When I wrote about men who cheat and the women who loved them, my son in response to the article, told me that he was of the opinion that women cheat more than men.
I laughed and wondered who had hurt my son but his opinion was backed up by research and the truth is that many women, especially the married ones, are cheating on their partners.
I am a woman and I understand why so many women are cheating on their husbands. I have always been a one man woman ( I don’t multitask) but I admit that I have been very tempted to cheat.
In fact there was a time I wanted to cheat badly, not because I didn’t love him, to my chagrin and disappointment I did, but because I wanted him to feel the pain and hurt I had felt and to know that I too could play the game.
The only reasons I didn’t was because even though he had broken his vows to me, and I would have been justified in breaking my vows too, ( after all it takes two to tango) I realized that there was a third party in our marriage and it was God. I knew what He wanted and expected from me and I wanted to please him. Another major reason was that I didn’t see anyone I was tempted enough to cheat with ( God knows that had I met someone more handsome, richer, emotionally and mentally appealing to me at that moment, I may have rationalized the God factor) however and thankfully I am of the school that says that if you must eat toads, eat those with eggs and I wasn’t going to jump into bed with any Tom, Dick and Harry just because my partner did the same.
So, why do women cheat? There are many reasons and they vary from relationship to relationship, however, I will choose the most common reasons.
1. Emotional abandonment- I can safely say that this is the number one reason a woman cheats. Women always long for emotional connections and at first when a woman gets together with her partner, she feeds off the attention and affection that he showers on her. However, as time goes on, life happens, the partners are distracted, engaged with work, parenting, social engagements and gradually in most relationships/marriages the parties drift apart. Most women, being more intuitive, notice the widening gap between the parties and complain or point it out to the man who berates her for being paranoid and clingy, claiming he can’t be with her 24/7 as he needs to work and have other interests. Gradually, she begins to notice that they don’t do things together except for the roles they play as husband/ wife, father/ mother. Sometimes, the distance between the couple arises because the woman feels unappreciated, undervalued, unnoticed and criticized and because of the strain in their relationship, she discovers that she cannot confide her true feelings, desires, wants, apprehensions, goals and dreams to her partner.
At times, because she wears many hats in the home ( mother, wife, home manager, child minder, career woman, business woman, worker) a woman begins to feel that she doesn’t matter in the relationship and feels that the relationship revolves around and is all about the man and finds herself resentful of that fact.
Whatever the reason that caused the distance between the parties, one day, the woman wakes to the fact that she is lonely even though she is in a relationship that may, seem on the outside, to be working. If, in that state of vulnerability she finds someone who compliments her, notices her, appreciates her and reminds her of the fact that she is a woman and a person, she begins to have an emotional attachment to him and one day when the right conditions present themselves an affair becomes a logical conclusion.
2. Revenge– most women who willfully cheat do so just to get even with their men. No matter the reasons men give for their infidelity the foremost being that they are polygamous by nature, women want and expect fidelity from their men, and today’s woman is unwilling to accept the sayings of old that women should be patient and wait till their erring men get tired of sowing their wild oats outside then come home to them. Some women run blindly into an affair urged on by their hurts and determination to get even whilst some calculate and plan their revenge so it will have the desired effect on the man. For most of the women, these affairs mean nothing, they just help her to know she is still attractive and help to boost her self morale especially when the man has told her for years that no one else will have her.
3. Sexual Frustration– there is a sexual revolution amongst women. We are no longer restrained by the teachings and beliefs that sex is mainly for procreation. Many women desire sex, have sexual fantasies and want to be fulfilled sexually. The 40s and mid 50s find a woman becoming more sexually aware of her body, desires and wants and unfortunately that’s the time when her man begins to decline sexually either because of health reasons and medication which affects his libido, financial pressures or just pure old age. Also, some men are rather rigid in their belief about what kinds of sex styles they should have with their wives although they would try all sort of raunchy styles with their side chicks.
Some have not perfected the art of love making and cannot bring their wives to an orgasm. Women in this category may cheat because they want to be sexually fulfilled but many do so with sex toys rather than with other men. On the other hand, some women cheat because they love to have lots of sex just like some men would chase anything in skirts.
4. Financial and economic reasons– some women cheat for the material things- money, clothes, lifestyle they get from their lovers. Their partners may or may not be able to provide for them but the financial gain is the main reason they cheat. However, some women cheat, in order to provide for their families and even to help their husbands. I remember a story I read sometime back. A man lost his job and couldn’t give his family the lifestyle they were used to; they changed the children’s school and their accommodation yet they couldn’t make ends meet. The man’s friend’s office had an opening and he got the wife a job there. She started to make money and things went on fine until her boss wanted to sleep with her. She refused at first until he dangled an incentive before her . The incentive was that he would award contracts to her husband. She agreed and he did award her husband many contracts which made him a multimillionaire and changed their lifestyle all without his knowledge.
I know of a woman who was said to have told her husband that she slept through the ranks for him.
In a Nutshell, women have affairs, as stated by Divorce and parenting coach Rosalind Sedacca because they are unhappy in their relationships but don’t have the courage to make a dramatic life change. They may have children and don’t want to rock the boat at home. They may be financially insecure in their marriage and don’t want to lose that security base. They may be fearful about ending their relationship and find it safer to maintain the present facade and sneak out for emotional and physical fulfillment.
I have often said that I do not condone cheating either by men or women. In fact, I find it very difficult to understand, how a man can claim to love a woman and yet still cheat on her. I however, find it very amusing that a man who is cheating on his woman is pained, tearful and angry when he finds out she is cheating or has cheated on him.
I heard of an elderly man who was convinced that God hated him because he had the misfortune of catching his wife red handed in a hotel room with a man. He felt it was an evil he should not have witnessed and said he would have preferred to have been shot than for his eyes to witness such abomination.
Many men believe that if a Woman has an affair it is worse than when they do because most of them cheat just for the thrill or to satisfy a need and not because they want a relationship with their partners. They say when women cheat it is a well thought out and calculated plan but it is not necessarily so, as stated earlier most women look for an emotional connection and if it is lacking in their marriages or relationships and they find it in another relationship they may cheat. Most women that cheat as a means of revenge also do not plan to do so and most of the women that find themselves cheating especially due to the first two reasons often feel a sense of shame, disgust, revulsion and regret over their actions.
As for the third reason may I advise men in this situation to up their game, truly it’s not what you have but how you use it.
I know loads of people; both men and women who have told themselves, they would leave a relationship if their partner cheated on them. I said the same too, but when confronted with the reality many of us like me, find that it’s not as easy as we think to leave. The truth is that many times, affairs are an indicator of deeper problems within a relationship that many do not like to confront. We would rather prefer to fixate on the rightness or wrongness of the affair instead of fixing the reasons that caused it. The one good thing is that every relationship can be fixed even if there has been an affair by either of the parties.
It is hard work but it is doable.