balance a story with contemporary research, but our book doesnt depend on that research. Fads and perspectives in social science change, but the experience of being betrayed does not.

We wished we could have answered all the letters we received because we knew how much pain the writers were in. Of the many letters we answered, we wish we could have answered at greater length, but there wasnt time. If we had found a book on infidelity we could recommend, we would have recommended it. But there was no such book, so we knew in time we would write this book.

This book is the longer answer we wanted to give each person who wrote us. Before writing the book, we reread over 3,000 cheating letters from the first 10 years of our column. As we wrote we had three groups of people in mind:

Those just learning their partner has deceived them.

Those who stayed with a cheating partner and now realize things cannot be restored.

Those betrayed in a past relationship, who seek a deeper understanding of what happened.

We hope this book will encourage the next generation of researchersperhaps now only undergraduatesto take infidelity research in a more accurate and factually correct direction.

In Cheating in a Nutshell, we discuss emotional infidelity alongside physical infidelity rather than treating it as a separate topic. We do this because the two share much in common and because emotional infidelity is often only the cover story for deep physical involvement. The damage from each is similar. Beyond that, emotional involvement is at the center of all our relationships. Admitting to emotional involvement may make the betrayal even worse.

Last, let us say, if we have a point of view, it is because the facts point in one direction. We cannot find a way to make the case for a different point of view. In The House on the Strand , a novel by Daphne du Maurier, the main character is a man named Dick Young. At one point Dick says, Truth is the hardest thing to put across. We agree, and we would define truth as that which corresponds to facts. Truth is not what we wish to be true or what we would hope to be true. Truth is what corresponds to facts.

Thousands of people wrote us. They had a story to tell. This book is the explanation of that story.

There are times when fortune inflicts wounds that simply wont heal, when the story of a life breaks into two distinct sections, a before and an after.

Maurizio Viroli, biographer

My wife attended night classes with a former workmate and friend. He is really good-looking and so is she. On the last night of class together, I followed them to a bar. After they came out, she gave him a big hug.

They drove down a dark road and parked in a poorly lit small park. I couldnt see what they were doing, but I can only imagine. Forty-five minutes later, they drove back to where she was parked and hugged. I couldnt tell if they kissed.

When my wife got home, she was very nervous. Later, when we were in bed, I asked her if she went out and celebrated. She said no. I asked why she and her friends didnt go to a bar or do something. She said they got out late.

When I asked if our friend was there, she said he had to leave early. Every time I gave her a chance to tell me what she did, she lied and not only lied but sounded sure about it. After a couple of hours of not being able to sleep, I woke her up. She again denied doing anything.

After a long silence, I told her I knew she was at the bar. She said, Yes, I forgot, I had one drink and came right home. Finally, I told her I knew everything. She would not confess to being in the park until I told her I saw them together. Then she said all they did was talk.

I called our friend the next day and asked him the same questions. He lied. When I told him what I knew, he could hardly talk. My wife said she would call our friend and tell him not to call her anymore. He wasnt supposed to know I was listening, but it sounded like they talked beforehand and got their story straight.

Before this she hardly ever wanted sex, and I had to ask. Now she is all over me. She wont show me her phone records from work or her work cell phone. She says they would be hard to get, but she is the facility coordinator, so she can get just about anything.

I love my wife but only want the truth. We can work through this if only she will be honest. I guess my question would be if you think they had something going on.

-Frank

The pattern of the betrayal is familiar, even archetypal: admit nothing. If that is not possible, admit only what is already known. It is the same pattern played out in police stations and criminal courts every day. As one woman told us about her cheating husband, Denial has become his best friend. There is simply no advantage to a cheater in telling the truth, nor will there ever be. The advantage lies in denial and minimizing. Thats what Frank, the author of this letter, learned the hard way.