Is Cheating Abuse? My Response to Chump Lady

A few days ago, Tracy Schorn, better known as Chump Lady, wrote a lengthy response to a video I made about whether infidelity should be considered abuse. First, Tracy, thank you for engaging with my work. You clearly feel passionately about protecting people who have been betrayed, and so do I. We don't agree on everything, but I think conversations like this are important, especially when we can move beyond labels and look at what the clinical research actually says.

So let me start by clarifying my position: Some forms of infidelity are abusive. All infidelity is wrong, all infidelity is hurtful, and I would never encourage anyone to have an affair. But I do not believe that all infidelity should automatically be classified as abuse.

I have spent more than 25 years working with people affected by infidelity. I have seen firsthand how devastating betrayal can be. I have also worked with thousands of people who have cheated, and I know that they are not one homogeneous group of people. Some engage in profoundly abusive patterns. Some do not. That distinction matters.

What Does the Research Actually Say?

One of the most relevant papers on this exact question was published in 2026 by Rebecca Ward, Serial Infidelity and Psychological Abuse: Diagnostic Blind Spots in Recognising Betrayal Trauma. Ward conducted a PRISMA-guided narrative review of the literature on serial infidelity, coercive control, gaslighting, psychological abuse, and betrayal trauma.

Her conclusion is important: “Not all infidelity constitutes abuse.”

Ward distinguishes situational or isolated infidelity from serial infidelity that occurs alongside persistent deception, secrecy, power imbalance, gaslighting, coercive control, and psychological invalidation. She concludes that when serial infidelity is embedded within these patterns, it can function as psychological abuse. You can read Ward's 2026 paper here.

I agree.

If someone maintains a secret sexual life for years, repeatedly gaslights their partner, manipulates their perception of reality, exposes them to health risks, uses financial deception, blames them for becoming suspicious, and systematically exerts power and control over them, I think there is a very strong argument that we are dealing with abuse.

But notice what we just did. We evaluated the behaviors, pattern, context, intent, power dynamics, and impact.

We did not simply discover that an affair occurred and conclude that everything else was irrelevant.

That is what I mean by nuance. Nuance is not a way of minimizing infidelity. Nuance is how good clinical assessment works.

Even the CDC acknowledges that these distinctions are complicated. Its framework for intimate partner violence defines psychological aggression in terms of communication intended to cause emotional harm or exert control. Importantly, the CDC also acknowledges that experts have struggled to determine when psychologically aggressive behavior crosses the threshold into psychological abuse. You can read the CDC's definitions and recommendations here.

If experts studying intimate partner violence recognize that context, patterns, intent, and impact matter when determining what constitutes psychological abuse, I think we should be very cautious about declaring that one behavior automatically meets that threshold in every circumstance.

Is Every Lie Abuse?

Infidelity almost always involves deception, and deception can absolutely be part of psychological abuse. But does that mean every lie is abuse?

Imagine that someone secretly spends $500 and lies to their spouse about it. Someone tells her husband she didn't discuss their argument with her girlfriends when she actually did. Someone tells his wife he's working late when he's really sitting in his car because he desperately wants an hour alone.

These are lies. They may be selfish. They may damage trust. They may be symptoms of significant relationship problems. They may be wrong.

But are they all abuse?

If every lie is inherently abusive, then nearly every human being who has ever been in a relationship has probably engaged in abusive behavior.

That definition becomes so broad that it becomes difficult to distinguish abuse from dishonesty, selfishness, avoidance, poor coping, unhealthy relationship behavior, and ordinary human failure.

This does not mean deception is harmless. It means harmful, dishonest, traumatic, and abusive are not interchangeable words.

What About Sexual Health and Consent?

Tracy makes an important point that some affairs expose an unsuspecting partner to sexually transmitted infections and other health risks without that person's knowledge or informed consent. I agree. That is extremely serious, and it should be evaluated as such.

But again, it does not describe every affair.

Someone can have a months-long emotional affair entirely online. Someone can secretly develop an intense texting relationship. Someone can become deeply involved with an OnlyFans creator. Those betrayals can be extraordinarily painful and psychologically destructive, but they do not expose the betrayed partner to an STI.

So saying that some affairs involve serious violations of sexual health and informed consent does not establish that every affair contains that particular violation.

We have to assess what actually happened.

“How Do You Get PTSD From Non-Abuse?”

Tracy asks how someone can develop PTSD from something that isn't abuse. I understand why this sounds compelling, but clinically these are two different questions.

Trauma describes the psychological and neurological response to an experience. Abuse describes characteristics of another person's conduct.

People can develop significant post-traumatic symptoms following natural disasters, automobile accidents, sudden deaths, medical emergencies, combat, and many other events that are not interpersonal abuse.

Research also shows that some betrayed partners experience significant post-traumatic stress symptoms after discovering infidelity. I absolutely believe this. I see it in my work all the time.

But not everyone who experiences infidelity develops PTSD. In a 2019 study by Roos and colleagues of 73 unmarried young adults who had experienced infidelity, 45.2% reported symptoms suggesting probable infidelity-related PTSD. That is a very significant percentage, and it also means more than half did not meet that threshold. You can read the study on PubMed here.

This is something we understand very well about trauma. Two people can experience remarkably similar events and have very different psychological responses. Trauma response is influenced by the brain, previous experiences, attachment history, prior trauma, social support, coping resources, meaning-making, and many other individual variables. Ward's 2026 review makes this point as well, noting that betrayal trauma is not deterministic.

So the presence of trauma symptoms does not prove that the precipitating event must therefore be classified as abuse, just as the absence of PTSD would certainly not prove that abusive behavior did not occur.

Trauma tells us something about the person's response. Abuse tells us something about the behavior and relational pattern. We need to assess both.

Tracy Made One Point I Agree With

Tracy points out that saying, “This person engaged in abusive behavior” is different from saying, “This person is an abuser.”

She's right.

I could have made that distinction more clearly in my original video, and I appreciate her pointing it out.

Someone can behave abusively, recognize what they have done, take responsibility, change, and never behave that way again. I believe deeply in people's capacity to change.

Where I continue to disagree is about the usefulness of assigning someone the identity of “abuser.”

In my work, I am much more interested in accountability than identity condemnation. I want someone who cheated to be able to say, “I did something profoundly hurtful. I deceived someone who trusted me. I caused tremendous pain. I am responsible for my choices. I need to understand why I allowed myself to do this, repair as much of the damage as I possibly can, and make sure I never do it again.”

That is accountability.

I don't know of evidence demonstrating that getting that same person to say, “I am an abuser,” makes them more accountable, more empathic, more remorseful, or less likely to cheat again.

Psychological research makes an important distinction between guilt, which focuses on “I did something bad,” and shame, which tends toward “I am bad.” I am interested in helping people fully confront what they did without convincing them that the worst thing they have ever done is now their permanent identity.

That is not protecting someone from accountability. That is trying to create change.

What About Dr. Omar Minwalla and Integrity Abuse?

I know and respect Dr. Omar Minwalla's work. His model of deceptive sexuality and trauma has brought much-needed attention to the enormous psychological injury that can occur when someone discovers that the reality of their intimate relationship has been systematically manipulated.

His model goes beyond sex addiction and describes deceptive sexuality, integrity abuse, psychological manipulation, and relational trauma. I think that framework can be exceptionally useful when those dynamics are present. You can read more about Dr. Minwalla's Deceptive Sexuality and Trauma model here.

Where I hesitate is applying that framework automatically to every instance of infidelity.

There is an enormous difference between someone maintaining a years-long secret sexual life involving multiple partners, financial deception, repeated gaslighting, health risks, and calculated manipulation of their spouse's reality, and someone who has a one-night stand, immediately confesses, expresses genuine remorse, and never repeats the behavior.

Both betrayed their partners. Both did something wrong. Both caused harm. Both are responsible for what they did.

But are those psychologically and clinically identical patterns of behavior?

I don't believe they are, and the emerging peer-reviewed literature doesn't treat them as identical either.

I Have Spent 25 Years Studying and Working With the People We're Talking About

I want to address something else because credentials and experience actually do matter when we're making broad clinical assertions about groups of people.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist. I have spent more than 25 years working with couples and individuals affected by infidelity, and I have personally worked with thousands of betrayed and straying partners. I am also the lead author of a 2026 peer-reviewed study of infidelity and relationship preservation that analyzed 3,429 participants, including 1,151 people who had committed infidelity and 2,278 betrayed partners. You can read our 2026 study here.

I don't mention those credentials because having a PhD makes every opinion I have correct. It certainly doesn't.

I mention them because when we make claims about a population, how much direct clinical and research experience we have with that population matters.

I would genuinely like to know how many people who have committed infidelity Tracy has personally interviewed, clinically worked with, or systematically studied in developing her conclusions about them.

I have listened to thousands of hours of their stories.

And one of the clearest things I have learned is that people who cheat are not one type of person.

Their motivations differ. Their histories differ. Their patterns differ. Their capacity for empathy differs. Their remorse differs. Their willingness to change differs. Their risk of repeating the behavior differs. Their relationships differ.

Some engage in repeated, exploitative, abusive patterns of deception. Some have one affair and never do it again. Some demonstrate very little empathy for the person they hurt. Others are devastated by what they did and spend years trying to understand it, repair the damage, and become safer partners.

My research does not establish whether infidelity should or should not be called abuse. That was not the question we studied, and I would never claim otherwise.

What it does reinforce is something I have learned clinically over and over again: people and relationships affected by infidelity are far more heterogeneous than the cultural caricature of “the cheater” suggests.

I have compassion for straying partners because I have actually gotten to know thousands of them.

Compassion is not absolution. Understanding is not excusing. And refusing to call every person who has cheated a monster is not minimizing the enormous pain they may have caused.

You can hold someone completely accountable for what they did and still recognize their humanity.

Show Me the Research and I Will Change My Mind

This is probably the most important challenge I would offer in this entire conversation.

I have not found a single peer-reviewed clinical study establishing that all infidelity should be classified as abuse.

In fact, one of the newest peer-reviewed papers (Ward, 2026) specifically examining the intersection of infidelity and psychological abuse says exactly the opposite: “Not all infidelity constitutes abuse.”

But perhaps there is research I haven't seen.

If there is a peer-reviewed study demonstrating that infidelity itself, regardless of context, frequency, pattern, coercion, intent, severity, or associated behaviors, should universally be classified as abuse, please send it to me.

I mean that sincerely.

I will read it.

If strong scientific evidence demonstrates that my position is wrong, I will change my position.

That's what scientists are supposed to do. Our conclusions should follow the evidence.

One Last Thing About How Women Disagree With Each Other

There is one part of Tracy's article that I do want to address separately from our disagreement about the science.

She described my advice as “insipid” and characterized me as speaking in a “tradwife Romper Room voice.”

I'm not going to respond in kind.

Calling another woman childish, mocking the sound of her voice, or ridiculing her femininity doesn't make an argument stronger. Women have spent generations being told that we're too loud, too shrill, too emotional, too soft, too sweet, too feminine, or otherwise speaking in the wrong kind of voice to be taken seriously.

I don't think we should do that to each other.

I could certainly find unkind things to say about Tracy. I'm choosing not to, because her appearance, voice, personality, and presentation have absolutely nothing to do with whether her argument is correct.

Tracy deserves to have her ideas evaluated on their merits.

So do I.

She has built a large community around supporting people who decide that leaving after infidelity is the healthiest choice for them. I have built my career around helping people understand what happened to them, heal from infidelity, and decide for themselves whether staying or leaving is right for them.

Those missions don't have to be enemies.

Some people should leave. Some people should stay. Some situations involve abuse. Some do not.

And ultimately, the person living that life gets to decide what happens next.

Where I Land

Some infidelity is abusive. All infidelity is wrong and hurtful.

Some infidelity occurs within patterns of coercive control, gaslighting, exploitation, sexual-health risk, financial deception, and systematic manipulation. When those things are happening, we should name them clearly and take them extremely seriously.

But I do not believe the evidence supports declaring every instance of infidelity abuse simply because infidelity occurred.

That isn't minimizing betrayal.

It is recognizing that precision matters.

Calling every affair abuse doesn't make me more compassionate toward betrayed people. Being precise about what happened to them does.

If someone chooses to leave after discovering an affair, I support that decision. If someone chooses to stay and attempt reconciliation, I support that decision too.

Their life. Their relationship. Their choice.

My job isn't to make that choice for them.

My job is to help them make it with as much accurate information, compassion, clarity, and agency as possible.

References and Further Reading

Ward, R. (2026). Serial Infidelity and Psychological Abuse: Diagnostic Blind Spots in Recognising Betrayal Trauma. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1177/00912174261428855

Nickerson, K., Rein, B., Gottman, J., Stone, R., Davies, R., Petrova, M., & Johnson, A. L. (2026). Should I Stay or Should I Go After Infidelity: Pathways to Relationship Preservation After an Affair Amongst Individuals Accessing Social Media Contents on Post-Infidelity Recovery and Reconciliation. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2026.2680162

Roos, L. G., O'Connor, V., Canevello, A., & Bennett, J. M. (2019). Post-traumatic stress and psychological health following infidelity in unmarried young adults. Stress and Health, 35(4), 468–479. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2880

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements. https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/31292

Minwalla, O. Deceptive Sexuality and Trauma: A Clinical Model. https://minwallamodel.com/article/deceptive-sexuality-and-trauma-a-clinical-model/

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