Alcohol Is No Excuse, But Drunk Cheating Is A Possible Call For Help
Cheating is cheating is cheating, drunk or sober. However, drunk cheating and sober cheating carry different connotations.
In one respect, a non-alcoholic encounter means your partner made the conscious decision to be with someone else. In contrast, drunk cheating could be the result of one’s subconscious coming out.
Maybe the cheater had yet to admit to him or herself or the significant other that he or she no longer wanted to be in the relationship.
Infidelity is catalyzed by numerous factors at play in the relationship. Both unhappiness and emptiness stand at the forefront of this human enigma.
In the beginning of the relationship, it is so easy to swoon one another because everything is so new and fresh.
However, the real challenge arises after two people have been together for a long time. Keeping the "spark" alive is crucial to maintaining interest in one another. Whether it’s dressing a little sexier for dinner or spontaneously slow dancing in the kitchen, spicing things up is major in relationships.
Unfaithfulness happens for a number of reasons, but discontent can be the difference between loyalty and disloyalty.
More importantly, though, it is so essential to never lose sight of who you are as a person. In a relationship, it is far too easy to fall into the “we” syndrome. But, we’re all guilty of this syndrome at some point.
It’s when you and your partner become one in the sense that when your mom asks you to have lunch with her, you reply, “We’ll see if we have time.”
According to Dr. Margaret Paul, PhD,
Infidelity generally comes from the same inner emptiness as alcohol and drug abuse, food addiction, gambling, spending, shopping and so on. In the case of infidelity, when the underlying reason is emptiness due to self-abandonment, the addiction is to attention, approval or sex using another person to fill the inner emptiness and take away the inner aloneness.
If you’ve ever been cheated on, you know how awful it feels. Those seething feelings of anger, sadness and confusion, all mangled into this ferocious pit at the bottom of your stomach.
The feeling that somehow, despite all your best efforts, you're suddenly not good enough. The feeling of betrayal from someone you trusted. There’s just nothing quite like it. It really does make you more skeptical about relationships and people in general.
However, cheating is circumstantial. There are many factors and people represented in each and every situation. Alcohol is a consistent and important role in faithlessness.
According to Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria,
Alcohol has often been used by individuals to reduce their own fears, cope with their anxiety and deal with their negative emotions leading to temporary state of happiness. It usually reduces inhibitions and sometimes helps express repressed emotions. Even if people just use alcohol as an excuse to cheat, there are definitely underlying issues and concerns, which easily manifest themselves under the influence of alcohol. Thus, there may not be a direct connection, but there definitely is a psychological connection between drinking and cheating.
Therefore, although drunk cheating is never okay, it could be a warning that something is seriously wrong in the relationship.
And, while you'll inevitably still feel betrayed, the experience could serve as a wake-up call, a pivotal make-or-break moment in the relationship to figure out where you made a wrong turn and whether it’s even worth fixing.
If it is worth making the effort, you can thank the drunken fiasco for saving your relationship.
Overall, it does not matter which type of cheating is “worse” because infidelity is hurtful, no matter how it is conducted.
However, it is important to realize that drunk cheating could be a sign that something is missing in your relationship and could be your opportunity to fix things before it is too late.
