Recently, I was reading an article which appeared in Esquire. The article was written by a married man, who didn’t want to be identified because of an obvious reason: he cheats.
“At home, I am attentive to the needs of my marriage. It is a kind of test, and men need tests. Fidelity is a test that pits a man against his own instincts, urges him to ignore his opportunities, to muffle any sense of expansion. Getting married rotates the average guy away from everything he has known about himself up to that point. And some guys pass the test. They do,” he wrote.
“And I love listening to their shit,” he continued. “Consider the ‘I love my wife’ routine, which certain moralistic nimrods unspool in front of me over cocktails again and again. I never jump in. I do not bite. You don’t fight men over stuff like this. I love my wife, too, but it’s nobody’s business how I deal with that love.”
He considered his local life as “clean.” He isn’t like those other men who professed to love their wives but do other nasty things like going into the bars or watching porn movies. “I am more focused than they are,” he wrote. “Stronger and better suited to what is near me — my family, my wife, my job. In some ways, that’s because I don’t hesitate to cheat.”
Now, that caught my attention. “If you cheat, you must believe this much: that fated love is a lie, and monogamous love a deception,” he explained. “If you cheat, these two sentiments are your guiding light. Doesn’t mean you’re incapable of love, doesn’t mean you don’t want what love — or even marriage — can offer. It’s just a paradox. You have what you believe, and it is never a lie. You train your sentiment to fit inside the lie. Your rules fit right inside that sentiment.”
Man, they say, is polygamous by nature. That’s why they cheat. “Some men may argue that, as men, it is their biological imperative (or right) to have sex with as many women as possible,” explains Robert Weiss, author of several books, including Cruise Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men and Sex Addiction 101: A Basic Guide to Healing from Sex, Porn, and Love Addiction.
“In their opinion, they need to spread their seed and propagate the race because, apparently, they (and they alone) sit atop the Darwinian sexual food chain,” Weiss contends. “I hear this and similar excuses constantly in my practice. Rather than debating the nature of ‘being male’ with such clients… I remind them that when a man makes a vow of monogamy to a spouse or significant other, and then breaks that vow, he is in violation of a relationship contract.”
So, again, why do men cheat? Marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman surveyed 200 cheating and non-cheating husbands to get at the real reasons behind men’s infidelity. It served as the basis for his new book, The Truth About Cheating.
According to his study, 48% of men rated emotional dissatisfaction as the primary reason they cheated. This bit of information was highlighted in an article which appeared in Redbook.
The article said: So much for the myth that for men, cheating is all about sex: Only 8 percent of men said that sexual dissatisfaction was the main factor in their infidelity.
It quoted Neuman as saying: “Our culture tells us that all men need to be happy is sex,” Neuman says. “But men are emotionally driven beings too. They want their wives to show them that they’re appreciated, and they want women to understand how hard they’re trying to get things right.”
According to the article, men don’t know how to do this. Men are less likely than women to express these feelings, so you won’t always know when your guy is in need of a little affirmation, it said.
“Most men consider it unmanly to ask for a pat on the back, which is why their emotional needs are often overlooked,” Neuman says. “But you can create a marital culture of appreciation and thoughtfulness — and once you set the tone, he’s likely to match it.”
“That’s the reason why men cheat,” points out Eppy Gochangco Halili, a clinical psychologist and former psychology professor at the Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University. “Men are humans. They feel. They can feel tired that they are the working horse. They are capable of being sensitive but don’t even know it.”
Halili shared the story of Paul, a 15-year-old boy who underwent a therapy session. “I feel so betrayed by her,” he told his therapist. “I thought she loved me. We had sex. I never felt as much love from someone. Now, she’s gone. She just left with no reason. I will never allow another girl to come this close to me again.”
Halili explained the relevance of the story on cheating. “He doesn’t express his feelings much because society tells him he can’t be dramatic. He just solved the problem by not being close to anyone anymore. The world has created another future cheating husband. This young man was sensitive and loving. But his earliest experience of love was accompanied by betrayal.”
The reasons I pointed out there are far from complete. If you think your partner is cheating on you, then dig some more. But what I stated above is already an idea as to how you can help your partner beat cheating.
By the way, the Newman study found out that 66% of cheating men report feeling guilt during the affair. Also, 68% of cheaters never dreamed they’d be unfaithful, and almost all of them wished they hadn’t done it. One thing is clear: guilt isn’t enough to stop a man from cheating.
“Men are good at compartmentalizing feelings,” Neuman explains. “They can hold on to their emotions and deal with them later.”
The Redbook article has this to say: “So even if your husband swears he would never cheat, don’t assume it can’t happen. It’s important for both of you to take steps toward creating the marriage you want.”
