"If You Saw Her You Would Understand": 50 Hilarious And Unhinged Reasons Someone Cheated

To learn more about how to look at these (and other similar) statements, we got in touch with marriage and family therapist Dr. Talal H. Alsaleem, PsyD, LMFT, also known as the Father of Modern Infidelity Counseling.

"Many of us have heard the phrase, 'once a cheater always a cheater,' and many of us believe it to be a fact of life," Dr. Talal told Bored Panda. "This can be attributed to our false belief in the idea that all unfaithful partners are immoral individuals who are incapable and/or unwilling to abide by the social contract they have with their partners and society."

"This is especially true when considering that infidelity is considered a taboo behavior across many religions and cultures," he added.

Dr. Talal acknowledges that engaging in affairs is an immoral act because it violates the societal agreed-upon standard in behaviors as well as the relationship contract.

However, "it's also true that good people with a long history of moral living are capable of making awful, immoral choices like engaging in affairs," said the author of the books Unfaithful & Unrepentant: Affairs Beyond the Hope of Repair and Infidelity: The Best Worst Thing that Could Happen to Your Marriage: The Complete Guide on How to Heal from Affairs.

"So, what does this mean for the betrayed and the rest of the world who sees the cheater as a bad person due to choosing to commit a bad deed? Should we separate people from their actions and the devastating destruction they cause? And at what point can we fairly label someone as an immoral human being? These are all fair and important questions to ponder. There is no simple answer to these questions," the therapist said.

"The next best thing I can offer you is two observations I have encountered in my clinical experience."

Dr. Talal's first observation is that many people have the potential for change if they have these four ingredients: awareness of the problem and its impact on themselves and others, healthy motivations for making the changes, the knowledge and tools needed to make the changes, and the opportunity and patience to put the new skills into practice to achieve competency.

"The second observation is that there is a small segment of the population who are unable and/or unwilling to change their behavior even when you provide them with an ideal environment and the ingredients needed to be successful," the therapist said.

Who are these individuals, and why are they like that?

"It’s the unfaithful partners who cheat because of individual factors that cause infidelity such as in the case of individuals with antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. This statement should not be interpreted as 'personality disorders are not treatable.' It’s merely a clinical observation of how these disorders can be very resistant to treatment and clinical interventions," Dr. Talal explained.

The important thing to remember is that just because some people cheat repeatedly does not automatically mean that all cheaters are incapable and/or unwilling to change.

"What we are forgetting to ask when we hear about those stories are two important questions: why are they continuing to cheat, and are the reasons behind the infidelity behavior the same with every affair?" Dr. Talal said.

The most common scenario the therapist sees in his own practice that contributes to multiple incidents of infidelity is the failure to appropriately address the first occurrence of infidelity.

"This does not simply mean failing to seek counseling. Many couples waste a lot of time and money in a generalized therapy process that doesn't get to the heart of the issue," Dr. Talal highlighted. "Failure in addressing the first occurrence is the failure in engaging in a therapeutic process that would help the unfaithful and the betrayed take the crucial steps needed to achieve full recovery. Those steps include identifying the type of infidelity that took place, the factors that contributed to it, taking accountability and acknowledging the impact of the damage, and implementing a concrete action plan for change."

A failure to complete one or more of these steps, according to Dr. Talal, often leads to the continuation of infidelity behavior.

"This is especially true when we consider that without identifying the type of affair and the factors that contributed to it, we won't know what needs to be fixed," he said. "This means there is a high potential for relapse and/or an inability to rebuild trust."

"Failing to rebuild trust after the first affair can cause the unfaithful partner to cheat again. It goes something like this: 'If I am always going to be seen as an untrustworthy cheater no matter what I do, then I may as well do it again.' More importantly, if we know what happened and why it happened and we don't hold the unfaithful accountable for the damage and/or do not require changes in behavior, then we are simply giving them a green light to reoffend. This statement should not be confused as blaming the betrayed for the affair. The statement simply highlights the betrayed partner’s responsibility in advocating for what they need from the unfaithful in order to heal and rebuild trust."

The second most common scenario of repeated offenders that Dr. Talal sees are unfaithful partners who are unrepentant after the discovery of their first affair.

"Their lack of repentance about what they did and how it negatively impacted their partners can obliterate any chances for healing from the trauma and rebuilding trust," he said.

Scrolling through the list, we can likely notice this manifestation

"The cause of the lack of repentance is varied and manifests differently from one person to another based on which archetype of unrepentant unfaithful partner they fit into.