When most people think of reason why women cheat on their husbands, it’s usually because they assume that something is wrong in the marriage. It might be that the husband doesn’t pay his wife enough attention, or maybe the spark has completely left their relationship. In many cases, there are already trust issues and feelings of resentment and anxiety that drive married women into the arms of other men. But it would be wrong to assume that only unhappy married women cheat. The fact is that many happily married women still cheat on their husbands. Why? That’s what we’re going to explore in this article.
Loss of Spark
You’re sitting outside a coffee shop. A married couple is sitting at a table not far from you. You’re not really listening, but the couple appears to be happy. They’re talking and laughing with one another, and the husband holds his wife’s hand, but out of the corner of your eye, you notice that the woman is glancing over at you, as if she’s checking you out. What gives? They look like a happily married couple, but are they really? As the saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover. Some marriages appear to be genuinely happy, and if you were to ask either spouse, they would say that they love each other and are committed for life. This, however, does not always mean that they are happy in the bedroom. See 9 signs women give they are not happy in bed… In many cases, couples lose their spark and their lust for one another, yet their love remains strong. It’s not that they hate each other or no longer care for one another, but chemistry that brought them together has faded. Still as most marriage counselors will tell you, there are other factors that keep men and women together, such as a mutual respect for one another, shared interests, and genuine affection.
Constraints and Confinements
After so many years together (or even just a few), it can seem wrong to feel lustful for one another. Lust is primarily associated with dominance, aggression, and unrelenting desire, but in a happy marriage, where each partner is respected, it can seem unnatural or even threatening to want to display feelings of lust. Rather than release these feelings, couples tend to shut them out. Rather than trying out new things to spice things up in the bedroom, couples tend to remain silent, fearful that their desires will not be reciprocated or that they may not life what their spouses want to try. The result is that neither person is wholly satisfied, and both partners feel as if they cannot fully express themselves sexually.
The way spouses perceive each other can also be working against them. For example, a woman may look at her spouse and see him as a gentle father and an honest worker. She has a problem associating feelings of aggression and lust with her husband because she just doesn’t see that side of him. She is overlooking every potentially erotic notion about her husband in an attempt to keep the image of her gentle, helpful, and loving spouse alive. While being a good father is certainly a positive thing, it doesn’t exactly make for an erotic fantasy. Thus, women tend to look elsewhere for someone to fulfill that desire.
Emotional Dependency
In a happy marriage, each spouse depends on the other for love and support. They are the other’s rock, and when something goes wrong or one of them needs help, the other is always there to listen to a problem or offer emotional support. The effect this has on couples is that each spouse begins to see the other as a fragile being, one that can never be replaced. This creates a terrible anxiety among couples, as if they’re so scared of losing one another that they’d rather just shut the other person out rather than face the pain.
It’s a hard fact of life, but all of us will die at one point or another. For many couples who are so deeply connected, the mere thought of burying the other sends them into a deep depression, feeling as if the world is crashing around them. They’ve seen so many friends and family members go through the terrible process of losing a spouse that they’d rather distance themselves from a spouse rather than feel that terrible pain. In an effort to make themselves feel more emotionally distance, happily married woman will look elsewhere and start having affairs. Their reasoning is if they can become less emotionally attached and dependent on their husbands, then they’ll be more likely to be able to handle the pain should that spouse die.
Remember, in the world of dating and hooking up, anything is possible. To paraphrase, “It don’t always mean a thing, if she got that ring.”