Financial infidelity or sexual infidelity: which is worse?

For many people sexual infidelity is the ultimate betrayal.  Financial infidelity or cheating with money– in which one spouse spends the couples’ joint money without telling the other– is every bit as dishonest.  You are being betrayed through money.   Many therapists and lawyers observe it is even more difficult to recover from financial infidelity than sexual infidelity.   Your spouse is spending money that also belongs to you.  The challenge to restore your trust is every bit as difficult as it is with sexual infidelity. You also are faced with loss of the money you thought you could count on.  With gambling and other addictions like drinking, drugs, and compulsive shopping the money you thought you had for retirement may have been spent! Your whole life changes and not for the better.