Why do men cheat on their wives?

Ask Dr Gaylen ^

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

do  Why Do Men Cheat on Their Wives?

QUESTION:  

My husband is very much a flirt. Because of this as well as numerous other reasons, I think my husband is having an affair. I don?t think I am lust being paranoid. Please give me some help in understanding why men cheat, because I don?t think it is just me.   

  ANSWER:  

Your dilemma is one that is all too common. You are probably right when you say that it is not ?just me.?  It takes two to make a marriage or break a   marriage, and it takes two to have an affair. The fact that he has always been ?a flirt? suggests that, at one time, he was that way with you. You probably responded in a way that made him feel special, wanted, and needed, and reinforced his flirting behavior. This ties in with

 the first and main reason why men have affairs: to feed  their ego. The problem with us males is that feeling good about ourselves, or meeting our ?ego needs,? is our primary goal in life. Therefore, the first reason why men get involved in affairs is that it feeds their egos.

   The second reason is what we call ?misplaced anger.? For example lets consider the husband who is really mad at his wife for whatever reason. He may have an affair with some other woman as a way of making his wife ?pay. ? Instead of directing his anger toward her (which he may be afraid to do), or expressing the anger in a way that will help the relationship change, he just has sex with some other woman This action then feeds his ego (because someone else wants him), so he now feels good (physically and emotionally) and he doesn?t feel as angry with his wife. In his anger, he has made her pay.

   The third reason why men have affairs is boredom. The Bible (Proverbs 9:1 7) tells us  ?stolen melons are the sweetest,  stolen apples taste the best.?  In modem times this means that the ?grass is greener on the other side of the fence.? ?If I don?t have enough excitement in my life, I will create some.?

5 Reasons Why Men Cheat
on Their Wives

       1.  LOSS OF EGO
             A man?s primary need is to feel good about
             himself.  When he doesn?t he finds ways to
             meet this primary goal .

       2.   MISPLACED ANGER
              He may be angry at his wife but, rather
              than  deal with problem, he has an affair to
              ? make her pay?  

        3.   BOREDOM 
              Affairs are rarely boring; they tend to be
              exciting and full of life. Even the fear of
              getting caught causes excitement.  

        4.   ESCAPE FROM EMOTIONAL PAIN  
              The male sex drive provides a distraction
               or ?vacation? from emotional pain.  

      5.   NEED FOR NURTURE & INTIMACY
               If these needs are being met, men have
               no need to look elsewhere

 Children who are raised in alcoholic homes, for example, become what we refer to as ?adult children of alcoholics.? One key characteristic is that they become easily bored with life should it become too ?stable.?  
Children in alcoholic homes are raised with nothing being stable. As adults, they are then more comfortable in an unstable environment than in a stable one. This is why they become ?bored? and actually create chaos - because it is what is most familiar or comfortable to them. We all tend to repeat our past, whether that is a positive past or a negative past. If it was unstable then, we feel most comfortable in creating an unstable one now. 

The fourth reason why men have affairs is to escape emotional pain. Our sex drive is the second strongest drive within us -second only to self-preservation. Sex therefore can easily be used as a strong distraction from some emotional pain we do not want to feel. Few things in life are more intense than fulfilling this sex drive with a climax or orgasm. For this reason, a man can use sex as a way to distract him from emotional pain, like problems at home or work. It feels good to him physically, and he gets a vacation from the rest of his feelings of hurt and pain. This is why pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. He can receive instant gratification just by looking at a magazine, the Internet, a video, etc., and have a secondary benefit of taking a vacation from some internalized emotional pain. 

The fifth reason is the desire for nurture and intimacy. A recent study from the Florida State University found that premature babies who were massaged by their mothers on a regular daily basis developed physically 60% faster than those who did not receive this extra ?touching.? We all need human touch. It is a special form of nurture. When men don?t feel nurtured and cared for by their wives, they will seek it elsewhere. Everyone, males and females need to be nurtured with touch.

[StolarStorm]

Yeah. That's what I thought. She claims she didn't want to deal with a fight at the time it happened. Doesn't really explain why I had to find out years later.

I probably would have punched the guy out, but that would have been a healthy response I think. Now I can just steam about it, while the jerk is several thousand miles away in Scotland. OK. I've had enough of this venting. I'm having a bad week. I'm not normally this melodramatic.

[KirkandBurke]

Wealthy and mute! (lol)

You forgot that other thing, girlfriend.

"... and nearly dead." The perfect man.

[StolarStorm]

"keeping informaton from me that caused problems". It happens all the time. Maybe I'm just too hung up on openness and honesty for my own good. For some though, little white lies and omission of information are a way of life.

[alaskanfan]

A buddy of mine said it this way, "One day in his life, every man wakes up and is no longer a hostage to a madman called a penis. This is the day his life begins in earnest."

[nobdysfool]

In a situation like that, it's important to remember that if he considers this guy a good friend, then he has a right to know if that friendship is not being reciprocated. She has to differentiate between "important" actions, and "trivial" actions. In your scenario, the action is an "important" one, and therefore should be revealed, not hidden. Any time a so-called friend makes a move on his friend's wife, that is cause for concern and disclosure. In so doing, she affirms her commitment to her husband, and prevents long-term problems. He'll get over the short-term problem, and will know that, if nothing else, he has his wife's love and faithfulness, hence no problem there.

It comes down to understanding where loyalties lie. A married man's first and primary loyalty must be to his wife, and to their relationship. You don't have a real marriage without that. And hers must be the same, or the marriage is in serious trouble, even if it doesn't seem so at the time. In this scenario, by remaining silent about it, she has compromised her main loyalty, whether she knows it or not. She has placed the well-being of her husband's friend above her husband's own well-being, under the false guise of "protecting" her husband. She's not protecting her husband, she's protecting his so-called friend, which means that at some level, she responded subconsciously to his advances. That spells trouble in capital letters, because when the truth comes out, the husband will not only feel like a fool, he will feel betrayed, and by the one person in this world that should never do so. That's a clear definition of being blind-sided, and I can tell you this from my own experience, there is nothing that hurts more than being blind-sided by the one you love. Betrayal is a nasty feeling, and it can set into motion a lot of unlovely events. I would venture to say that in many cases, a man's cheating can be traced to a betrayal of trust somewhere in the past on the part of his wife, and it may have been done innocently, with the best of intentions. By not seeing it for what it is, all kinds of problems can result.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

No Stolar, a "little white lie" is "yes, your baby is cute".... not what your wife did.... she betrayed you...

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

You said that much more eloquently than I....

[cgbg]

as women get older they become less attractive. Men generally like young women, and as they get older men have more money so they can buy all the women they want. It's just biology,

Many women become more attractive (and yes, better in bed) as they get older _if_ they are happy and treated by their spouse with respect and admiration. Of course in our coarse culture there are less of these kinds of healthy relationships than there should be.

Older men who chase young women are often like fools and their money--they are soon parted.

[StolarStorm]

Should I even mention what she did when my Grandfather was dying? Didn't want to go with me to see him (and support me) cause she didn't feel like it, after I had spent countless days in hospitals with her grandmother and then her father earlier in our marriage and now I'm doing the same thing all over again.... The one time I really needed her she had "bad vibes"... Ok ok now I really need to stop. I've having my own little pity party. See ya.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

NO!!! Someone has to take out the trash! lol

[discostu]

That is one of the great mysteries of the world certainly. I could actually see cheating on Diana with someone like a page3 girl, while Diana was certainly beautiful she had that kind of beauty that would keep me (and presumably some other men) from... how shall we say... getting really nasty. She had a very pure beauty that just doesn't mix well with certain bedroom activities. But cheat on her with Camilla?! Final proof that inbreeding will destroy a blood line.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Yeah. You've got a point. I think that in some of the divorce cases I have had close personal access to, the couple married when they were young, relatively inexperienced with a lot of things, and had all kinds of expectations with limited realistic knowledge of how life and society works. When their high school and college mentality of mutual narcissism was challenged by realities of daily married life, they choked. Adultery in itself is not necessarily a reason to divorce, although I well understand why someone would seek that.

There's a girl I know (I say "a girl" but she's really 32) who has just burned through her third cohabiting "committed" sexual relationship. She's bitter, of course. But from her conversations with me I can kind of tell that some of her expectations are unrealistic. Maybe the guy was a creep, but there are always two sides to these stories. Some people don't know how to "make up" after arguments or major disagreements, but there are cases where some sort of separation is inevitable. Call it "The Woody Allen Syndrome." Or maybe The Henry the Eighth Syndrome. There are plenty of men who are bad news.

Widely divergent differences of opinion, taste, lifestyle, politics, or religion (in mid-life) can also be potent triggers. Look at Jane Fonda and Ted Turner! And when it's not sex,politics, and religion, money can rear its ugly head in the oddest and most demented ways.

I never figured out the real story with Lady Diana and Charles Windsor though. Classic age difference and personality clash, maybe?

[discostu]

If that comes from your life like the other stuff you've put on this thread I have a suggestion for you: hermit. The people in your life are too friggin' wierd, go live in a cave for a few years and start over from scratch later.

All in all I'd actually have to say she did something good. Friendships are built on more than one thing, but can be seriously damaged by just one incident. But, especially given how we men are, if there's time between the incident and the reveal stuff like this can often be settled with a minor skuffle and some beer (he's buying though). Why screw up a friendship over something that will eventually become water under the bridge? Also time needs to be given to see what was really behind what he did, does he come back the next day and apologize wondering what got into him, or does he keep it up.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Whew... Charles and Di would be a lengthy thread all on their own.... but I tend to lean more toward he needed a suitable vessel for heirs, she was enamoured by his position..... nothing to do with love or attraction.....

I love your comment regarding the narcissism of College mentality crashing into reality..... that is priceless!

[Argh]

I don't know, I've never wanted one, lifelong bachelor here. Who's watched all his friends, at one time or another, go through crud I stayed single (and dumped girlfriends) to avoid.

[Argh]

Too true.

[Dales]

Hmm. I love the theory, and know what my LL is.

Are you sure there aren't any others though? I don't think she speaks any of those lol ;-)