Why People Who Cheat Shouldn't Apologize (And What They Should Do Instead)

Most people who cheat are sorry they hurt their spouse. But they don't regret the affair. They don't regret cheating. They regret that they got caught. They regret that other people got caught up in the web of lies, or that they wasted so much of their lives hiding, or that the press found out, or that they were exposed on the internet, or that they were followed by a detective and someone took photos of them, or that their kids or their constituents or their parish found out. But they don't regret their affair, and they aren't sorry for cheating.

According to Ashley Madison, 47 percent of cheaters who registered as members on the company's website said they wouldn't do anything differently about their affairs, while 93 percent said they're very happy with the outcome of their infidelity.

This doesn't mean you aren't sorry for hurting your loved ones. But if you are the type of cheater who doesn't regret anything except the hurt, don't pretend that you regret the affair.

How many times have you said it? Until you really know what you are apologizing for, it helps to change your strategy.

Evan and Anna came to my office after Evan's affair. Anna was devastated by Evan's long-term infidelity with a co-worker, someone he'd been seeing for more than two years. Complicating matters, he'd developed feelings for the much younger woman and had helped pay for her college degree while he continued to see her to have sex. Angered when she discovered the ongoing affair, Anna demanded he stop seeing the co-worker. Anna not only felt sexually betrayed by Evan, she felt financially betrayed, as well.

"Evan has probably said, 'I'm sorry' to me, like, one hundred times, and every time he says it, it means less. Each time he says it, I feel like he is just trying to placate me." Anna cried in the couple's therapy session.

"I always thought actions meant more than words anyway," Evan said. But he kept saying he was sorry because he thought Anna needed to hear it, and he had no idea what else to do to make it up to her.

"Actions don't mean more than words in this case," I explained. "You can do lots of great things, but it doesn't change what you did, right, Evan?"

"Yes," Anna responded, "and your 'I'm sorry' still means nothing. How will I ever trust you again?"

Evan was truly sorry but not for the affair. He was sorry for hurting Anna, his wife. I asked him, "If Anna didn't mind, or if she didn't know, would you continue to see this girl?"

He looked around the office, shyly. The hair around his bald spot gleamed in the soft afternoon light of my office. "I guess, if it really didn't hurt her, if she didn't know, I would. The girl, well, she helped me a lot, with the, you know, she made me feel stuff. I know she was a lot younger than me, but she helped with the erectile issues; she helped, you know?"

"Anna, does it make sense that Evan isn't sorry for the affair because it helped him, and, in a way, it helped you. Until you hear what he has to say, I don't think you understand what it meant to Evan. How can either of you actually have empathy for each other's feelings if you don't really talk about it and try to understand? Let's focus on what you feel in the present moment about what happened."

I asked Evan to share with Anna the story he made up about what the affair meant to him and about Anna, and about their relationship. "Remember," I said, "the story we make up is our own take on reality and is going to be different from our partners." To Evan, the affair meant "that I was not really a cheater because I never would have left Anna for this girl; she wasn't the marrying kind, not for me."

I stopped him. "So, you had an implicit monogamy assumption that this wasn't really a threat to your marriage?"

"Well, not for me, but I know Anna won't agree."

"So, the story you made up about what this meant about Anna…"

"I made up that the affair was a way to save my pride. Because Anna would think less of me if she knew I had such bad erectile dysfunction. She doesn't have much patience with such things. And where we are from, we don't talk much about personal stuff like that."

Anna looked at him sharply.

"Go on," I said.

"And what it meant about us, or what I made up that it meant about us, was that it was helping us. I learned how to work with my personal, you know, erection issues, and it wasn't taking away from our marriage."

"Anna, does it make sense that he felt that way?" The idea was to get Anna and Evan to empathize with each other's feelings, which is more important than an apology, or an agreement. If they could understand what it's like to be in each other's shoes, then they could validate each other's experience, which meant they could find some peace in the situation.       

"I don't get it," Anna said.

"Well," I said, "in reality, without the pressure of being in a committed relationship with this woman, Evan sounds like he was able to get around his erectile dysfunction. Does it make sense that he would feel that she was helping him and, by extension, helping you, and your marriage?"

Anna replied with, "Well, what I make up about what the affair meant to me is that Evan was no longer attracted to me and that he apologizes all the time just to appease me so that he can keep going to her, and that what it means about him is that he is probably in love with her. I mean, he is paying for her college education, for goodness sake! And what it means about us is that we are going to stay together and be miserable—like my parents." Her face turned red, and she sat stonily on the couch with her arms crossed.

Evan looked across at her in shock. "Anna, I am not in love with her. I'm embarrassed. I was always embarrassed to talk to you about my erectile dysfunction. And so that's all it was. And I felt like I owed her because she helped me; that's all. And she is, yes, a nice girl."

"Evan, I'm not upset about your sexual dysfunction. So what if you can't get an erection? That's not why I love you. And I actually don't care that you paid for her college, honestly—I think it's sweet, and that's why I love you because you are so damn generous."

He looked at her and smiled, and they hugged.

What your partner really wants to know is: Why?