7 Reasons Loving A Cheater Is The Best Gift You'll Give Yourself

My ex-husband cheated as a way of life. He carried on affairs with at least six women (that I know of) during our relationship, which was amazing, considering we were only together for two and a half years.

He had a child with one of those women. And then, 10 days after I left him — not after we divorced, after I left him — he married the mother of the child. It was the second time he committed bigamy.

Sorting through the file boxes full of papers he left behind, I discovered evidence that during the seven or so years before I met him, he'd been involved with 25 or 30 women. He was married almost the entire time.

Estimates of the percentage of married men who cheat on their wives range from 25 percent to 75 percent, according to The Washington Post. Marriage Counselor M. Gary Neuman says 48 percent of men cheat because they're emotionally dissatisfied, and 66 percent of men feel guilty about it.

My ex-husband wasn't one of those men who felt guilty about looking outside of his marriage for love. No, my ex-husband was a manipulator and an exploiter. In other words, a sociopath.

Because of my experience, I founded Lovefraud.com, to teach people how to recognize and recover from sociopaths. After collecting more than 5,000 cases, conducting three Internet surveys, and writing three books, I can tell you this: often, buried in these relationships from hell, there's an extraordinary gift.

Here are seven reasons you can actually benefit from loving a sociopathic cheater:

1. You realize there really are bad people in the world.

It's time to take off those rose-colored glasses. All our lives, we hear cultural messages that "we're all created equal" and "everybody has good inside." This is true for most people, but not all. Millions of sociopaths live among us, and they pursue romantic relationships not for love, but for exploitation.

2. You take stock of your own vulnerabilities.

Sociopaths hook you by targeting your vulnerabilities. If you're human, you have vulnerabilities. This doesn't mean you're weak; anything you desire, such as love or a family, can make you vulnerable. You need to know what your buttons are, so you can recognize if someone is pushing them.

3. You let everything out with a good cry.

You, like many people, may have dealt with heartache by picking yourself up and moving on. You locked your heartache away in an internal closet, where it festered. But when you've been involved with a sociopath, you're so hurt and they're so cold-hearted, that you cannot hold back the tears. And this is the first step towards healing.

4. You have an opportunity to process the pain of previous betrayals.

Perhaps a prior husband or boyfriend also cheated on you. Perhaps you were abused as a child and you never dealt with the trauma. You may discover that this new betrayal feels exactly like what you endured before. Let the tears flow for all the pain, and you'll be well on your way to recovery.

5. You become less judgmental of others.

If you were involved with a sociopathic cheater, you were deceived and manipulated. But still, you fell for it. In the past, you may have wondered how people got themselves into such insane situations. Now you know that it can happen to anyone.

6. You learn to listen to your intuition.

7 Reasons Loving A Cheater Is The Best Gift You'll Give Yourself

Your partner is a heartless, unrepentant cheater. But here's why it could be good for you.

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