A few weeks ago I began a series on why people cheat. Obviously that topic required me to go back to those early years and explore how I got there. Before my fall, I’d have been the guy wondering what type of guy would cheat on his wife. “Thank God I’m not like that,” I’d tell myself as I worked with couples where someone had strayed. My self-righteousness and arrogance now seems repulsive. To me back then it was simply a matter of being better than that.

Today as I look back. I’m astounded by how distorted my thinking became as I plummeted into my affair. I deceived myself into thinking I was a “good guy” for "helping" my affair partner. I somehow deceived myself into thinking I was acting in her best interest by giving her the attention she so desperately needed from her husband. I believed she was better off engaged with me in a secret affair than working though the issues in her marriage.

But that was only the beginning of my self-deception. I also convinced myself I had married the wrong person. I chose to believe there was no way my wife could make me as happy as my AP and I deserved to be happy, right? Isn’t happiness enough reason to justify an affair and the destruction of two families? Feelings like that can’t be denied- there was nothing else to do.

I was bored and life was a bit dull and I obviously needed something to give life meaning. You only live once so you better take chances. I wanted to feel alive and my affair offered a mood-altering drug more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced. I told myself I didn’t want to have any regrets at the end of life and the only way to assure that didn’t happen was to experience all life has to offer. In hindsight I now regret that.

I lacked integrity and honesty. Instead of being honest about what I was doing I justified my lying by thinking I was doing everyone a favor by protecting them from a truth that would hurt them. Somehow it didn’t occur to me that if I didn’t want to hurt them I shouldn’t be cheating on my wife.

I was so self-centered I never considered how my actions would impact anyone else. I wanted what I wanted and didn’t think I’d ever get caught. I never once slowed down to consider the consequences for all involved. I was only concerned with what it would cost me. It’s hard to believe I could have ever gotten to a place so dark.

From writing this there’s one thing I know for sure, I never want to be that person again.