Once a cheat, always a cheat

[makeityourown]

How true is this statement for you?
I'm trying to work through something at the moment

Completely true in my opinion.

Hope you’re ok.

In my experience this statement is true. And for me, the pain of having it done to you a second time is even more excruciating, as well as the crippling jealousy and paranoia you experience when you're trying to forgive.
Sorry you're going through a tough time. :(

Certainly true of my husband

Not true. I cheated once, not proud of it but can't change the past. I'm a completely different person now and wouldn't dream of it.

There are serial cheats, but there are also people who for many reasons mess up and then change their ways.

Sorry to hear, OP.
I don't think that someone who has cheated once will definitely cheat again. But the cheater has shown their colours and proved their disrespect for their partner. The trust will never heal to what it was before.

I was chronically unfaithful in my twenties, much to my shame and embarrassment.
Now I'd never dream of being unfaithful, for various reasons including integrity, maturity, family etc.
However, I do think if someone cheats on you once and you forgive there is a higher chance of them cheating again unfortunately.

In my experience, absolutely! Anyone that has cheated on me did it multiple times before and after being found out.
My H ( recently found out) told me he'd always cheated in past relationships but would never with me because I was special and The One yes I believed it.. and he did ... several times !

Depends on the reason for cheating. I stayed in an abusive marriage and was scared to leave and ended up cheating on him.
I’m now with a wonderful man who I know genuinely loves me purely because of who I am, and not what they can mould me into, use as a verbal whipping post or get out of me.
I would never in a million years even dream of cheating on him.

I have two views in this.

The first: monogamy is hard for an awful lot of people. It’s a social construct with its roots in religion and economics rather than biology. Most people who are unfaithful are not bad people, just people who struggle with the accepted party line that at some point in your early life you must choose somebody who you will exclusively have sex with for the rest of your life even when you might find many other people in the ensuing decades attractive. Therefore, I think people who cheat once are therefore somewhat likely to do so again because that struggle probably won’t go away.

On the other side: is cheating somehow inherently different to anything else you might do wrong or regret? Surely we’ve all hurt someone or done something in our lives which we deeply regret and would never do again because we feel so badly about it, and so why shouldn’t the same is true of infidelity?

Base your decision upon how you feel about this particular situation and action, not on “what ifs” and future maybes.

It depends on the reason. In some cases it's true but in my experience it isn't. People change, situations and thought processes and ways of handling situations change in some circumstances.

I completely disagree.
I have cheated on several previous relationships yet have managed to stay perfectly faithful to my husband....the previous relationships weren’t right though. So I would say within the same relationship then yes it might be more likely to happen again

I would say yes in the same relationship.

Not necessarily in future relationships.

I cheated on my abusive ex with now Dh. It's something I'm deeply ashamed of, and I know that no matter how things got I wouldn't do it again.

I agree with PP.

Yes in the same relationship.

But not if it was in the past with a different partner.

No. I cheated years ago when I was in my early 20s on a bf who I’d stupidly got back together with. He was a twat, but I shouldn’t have done it. I still feel bad about it. It’s not something I would ever do again! I’m very happily married now.

I don't think you can say it's always true in every single case, no. The problem is how do you tell who will and who won't? So I'm not actually sure it matters whether they will always be a cheater, you will never be able to trust that they're not and I wouldn't want to live like that.