Oh come on, LCG. People don’t like to feel shame, and that’s why they don’t talk about being a cheater. I hope you never have to feel the scorn heaped upon a cheater.
And then there’s the little, tiny matter of the moniker— it’s a CHEATER. It’s cheating! It’s not a socially accepted thing. Here. All you who want to blab about your transgressions to all the world line up behind this line. The rest of you over there. Jeez. You’d think someone had made a very bad smell behind this line!
If we want people to talk about it, we have to find ways to reduce the shame. Not gonna happen! Not in this ultra-Christian culture.
No, the philanderer’s side of story is never going to be listened to sympathetically, except possibly by their therapists. So no one will know what drove them to do it, and no one will learn, and there will be no change in our culture.
Perhaps some people who have slept with people other than their spouses might talk about it under the cloak of anonymity, but it’s still difficult. You should go over to Askville and check out the way they handle cheaters. Oh so tenderly. NOT. If they double-anonymize themselves, it’s even worse. That’s permission to tee off without mercy.
So, you wonder why people don’t talk about it? Look at the sympathetic response everyone has to cheaters.
Perhaps someday you might want to ask about the evolutionary biologist’s explanation of cheating, and why animals (including humans) attempt to keep it a secret.