I'm not a cheater, but I am an obsessive lurker in a few subs that are pretty revelatory. I find that I've developed an understanding that I didn't have before.

There's no one reason people cheat, of course...there are many. But I would say the majority (yes, really) of those I've seen here on Reddit are people who fall into a category of being desperately lonely in their relationships, and have sought intimacy and connection from others because it's actually a basic human need. Physical and emotional affection ARE basic human needs - it's beneficial for and essential to our mental and physical health.

I know what the knee-jerk responses will be to the above, I've seen them all countless times. And there's logic in them. What's often absent from them is an acknowledgment that the problems are sometimes far too deep or complex to be so easily fixed. The argument that people should "just leave" isn't realistic or fair because it fails to reflect a holistic view of the relationship.

For example, a hypothetical situation I've seen over and over: man and wife grow apart...marriage loses all intimacy...relationship becomes all about the business of home and family and there's nothing left of the "couplehood" that brought them together. One partner is unhappy, the other is either content or complacent. Efforts to reconnect or improve falter or fail. Ultimately, two people are flying solo in the marriage, and neither is providing emotional support, friendship, camaraderie, or physical affection to the other. This gaping void creates desperation and misery...and vulnerability. The soil is now fertile for an affair to grow.

Divorce is always an option...but there's kids to consider. A mortgage. College funds. Shared debt. Combined families. The lives of the two spouses are completely intertwined. The finances of the family simply can't support two households, and the lifestyle the children enjoy would be severely impacted, which isn't fair to them. Bigger than all of this is the reality of one parent being separated from their children...not being part of their day-to-day lives. The likelihood of losing that connection to their children is the only thing that feels worse than staying in a marriage that's essentially dead. Unable to get all of their needs met in one relationship they fracture and seek to make themselves whole elsewhere so they can sustain the marriage and all that comes with it.

This isn't a broad brush approval of infidelity, just a compassionate explanation of how one way it can logically come to fruition. One way of many. Some logical and understandable, and some not.