Why So Many Women Cheat on Their Husbands

New York Magazine ^

[nickcarraway]

One of the more interesting facts in Esther Perel’s new book, State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, comes near the beginning. Since 1990, notes the psychoanalyst and writer, the rate of married women who report they’ve been unfaithful has increased by 40 percent, while the rate among men has remained the same. More women than ever are cheating, she tells us, or are willing to admit that they are cheating — and while Perel spends much of her book examining the psychological meaning, motivation, and impact of these affairs, she offers little insight into the significance of the rise itself. So what exactly is happening inside marriages to shift the numbers? What has changed about monogamy or family life in the past 27 years to account for the closing gap? And why have so many women begun to feel entitled to the kind of behavior long accepted (albeit disapprovingly) as a male prerogative?

These questions first occurred to me a few years ago when I began to wonder how many of my friends were actually faithful to their husbands. From a distance, they seemed happy enough, or at least content. Like me, they were doing the family thing. They had cute kids, mortgages, busy social lives, matching sets of dishes. On the surface, their husbands were reasonable, the marriages modern and equitable. If these women friends were angry unfulfilled or resentful, they didn’t show it.

Then one day, one of them confided in me she’d been having two overlapping affairs over the course of five years. Almost before I’d finished processing this, another friend told me she was 100 percent faithful to her husband, except when she was out of town for work each month. Not long after, another told me that while she’d never had sex with another man, she’d had so many emotional affairs and inappropriate email correspondences over the years that she’d had to buy a separate hard drive to store them all.

These women were turning to infidelity not as a way to explode a marriage, but as a way to stay in it. What surprised me most about these conversations was not that my friends were cheating, but that many of them were so nonchalant in the way they described their extramarital adventures. There was deception but little secrecy or shame. Often, they loved their husbands, but felt in some fundamental way that their needs (sexual, emotional, psychological) were not being met inside the marriage. Some even wondered if their husbands knew about their infidelity, choosing to look away. “The fact is,” one of these friends told me, “I’m nicer to my husband when I have something special going on that’s just for me.” She found that she was kinder, more patient, less resentful, “less of a bitch.” It occurred to me as I listened that these women were describing infidelity not as a transgression but a creative or even subversive act, a protest against an institution they’d come to experience as suffocating or oppressive. In an earlier generation, this might have taken the form of separation or divorce, but now, it seemed, more and more women were unwilling to abandon the marriages and families they’d built over years or decades. They were also unwilling to bear the stigma of a publicly open marriage or to go through the effort of negotiating such a complex arrangement. These women were turning to infidelity not as a way to explode a marriage, but as a way to stay in it. Whereas conventional narratives of female infidelity so often posit the unfaithful woman as a passive party, the women I talked to seemed in control of their own transgressions. There seemed to be something new about this approach.

In The Secret Life of the Cheating Wife: Power, Pragmatism, and Pleasure in Women’s Infidelity, another book on infidelity to be published this November, the sociologist Alicia Walker elaborates on the concept of female infidelity as a subversion of traditional gender roles. To do so, she interviews 40 women who sought or participated in extramarital relationships through the Ashley Madison dating site. Like The State of Affairs, Walker’s text offers valuable insight simply by way of approaching its subject from a position of curiosity as opposed to prevention or recovery, and she investigates which factors led the women in her study to go outside their marriages. Surely, one might think, a woman who would do such a thing must be acting out of a desire to escape a miserable marriage. And yet it turns out, this isn’t always the case: Many of the women Walker interviewed were in marriages that were functional. Like the women I knew who cheated, many of the interviewees said they liked their husbands well enough. They had property together. They had friendships together. They had children that they were working together to raise. But at the same time, they found married life incredibly dull and constraining and resented the fact that as women, they felt they consistently did a disproportionate amount of the invisible labor that went into maintaining their lifestyle. One woman in Walker’s book told her, “The inequality of it all is such an annoying factor that I am usually in a bad mood when my spouse is in my presence,” and another said that while her husband was a competent adult in the world, at home he felt like “another child to clean up after.”

Many of the friends I spoke to expressed similar feelings. “I shop and cook, my husband does dishes and empties the trash,” one told me. “We each do our own laundry. But I’ve always been in charge of the ‘calendar,’ and what I didn’t realize until recently is that in some way I’m in charge of managing many of our relationships. My husband is a homebody and I initiate/plan almost all of our social endeavors. My mom got this phrase from her therapist: ‘keeping the pulse of the household’ — this idea that someone has to be managing the emotional heart of your tiny community. I think women do that a lot.” And as Perel repeats frequently in this book, and in her previous one, little does as much to muffle erotic desire as this kind of caretaking and enmeshment.

There is a correlation between equal division of labor and better sex. “I think there’s an incredible amount of deep resentment for women in America about divisions of labor,” said sociologist Lisa Wade when I asked her to comment on this contradiction. “And what social scientists are finding now is that there is a correlation between equal division of labor and better sex.” No matter how much attention is paid to these issues, she told me, “these kind of cultural beliefs hang on a long time after they’re relevant. They hang on in ways that are often invisible. A lot of women have tried to address these problems and have faced a lot of stubbornness from husbands. They feel there’s no way to win this battle. So maybe now what women are deciding is that infidelity is a third way.”

Of course, it’s a “third way” that is not feasible for everyone, even if more women are taking it up, usually women who feel financially secure and independent enough to risk potential fallout. These women seem to be finding that no amount of sensitivity or goodwill on the part of their husbands can save them from the fact that in every arena, from work to marriage to parenthood, they’re always doing more for less. As Wade put it, “It’s such a precarious balance keeping everyone happy, that for many women, to start a long conversation about her own sexual satisfaction seems like a bad idea. We now tell women that they can have it all, that they can work and have a family and deserve to be sexually satisfied. And then when having it all is miserable and overwhelming or they realize marriage isn’t all it’s cracked it up to be, maybe having affairs is the new plan B.”

I tested this idea out on a few of the friends who had confided in me about their affairs, and most of them agreed. Twenty or thirty years ago they might have opted for divorce, because surely there was another man out there who could do better in this role, who could satisfy them completely. But a lot of these women are children of divorce. They lived through the difficulties divorce can create. “Even now,” all these years later, one told me, “Do you know what my most vivid memory of Christmas is? Driving through a blizzard up I-95 in the back of one of their cars, and then they’d pull over on the side of the highway and hand off me and my brother without speaking. That was our Christmas. Why did these people marry in the first place?”

Maybe that’s the essential question, the question preceding those Perel explores in her book. Why do women still marry when, if statistics are to be believed, marriage doesn’t make them very happy?

I confided in a friend once that, after 15 years of marriage, the institution and the relationship itself continued to mystify me. At the time I married, marriage had felt like a panacea; it was a bond that would provide security, love, friendship, stability, and romance — the chance to have children and nice dishes, to be introduced as someone’s wife. It promised to expand my circle of family and improve my credit score, to tether me to something wholesome and give my life meaning.

Could any single relationship not fall short of such expectations? Maybe these women were on to something — valuing their marriages for the things it could offer and outsourcing the rest, accepting the distance between the idealization and the actual thing, seeing marriage clearly for what it is and not what we’re all told and promised it will be.

My friend told me she felt this way of thinking was the only answer, and the way she’d come to reconcile her feelings about the relationship. She said that she used to compare her marriage to her parents’, who always seemed totally in love. “Until the end of my mom’s life they were spooning together every night in a double bed … not even a queen. But,” she added, “they were awful and narcissistic, with very little to give to their children.” My friend felt she and her husband were much better parents, more involved and attuned to their kids. “But often,” she went on, “it can feel like my husband and I are running a family corporation together and that our emotional intimacy consists of gossiping about our friends and watching Game of Thrones. Sometimes I wonder if when the kids leave I should either (a) have a passionate affair or (b) find another husband. I may do neither, but it seems like (a) is more likely than (b). I don’t have any illusions that marrying someone else will make me happy, not anymore.”

[Celerity]

Eh.. “Ok” I guess.

I do more of the Labor than she does. Cook, clean and work to pay the bills. I also spend more time with our little one.

In her defense, she is starting her own business and has been struggling with that for years. We’re still working to find out how to be financially independent while giving our kids a quality family life.

In a modern world, such a primitive goal is actually kinda tough.

[AppyPappy]

“Women today feel entitled to cheat because they do most of the housework.”

It has nothing to do with it. The women I knew who cheated were simply interested in cheating. Their husbands had nothing to do with it. It’s the same with men.

The difference is that I have never known a woman who cheated because her husband withheld sex from her but I have known men who did.

[CodeToad]

Women are attention seekers. They can’t live without someone giving them attention. There is so much porn on the Internet not because there is so much demand but because there is so many girls looking for attention.

If you want a girl to take off her clothes you only need to have a camera.

[Big Red Badger]

Cheaters going to Cheat.

[rb22982]

Both unmarried and married men. If you read the men blogosphere and some of the research done by plenty of fish, women are increasingly sleeping with a smaller batch of men - roughly the top 10-15% of men. Those men are having sex with more women than ever while the next 25-40% are having less. So it’s actually not unrealistic to believe women have gone up and men has stayed the same - the women are just sleeping with the same men. I know one guy who sleeps with ~50 different women a year (he’s single)!

[rb22982]

Women today feel entitled to cheat because they do most of the housework.

I'd be happy to trade positions with my wife. She does most of the housework, has no job and we have no kids. I work 50-60 hrs/week, do some housework and manage all of our finances (including active investments like rental properties which are a lot of work to self manage). If I could have my wife make $300k/yr and I could sit at home, I'd make sure the house was always spotless and cook every single meal.

[rb22982]

A good buddy of mine had that happen to him, except it was his wife of less than a year. He’s the only one of our close friends that has gone through a divorce (most of the rest of us have been married 10-13 years), surprisingly, and he even offered to forgive her if she said she wouldn’t do it again.

[rb22982]

And in a divorce, they walk away with half, alimony, child support, etc. Not surprising fewer and fewer men want to get married.

[Albion Wilde]

Women who cheat do so because they can while still counting on being given the family / house / money in a divorce.

You are correct that the "no-fault" divorce system has enabled cheating. But it goes both ways. Under "no-fault", joint custody is imposed even if one partner, often the male, wakes up one day and "discovers" he is gay, and then the children have to be transported to Fred and Steve's every other week and there is nothing the innocent wife can do to stop it. The moral dimension of marriage and the idea that parents are to be role models of moral behavior or suffer consequences such as losing influence over their children because they cannot uphold their vows and be a moral parent goes right out the window with no-fault. Cheaters of either sex get away with anything and still make the other spouse's life a misery until the children are emancipated.

Under "no-fault", the partner with the most money to pay lawyers becomes the "winner" and the one who has invested more time in the marriage, home and children is usually the "loser." Sometimes judges make the spouse with higher income pay the legal bills of the one who stayed home or worked part time so he or she could take care of the kids, but often they don't; and that home-making partner will get the shaft.

God hates divorce.

[rb22982]

No, under no fault divorce, the woman nearly always wins. They get primary custody 95% time and hence also child support. THey also get alimony at a rate of roughly 20:1 compared to men. If my wife left me today, in the great state of SC, I’d be paying her ~$60k/year FOREVER - for 11 years of marriage (0 kids)

[Albion Wilde]

Except it's women who file for divorce 70% of the time.

That is a misleading statistic unless you know the reasons why. Regardless of changing times, it is still the case that more men cheat (or get caught at it) than women; therefore more women file for divorce. Judges are often more lenient with men who start "dating" and having women stay over in front of the children while they are only separated and not divorced; but will punish a woman for having a new man before the divorce is final. Times are changing, but many people still cling to double standards. If those people are lawyers, judges, pastors or in-laws, it's usuall the man whom they indulge with getting away with cheating.

[rb22982]

Not according to this article, this article. And men aren't cheating anymore now than 50 years ago, but the ratio of who initiated the divorce has soared towards women in the last 50 years.

[Interesting Times]

I’ll take “Self-Serving Rationalizations” for $800, Alex.

[anton]

Women cheat on their husbands for three reasons:

1. Passive aggressive behavior toward the husband;

2. Hot pants; and

3. Cognitive dissonance. (They feel like a slut so they have to act it out to overcome the discomfort from the dissonance.

[jetson]

From a guy who had been divorced five times told me

" They are all crazy, can't trust em."

[Albion Wilde]

Yes. And most conservative women voted for a guy who has had 5 children with 3 different women. So who these women voted for doesn’t really correlate their values.

Both candidates in the last election had various types of marital cheating on their resumes. Why keep hammering on the one who at least has patriotic values for the nation rather than seeking to make the US a marxist gulag? Life isn't perfect. Presidents are human.

The loser candidate seems to be cynically committed to living a lie. The winning candidate learned about marriage the hard way "on the job" and finally found a good one with whom there appears to be a mutual trust and love that has lasted so far 20 years.

If you read the biographies of people who live much of their lives in the public eye, you will often find a pattern of two or even three very short marriages, followed by the one that lasts 30 or 40 years. It's not Biblically desirable and the heartbreak is severe all around; many people affected whether it's the ex-spouse(s) or the kids can never fully forgive; but Jesus has already paid the price for every sin except rejection of the Holy Spirit. Jesus can forgive the regretful and repentant ex-cheater.

If a person is one of the lucky ones in life whose circumstances provided a healthy and lasting marriage from the get-go, consider those circumstances a gift and a blessing from God, not necessarily the proof of superior morality on his or her part. Some people do not have fortunate circumstances and suffer terribly from not having a good marriage.

Consider the generations of European women whose men were killed off in World Wars I and II. Europe is still a mess because of the disorder caused by the excess of three generations of unfulfilled women in that last century. In this country, the draft during the ten years of Vietnam picked off or harmed many of the manliest men for the group of women who graduated high school and college in the 60s and only had the remaining 4-Fs and bisexuals to choose a husband from, just when the Pill and feminism's promise of "equal pay" and "independence" were also hitting the scene. We are seeing the results now.

[Albion Wilde]

And the alternative was an abortionist, communist, gun-control-freak, dishonest, homosexual, anti-patriotic hell-bitch openly bent on destroying America. I think Donald Trump's utter lack of fidelity to marriage was a very small issue in the grand scheme of things.

Couldn't have said it better. And, at least he married his flames. The one he has ended up with is a good one, like his mother -- someone who understands him and supports him instead of trying to compete with him like the first one or being an attention-seeking homewrecker like the second one.

[Albion Wilde]

“Is she now a “former” GF?”

Oh, yes. 14 years of dating.

There's the problem right there, as your post went on to explain. Fourteen years without putting a ring on it, and you were shocked that she finally met someone else? Wow.

You seem to have figured most of it out since then, except for still resenting her for her straying from a relationship that was probably involving sex relations outside marriage, or was not sexual but had gone on for 14 years with no commitment to marry. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

[mountn man]

The numbers on infidelity are close enough to even.

57% of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had.
54% of women who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had

22% of married men ADMIT to having an extra marital affair.
14% of women ADMIT to having an extra marital affair.

Men get the rap of being a louse (which they are)

Women rationalize it as "he drove me to it".

Women file for divorce almost 70% of the time.
OF THESE...89% are women who have a Bachelors degree or higher.

When it comes to non marriage relationships, the numbers are virtually even, of who breaks it off.

As far as physical or emotional abuse...

1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been the victims of physical abuse by a partner.

[miss marmelstein]

I don’t believe an unmarried couple can ever “cheat.” There is no commitment so there is no infidelity. Any woman who lets a relationship go on for 14 years without a ring, is a sap.