When She Cheats: Why Some Women are Unfaithful and Why it’s Never Okay
Women cheat.
Let me say it again for the people standing in the back — women cheat.
It is an indisputable truth that women engage in infidelity across all types of relationships. The stigma for a cheating woman is higher than for a man. It’s unfair, but it’s a reality.
Women cheat for various reasons. Some of the common justifications are: not getting their emotional needs met, a sexual thirst that goes unsatisfied, or they cheat out of revenge. Women also cheat out of selfishness, a sense of entitlement or insecurity (they use sex as a way to measure attractiveness or validation of worth).
Infidelity occurs as a response to problematic relational dynamics, i.e., chronic negative interactions, a lack of communication and dealing with issues indirectly or not at all.
Regardless of the justification, women who cheat — do not get a pass.
Cheating is cheating.
Emotional infidelity is real. I’ve seen many intimate relationships and marriages damaged by emotional infidelity. Engaging, either emotionally or sexually, with another person outside of a committed relationship is traumatic. It’s abuse of the partner’s trust. Emotionally infidelity hurts men and women equally and the consequences for women getting caught can be more severe.
People have close friends of all genders. However, developing an emotional closeness with someone other than one’s partner, where intimate feelings and conversations are shared in secret, can be highly destructive to a relationship — even when there is no sex.
Women in emotional relationships often fall in love with their “friend,” which ultimately makes it harder to give the bond up.
Emotional infidelity feels good because it offers all the good stuff without the heavy lifting of working on real relationship challenges. This is sexy stuff and can evolve into a sexual relationship, even when a woman cannot see it going there. Failing to address relationship problems makes continuing the affair more tempting.
When a woman’s sexual needs go unfulfilled by her partner, she becomes frustrated, angry and resentful. This leads a lot of women to cheat.
Some women in Western cultures allow men to dictate the sexual relationship by downplaying their natural sexual urges and desires. Women downplay their urges out of fear of being judged negatively. They also downplay their sexual urges to prevent being viewed as sexually aggressive or promiscuous.
On the other hand, women who explicitly own their sexuality may be viewed as less desirable partners, and they take this belief right into the bedroom. I’ve heard women talk about how silly they feel waiting and coping silently in frustration, hoping a man will read her body language, her non-verbal cues or read her mind, instead of telling him exactly what she wants. Women say often say to me, “I want him to just know I want and take the initiative.”
Unfortunately, women are not totally wrong if they fear the consequences of speaking up and directly expressing their need for sex. I’ve worked with men who invalidate a woman’s needs, fears and desires, claiming “she’s too open.” This exacerbates things because some men are insecure and won’t communicate or bother to learn a woman’s sexual desires. Men who are sexually insecure tend to avoid sex in general, particularly if they feel judged or criticized.
A woman may seek satisfaction elsewhere if her partner lacks experience, interest in learning what turns her on, or just flat out refuses to give her what she asks for. These women conclude it’s just easier to cheat than it is to fix sex-related issues at home. Whatever story she tells herself, her decision to cheat is a willful, deliberate, and hurtful choice.
Cheating is an intentional betrayal of trust.
Finally, revenge cheating is when a woman pursues another man to punish her cheating partner. Revenge cheating is highly destructive and toxic for relationships.
A woman may intentionally look for someone to inflict the most harm — like sleeping with her ex because she knows her partner goes out of his mind with jealousy or worse, sleep with his best friend. Men who have been cheated on in this manner take it harder than women can imagine. It is a massive blow to a man’s ego if his woman steps out on him, emotionally or physically.
Revenge cheaters make sure they get caught. This dangerous game of setting up explosive showdowns is extremely hard to come back from because it is devastating to a man’s ego and many times there is no chance of reconciliation. Women who think revenge sex will make their partner stop cheating or gain respect for them are deluded.
What it does is set up a domino effect of cheating — he then goes for higher stakes pursuing her best friend, her sister, or maybe even her mother. This provokes an escalating tit-for-tat cheating war and gets uncontrollably toxic quickly.
There are only two healthy choices when infidelity has been disclosed or discovered — either fix the relationship or just end it.
Thinking one can just let it go and forgive without doing the work to address the problems in the relationship is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.
The cultural double standards around infidelity exists— women are expected to “get over” a man’s cheating behavior, and men are less likely to recover and/or even refuse to even try. Some men become so hurt and angry that they stop believing any woman can be trusted and give up on committed relationships. Period.
Communicating, rather than cheating, is the only viable solution for gaps in the relationship. There is never a good enough reason for destroying a partner’s trust in a committed relationship.
If the sex is lacking or unsatisfying, if the emotional connection is missing, or a man has been hurtful, a woman should select one of two healthy choices: (1) commit to fixing the problems, or (2) end the relationship. In the end, cheating is never the answer. It will only make things much worse — for all parties involved.
Reach out for help. A weekend getaway, jewelry, expensive dinners aren’t going to heal the trauma and betrayal that comes with infidelity.
Thank you for reading.
With gratitude and appreciation,
Dr. Paula
Website: www.paulasmith-imago.com
