Thanks to a wide range of websites and applications that serve those seeking simple, casual sex, this is equally true for singles and married people.
However, cheating isn’t frequently done because someone had sex with someone new.
The reason behind cheating in both male and female individuals is a lack of something. A common pathway to extramarital affairs and divorce is the need to complete the missing piece.
According to a University of Indiana study, men and women stray at comparable rates these days, though for different reasons.
There are surveys about the reasons why women cheat, but I’ll concentrate on my personal experience assisting couples in overcoming their extramarital affairs.
Here are the top 3 reasons I’ve heard, from the cheaters themselves, about why women cheat:
1. Lack of connection.
The primary driver that women have in an intimate relationship is to feel connected.
For women, the feeling of connection is a mix of chemical bliss that creates attraction and intimacy.
When women feel disconnected from their spouse, the feelings of intimacy fade. The possibility of a new connection with someone else opens up. And these emotional connections can easily lead to physical affairs.
2. Vengeance.
This may be unpopular to some, but in my experience, about 1 in 5 affairs by women happen because of “pay-back”.
It’s revenge for the husband’s affair, or maybe even vengeance for some perceived wrong or mistreatment.
Numerous women have confided that their affairs were intentional “pay-back” because their husbands didn’t help out enough with their newborn babies and toddlers.
Others have mentioned that it was revenge for an unmet expectation around Valentine’s Day or their Birthday, or Anniversary.
I’ve heard directly from women who cheated because their husbands wouldn’t take time off of work or change jobs, or didn’t help out enough around the house.
3. Unsatisfying love making
It’s no secret that people’s stressful, fully scheduled, fast-paced living leads to unsatisfying sex lives. Lack of passionate and fulfilling love making is another driver for women who have affairs.
While men may complain about the quantity of sex, women complain about the quality.
Women often comment on the lack of sex initiated by their husbands, with the desired amount of passion.
Here’s a sample of what they’ve said to me; “I want him to just take me spontaneously”, “I want him to throw me on the bed”, “I want him to be more aggressive.”
These statements often include far more colorful words.
The mistake that a man might make is thinking that his wife, now a mom of three, has lost her desire for hot, steamy sex.
She hasn’t. And many women are not willing to settle for a passion-less marriage.
There is no doubt that women are often less satisfied with their marriage than men.
Not only are women having affairs at increasing rates, they initiate divorce at staggering levels.
According to a well-known study of 2,262 heterosexual couples over 5 years by Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld, women initiated 69% of divorces.
The details of the study further indicate that college educated women initiate divorce over 80% of the time.
Maybe this is a wake-up call to men.
If you’re a man reading this article, you are probably shocked. If you are a woman reading this, it probably just confirms what you already know.
The needs of both men and women will continue to be met; either inside the marriage or outside with someone else. So if there’s a problem, it’s important you seek support to solve it.
