Affair Help: The Cheater Code Deciphered

It’s often a source of amusement in our Affair Help Chat Room that there is a Cheater’s Handbook out there somewhere. Perhaps a single dog-eared copy that gets passed around via the library system? Maybe it’s magically delivered by the affair equivalent of a stork when the choice to have an affair is being pondered, weighed, and planned? The details are fuzzy, but it has to be out there (yes, I know - there is one actually available on Amazon, and no, it’s not called Affairs for Dummies, however appropriate a title it might be).

While the  Cheater’s Handbook or Manual is something that is often referred to, the suggestion that there is a ‘Cheater Code’ hasn’t really been on the radar here. A Cheater Code? What on earth kind of ‘code’ could possibly apply to such destructive behavior? While there are plentiful examples of repeated patterns in the cornucopia of infidelity, the idea of a ‘Code’ was never really concreted … until yesterday’s post, Affair Help: The Cheater Code.

The Members of an Affair & Infidelity Help Website Bring You …

The 10 Antitheses to the Cheater Code

1. Respect Your  Affair Partner

Decoded: Well, since you’re throwing your self-respect out of the window, and you’re positively disrespecting your partner/spouse, you may as well throw a dog a bone and pretend to respect the married random hookup you made on the internet. Plus, who knows that you will find anyone else to agree to this with you? And let’s not forget, if that Affair Partner is having an affair with you, they’re probably having an affair with others … or at least looking for their next conquest.

Better treat that Affair Partner well, lest they aren’t faithful, reject you, lie to you, give you an STD, and leave your self-esteem in the toilet. Oh wait …

2. Do Not Insult the Family or Spouse of Your Affair Partner

Decoded: No, that’s entirely your job. Do not bore your Affair Partner with the details of the heinous life you’ve told yourself you’ve been beaten into, because frankly they have enough of their own lies and rationalizations to keep straight.

However much you want them to validate how right you are to need an affair (as an outlet for your pain, of course) by agreeing that your life and partner are indeed monstrous, it might just end up as a mutual bitch fest about how you have a family, a home, food on the table, and someone who promised to be there for you.

Such a life is such a huge insult to what you truly deserve, you should be commended in biting your lip while you continue to not insult either family …

3. Do Not Break Trust

Decoded: You’ve put a lot on the line here. You’ve put your family, home, lifestyle, and marriage on the line for this affair. And so has your Affair Partner. Betrayal is such an ugly thing, and it can have such far reaching consequences for your life.

Yes. Far better to be trustworthy and protect the Affair Partner from any pain that could result from betrayal. Trust is sacred. Breaches of trust ruin lives, after all.

4. Do Not Bring Negativity

Decoded: Please reserve your negativity for your spouse and family. Bringing negativity to the affair table is such a buzzkill. Offload every mote of anger, blame, disappointment, and obnoxiousness onto your spouse before leaving for your hookup.

Since you’re at it, cloak yourself in that comforting blanket of, “It’s their fault that they’re forcing me to take this path. If they met my needs I wouldn’t have to do this.” Repeat it like a mantra, because when life gives you lemons, you suck it, right?

Smile and the world smiles with you. You want your Affair Partner to think you’re a nice person don’t you? SHOWTIME!

5. Do Not Judge

Decoded: Looking too closely at the rather revolting individual ‘de-stressing’ by sweating all over you right now might a) ruin what is probably a perfect moment in time (the romance of it all brings a tear … truly …) and b) force you to reflect that you’re really the same type of revolting individual. Buzzkill alert!

Far better to earnestly believe that you deserve this treat for yourself, for all your good deeds that go unrewarded in your life.

6. Be Supportive Within Reason

Decoded: Whilst it’s entirely possible that you can conduct this affair with a modicum of authenticity, truth and self-knowledge, really, don’t do that. Reality brings negativity. Buzzkill alert! Negativity, as we’ve already established, is to be left entirely on the heads of your spouse and family.

So, work hard at shoring up your Affair Partner’s personally tailored story by supporting their rationalizations wholeheartedly. Continue to create the narrative that leads to the fairtytale ending of, “And that’s why I am entitled to my affair.”

Now, over there, look at the glitter and rainbows!

7. Be Discreet

Decoded: Yes, hide the affair well, lest you lose that positively beastly life you keep bitching about. If it’s such an awful existence, why are you doing anything to protect it at all?

Ohhh, of course. Because you want to save your spouse from any hurt. Being that staunch protector and defender of them helps you sleep at night. It’s entirely selfless.

8. Do Not Saddle Your Affair Partner With Baggage

Decoded: Don’t forget, negativity is bad mmmkay? Buzzkill alert! Face reality - this is not about a mutually caring and loving relationship. Listening to you is such a yawn-fest. This is about getting laid in an extramarital affair, without having your lifestyle interrupted.

Don’t bring your crap to the table, because it’s so tedious for your Affair Partner to have to pretend to care about the minutia that you are dramatizing. Don’t force them into saying, “Oh how terrible that your spouse squeezes the toothpaste from the middle. That’s unforgivable. Now, can we move this along? My spouse is expecting me for dinner.”

Far better to get the sordid torrid sex out of the way so you can both continue about your day and dutifully kiss your spouse when they get home.

9. Treat Your Affair Partner as You Would Want to be Treated

Decoded: Do not treat them like some random man-ho or she-skank from an extramarital affair website, settling for whichever co-ho agrees to bang them first. (After being liberally doused with a total-body sanitizing agent, of course.) That would be so rude.

Accurate, but rude. Treat your Affair Partner as you would want to be treated, and continue treat everyone else as badly as you see fit!

10. Love Yourself

Decoded: Yaaaay the Principle Rule of Cheaterdom! Love yourself, have an affair with some random co-ho!

Love yourself, screw everyone else! Literally and metaphorically!

Love yourself - you’re so worth it and nobody can tell you otherwise!

Besides,

… right?

~ Wayfarer

/sarcasm off