Infidelity as Shared Fantasy

There are fundamental differences between a shared psychosis (shared psychotic disorder) and a shared fantasy. Both involve at least two members.

Akin to a cult, in a shared psychosis there is an inducer or primary "leader" and an induced or secondary member. The inducer constructs the canonical and codified narrative and the codex of rules of conduct, including a list of transgressions and punishments.

The induced members abide by these constructs and adhere to them. Banishment is typically the penalty for the most egregious violations of the compact.

The shared psychosis inculcates and promotes a paranoid theory of everything and an idiosyncratic lingo. It pertains to the group, its dynamics, its immediate environment (its external enemies), and making sense of the world at large.

A shared fantasy is a collaborative surrealistic narrative which involves two or more equipotent participants in a dream state. It comes replete with imaginary goals and emergent roles for everyone involved (usually, two people in a dyad).

It refers strictly to the members, the attributes of their emotions (such as their identity or intensity), the inner dynamics, their utopian or dystopian future, and unrealistic plans to make it happen or to forestall it.

Many love affairs and certain types of sexual practices (BDSM, sadistic sex) amount to shared fantasies which incorporate attempt to recreate unresolved early childhood conflicts with parental figures and also to avoid true intimacy and realistic life goals.

People are emotionally or sexually unfaithful to their partner for dozens of unrelated reasons. Often an affair is merely an attempt at self-exploration.

But in some cases, cheating - whether a love liaison or a one night stand - is the only way to transition out of an addictive relationship founded on trauma bonding or even mere pity.

Even if the partner is not aware of the transgression, the offending party is and it is often enough to bring about the separation.

Intimacy with a third party is empowering: it restores the cheater's self-esteem and confidence, makes him or her feel desirable, less tolerant of the absence, rejection, and maltreatment meted out by the spouse or mate. Having alternatives does wonders to one's sense of personal autonomy and self-efficacious agency.

Being loved by an outsider - even if only briefly and physically - proves to the straying party that s/he deserves better.

It is also, of course, a way to sever the emotional bonding conferred by exclusivity, to disinvest in and divest from the failed dyad (decathect)

Sometimes, desperate to eject, cheaters self-trash recklessly with highly inappropriate partners and in insalubrious circumstances in order to render themselves "damaged goods" and make it easier for their partners to give up on them.

With narcissistic, borderline, and psychopathic cheaters, the act buttresses injured grandiosity: the hidden and forbidden makes them feel special and superior as well as righteously vengeful and omnipotent.

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