Cheating, Dopamine, and the Cost of Unexamined Desire

Let’s talk about cheating. Specifically the kind that happens over and over again.

The kind that earns someone the label serial cheater.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: for some people, it’s not sex they’re chasing.

It’s the high.

That rush at the beginning—the obsession, the hyperfocus, the can’t-eat-can’t-sleep electricity of new connection. The thing we romanticize, joke about, and casually dismiss as “just NRE.”

Except NRE isn’t just a feeling.

It’s a neurochemical cocktail.

Dopamine. Novelty. Validation. Escape.

And when people don’t understand what’s happening in their nervous system (or don’t know there are alternatives to monogamy as the default) that craving for aliveness can quietly turn into a pattern of betrayal.

As Esther Perel has long explored, infidelity isn’t always about wanting someone else. It’s often about wanting another version of ourselves—one that feels alive, desired, unburdened, free.

When novelty and erotic charge disappear from long-term relationships, and monogamy is treated as a moral obligation rather than a conscious choice, people don’t stop wanting those feelings.

They just stop knowing how to pursue them honestly.

When the Pattern Isn’t the Person

This is a pattern I encounter again and again: I see people complain about it in online communities, I've watched it play out in the relationships of acquaintances, and in the lived experiences that clients bring into my office.

Men in particular get branded with the scarlet letter: serial cheater.

And yes…sometimes that label fits. Some people are careless, entitled, and unwilling to take responsibility for the harm they cause. Some people don’t want to do the work required to be in any kind of ethical relationship.

But that’s not the whole story.

What I see far more often are people trying to force themselves into relationship molds that don’t match their wiring—without the language, models, or safety to ask for something different.

So instead of designing relationships intentionally, they act them out impulsively.

“I Thought Removing the Cage Would Fix It”

I once entered a relationship with someone whose patterns I already knew.

I had watched his relationship history for years, and when we got together, I genuinely believed I had the solution.

I told him I’d be the perfect girlfriend for him because I wasn’t expecting monogamy.

I thought if I removed the cage, the chaos would disappear.

I thought freedom alone would make honesty inevitable.

I was wrong.

What I learned instead is something I now teach explicitly:

Alternative relationship structures still require work.

Honesty takes effort.

Self-reflection takes effort.

Repair takes effort.

Non-monogamy isn’t a shortcut around accountability. And polyamory doesn’t magically make someone capable of integrity if they’re unwilling to do the internal labor.

So yes...sometimes the structure isn’t the problem.

Sometimes the person is avoiding responsibility.

Both things can be true.

Cheating, Shame, and the Tyranny of “Should”

Where I feel the deepest grief is in how quickly we jump to shame.

“You should be satisfied.”

“You should grow out of that.”

“You should want one person forever.”

So many people are living their lives in quiet rebellion against the word should—acting out desires they don’t feel allowed to name.

A big part of my work is helping people remove should from their relational vocabulary.

Instead, we ask:

• What do you actually want?

• What are you capable of offering?

• What values do you want your relationships to reflect?

• What agreements are you willing to honor consistently?

This is relationship design—not copying a script, but consciously choosing a structure that fits your nervous system, your ethics, and your capacity.

Understanding Without Absolution

I don’t think someone is a bad person just because they’ve cheated.

I think many people are trying to meet real needs in the only way they believe is available to them.

As Esther Perel reminds us, betrayal is often less about sex and more about longing—for aliveness, autonomy, and self-expansion.

That lens doesn’t excuse harm.

But it does explain why shame and punishment alone rarely create change.

What does create change is understanding what’s actually driving the behavior.

When people learn how NRE works—how dopamine, novelty, and validation light up the nervous system—they can stop confusing intensity with compatibility.

When they begin to recognize their core desires—whether that’s freedom, novelty, reassurance, power, devotion, or play—they gain language for what they’ve been chasing unconsciously.

And when they realize they have real, ethical options for designing relationships that honor those desires without secrecy or betrayal?

That’s when patterns stop repeating.

Without that awareness, desire doesn’t disappear.

It leaks out sideways. Through affairs. Through secrecy. Through broken trust.

But with awareness, choice, and intention, people can move from reaction to design.

That’s not about excusing cheating.

That’s about creating relationships that don’t require it.