Reason 3: Desire To Leave
Many women who cheat say that they’d already left their marriages emotionally long before they had an affair, and using another partner to transition out of a bad marriage is another common reasons women have affairs.
Women can often become frustrated with living a life of disillusionment, and felt trapped in a disappointing, sexless marriage, where their dreams and hopes of a successful marriage have faded, leaving them very lonely.
Many feel that affair or not, their marriage would have dissolved anyway.
“They are on a sinking ship and use it as a life raft because they don’t want to just jump into the cold water,” Reilly says.
She also sees some women have affairs during periods of vulnerability or life change, like when a child goes off to college or after a job loss. They may see it as a form of comfort during upheaval.
Reason 4: A Cry For Help
Another common reason is a cry for help in the marriage. One of Reilly’s patients had an affair, ended it, and then told her husband as a way to point out they were in more trouble than he thought.
Reilly says her clinical experience has shown that affairs are almost always caused by problems in the marriage. Therapy, at times, can be helpful to avoid going down that path.
“People have affairs because they are looking for something,” Reilly says. Although she sees a number of couples grappling with infidelity, “more people come to me before it happens because they want to save their marriage.”
Women are also less likely than men to have an affair that “just happens,” because they tend to think longer and harder about the situation, experts say.
Some women take time ” to warm up to it,” says Marcella Weiner, EdD, PhD, an adjunct professor at Marymount Manhattan College in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Going in and leaving quickly isn’t their thing. Men can walk away more easily, because their emotions are just different and it is unusual for a woman who wants to have sex and forget about it.”
It may be an old notion that women are the ones who get attached in a relationship, Reilly says. But she sees that women do connect with their partners in affairs and think more about taking part in one.
“Women really can recognize the risk for them,” Reilly says, pointing to the possibility of losing their partner because of an affair. “Perhaps this is also because, when it comes to affairs, society tends to more harshly judge women than men,” Reilly adds.
Why Women Cheat was originally published on blackdoctor.org
