--- title: Lemonade and Cheating: Why We Blame 'The Other Woman' description: Yet we don't focus on the man who cheated. canonical: https://time.com/4307059/lemonade-cheating-blame-other-woman/ author: Brandy Engler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-26T15:56:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:02:18.945Z og:title: Why We’re So Quick to Blame the ‘Other Woman’ og:description: ...Rather than the man who cheated og:url: https://time.com/4307059/lemonade-cheating-blame-other-woman/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9409a625105ae336/69889094bc6cfc46923dcb8a/beyonce-jay-z-lemonade-other-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4928 og:image:height: 2772 og:image:alt: "China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why We’re So Quick to Blame the ‘Other Woman’ twitter:description: ...Rather than the man who cheated twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9409a625105ae336/69889094bc6cfc46923dcb8a/beyonce-jay-z-lemonade-other-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why We’re So Quick to Blame the ‘Other Woman’ > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Brandy Engler](https://time.com/author/brandy-engler/) ## Brandy Engler Apr 26, 2016 3:56 PM UTC  NEW YORK, NY - MAY 04: Jay Z (L) and Beyonce attend the "China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images) NEW YORK, NY - MAY 04: Jay Z (L) and Beyonce attend the "China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images) Mike Coppola/Getty Images by [Brandy Engler](https://time.com/author/brandy-engler/) ## Brandy Engler Apr 26, 2016 3:56 PM UTC _Lemonade_’s heavy focus on the heartbreak of infidelity has the world speculating about the state of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s marriage, particularly since “Sorry,” the album’s fourth track, ends with the suggestive line, “He better call Becky with the good hair.” Many reactions attacked the supposed [“side piece”](http://time.com/4307651/rachel-roy-becky-beyonce-lemonade/) in this relationship, but what about the man who cheated? As a psychologist specializing in relationships, I spend a lot of time talking to cheating men and women. I also listen to the husbands, wives and lovers who’ve been cheated on. Part of the social-media reaction we’re seeing is projection. Many people have experienced cheating, and betrayal is a trauma. It begins with an insidious suspicion, eating away at our sense of security in the relationship. Discovering the truth is incredibly disorienting. We begin to question everything we thought was true and whether the relationship meant anything, if there was any love at all. Then comes the worst part: The self-doubt. The worry that we weren’t good enough and that someone else was better. This can lead to obsessive comparisons, dissecting every detail of the “other woman.” It can lead to hyper-vigilance around other women in general, our eyes scanning a room for beautiful women before our partner even notices them. Maybe we stalk her on social media looking for clues to the question, “Why her?” **_Read more:_** [_A Psychotherapist On What_ ](http://motto.time.com/4306675/beyonce-lemonade-infidelity-lessons/)[Lemonade](http://motto.time.com/4306675/beyonce-lemonade-infidelity-lessons/)[ _Says About Life After Infidelity_](http://motto.time.com/4306675/beyonce-lemonade-infidelity-lessons/) Of course, this is all a distraction from the underlying feelings of shame. It’s easier to turn to rage and a desire to attack another person than it is to deal with shame. Our minds create this monolithic idea of her as a terrible person. As for the man who cheated, the betrayed woman likely still loves him. Perhaps she is afraid to leave. It’s hard to sit with that. Also, if the public narrative is to put the burden of blame on men, that would make us feel hopeless and sad about men. But if we can villainize one woman, we still have reason to hope—and it provides a collective discharge of angst about our fears of betrayal. Women have historically been a target for social anxieties, by the way—think witch burning, stoning, etc. To be clear, the person who breaks a vow or a promise is the guilty party. Anger is justified. However, for healing to take place, it’s important to move past villainizing the cheater. To make sense of the infidelity, we must explore the complexity of how and why cheating happens in relationships: The whole context, the psychology and the sociology of it. Understanding is an important part of the process of healing. **_Read more:_** [_Pretty Much Everyone is Obsessed With Beyoncé’s_ ](http://motto.time.com/4305913/beyonce-lemonade-twitter-reaction/)[Lemonade](http://motto.time.com/4305913/beyonce-lemonade-twitter-reaction/) Couples do forgive, grow and even feel stronger in some cases after a cheating incident. For healing to take place, the focus should not be on the other woman. To get through waves of self-doubt and anger similar to those so artfully rendered by Beyoncé’s _Lemonade,_ the focus should be first on affirming your own worth and lovability. _Brandy Engler is a Los Angeles-based psychologist and author of_ [The Women on my Couch](http://www.thewomenonmycouch.com)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4307059/lemonade-cheating-blame-other-woman/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4307059/lemonade-cheating-blame-other-woman/"},"headline":"Why We’re So Quick to Blame the ‘Other Woman’","datePublished":"2016-04-26T15:56:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:02:18.945Z","description":"...Rather than the man who cheated","url":"https://time.com/4307059/lemonade-cheating-blame-other-woman/","keywords":["motto","Beyonce","Love & Relationships","Lemonade"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9409a625105ae336/69889094bc6cfc46923dcb8a/beyonce-jay-z-lemonade-other-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brandy Engler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/brandy-engler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9409a625105ae336/69889094bc6cfc46923dcb8a/beyonce-jay-z-lemonade-other-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"China: Through The Looking Glass\" Costume Institute Benefit Gala - Arrivals","caption":"\"China: Through The Looking Glass\" Costume Institute Benefit Gala - Arrivals","creditText":"Mike Coppola/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4307059/lemonade-cheating-blame-other-woman/","name":"Why We’re So Quick to Blame the ‘Other Woman’"}}]}] ```