Cheating partners aren't good people, no matter what the 'experts' say

APPARENTLY it is OK to have an affair during a relationship. Nookie with someone else, it appears, never hurt anyone. A little bit of extra-curricular activity with someone other than your other-half could even be the salvation of a relationship. Oh, and the worst thing you can do is feel guilty about it.

While I'll happily confess that I have no anger issues, when I read the controversial views of American counsellor Mira Kirshenbaum, who's written a book called When Good People Have Affairs, I could have jumped on a plane, hunted her down and beaten her with my bare fists, turning all my hurt of being cheated on in the past into powerful blows. Fuming is an understatement about how I felt seeing that in print.

You see, you don't need to have a degree in psychology to know that affairs are always destructive. End of. Yes there's always the old adage that "what doesn't break you makes you stronger" but, when it comes to matters of the heart, getting over the pain, learning to forgive (and forget) is just too tough for many. And from that moment on, they will always doubt the person who strayed – and themselves.

Mira throws up some interesting points. First, she believes that people who have affairs aren't bad, they simply made a mistake and got themselves into a "complicated, messy, dangerous situation". She also believes they are "good people that they lie awake at night feeling guilty and scared, agonising about how to avoid hurting the people they care about".

Hmm. Unless you have downed a bottle of tequila and wake up the next morning in some stranger's bed with no recollection of the previous night, cheating is premeditated. And, therefore, the accused is most definitely not a good person. Guilty and scared? Avoiding hurting the people they care about? If they thought that they wouldn't have lip-locked in some bar or dropped their pants in the first place.

Whether it's a passionate kiss or a full-blown night in the sack, a purely sexual or purely emotional attraction, over the internet or face-to-face, infidelity is infidelity. As soon as the other person feels hurt and betrayed, then it's infidelity. Yet the statistics are worrying. Around 47 per cent of married men are likely to get involved with someone else, as are 35 per cent of women.

I know of acquaintances whose partners are openly – and arrogantly – cheating on them on a regular basis every weekend. And I suspect other friends have been betrayed by their so-called beloved. I have confidantes who've revealed after one too many drinks that they've strayed, and I've had to pick up the pieces when others have found out they've been cheated on – myself included.

But, irrespective of the circumstances and the sordid details, everyone has one thing in common their emotions. I don't know of one person who's been deceived that hasn't felt humiliated, violated, betrayed and devastated. So no, it's not okay to have an affair during a relationship. It's not okay to put someone else through that raw pain and subsequent self-doubt.

A little bit of playing away may well save a floundering relationship by making the couple fight or see what they could lose. But for many, many others it spells the end. And that in itself is what potential cheaters should feel guilty about.