I’ve never liked the saying “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” It’s just always seemed ridiculous to me, sort of like, “Once a thief, always a thief,” or “Once a murderer, always a murderer.”

These things just aren’t true.

If everyone in the world who’d ever cheated on, robbed, or murdered someone had no hope but “Once a [whatever], always a [whatever],” then the world would eventually be filled with nothing but cheaters, robbers, murderers, and everything-else-ers.

(It kind of reminds me of my thoughts back during the Chris Brown/Rihanna scandal, when folks were saying abuse is never a one-time incident and – you guessed it – once an abuser, always an abuser.)

People can – and do – change.

Anyway, when Us Weekly posted the Eddie Cibrian Denies Affair With Ex Brandi Glanville story to its Facebook page, heading with the question “Once a cheater, always a cheater?,” I had to check it out.

(If you’ll remember, Eddie Cibrian cheated on his wife with his current girlfriend LeAnn Rimes. The irony in this story is that the person he’s supposedly having this new affair with – Brandi Glanville – is his soon-to-be ex-wife. That’s right. The person he originally cheated on with Rimes.)

Now, who knows if Eddie Cibrian is really cheating on LeAnn Rimes with Brandi Glanville. He denies it, claiming Glanville has “stooped to a new low” concocting the story and that the magazine that ran it “shares the same credibility and delusion as [his] ex.”

Whether or not he cheated on Rimes isn’t the issue here; the issue here (rather, the issue this story put a spotlight on) is the idea that once a person cheats, that person will always cheat.

You already know I think that’s misguided, but some people believe it’s true. That, and my own curiosity, led me to search around for some cheating-related research. You know, as it relates to everything about us – our brains, our personalities, our chemical makeup, et cetera and so forth.

The psychology of cheating, if you will.

After weeding through the information about cheating in the “tax-evading, didn’t-study-for-my-test, the-refs-helped-us-win-this-football-game” senses, I found The Biology and Psychology of Cheating by Softpedia’s Science Editor Stefan Anitei, an article that wastes no time getting to the core of infidelity, pointing out within the first paragraph that many researchers feel “both social and sexual monogamy in humans is not a natural state.”

Also an idea many people subscribe to.

Give it a read and let me know what you think.

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Dr Antoine Spiteri (August 9, 2010)

From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (August 9, 2010)

Richard B (August 10, 2010)

    Last reviewed: 9 Aug 2010