Why men cheat on their wives: top 10 reasons, answers and advice from a psychologist

Reasons for my husband's cheating

Betrayal is always a serious shock, even if there were warning signs, even if the wife guessed and saw signs and signs of betrayal. All the same, infidelity destroys unions, radically changes the lives of two, and in the case where there are children in the family, then of more people.

Globally, there are two reasons why husbands cheat:

• 1. “He’s always been like this.”

  There are men who are unfaithful to any woman, and always cheat, this is due to their constitution, character, and upbringing, usually this is immediately visible and only strong love on the part of a woman closes her eyes to what is happening and gives her hope: “That with me he will become different.” "

• 2. Situational betrayal

  In general, these are quite faithful men, they do not need much attention from other women, but something happens and they cheat. Here's what could be a specific reason for cheating:

  Read also:  Psychological model of human behavior. Description of a person’s psychotype according to socionics.

1. The relationship has cooled 2. There was a serious disagreement with the wife 3. A long separation 4. The way of life has seriously changed and the man has reconsidered his relationships, including family ones 5. Problems of an intimate nature 6. Age crisis, life crisis 7. Lack of mutual understanding 8. Treason or betrayal of wife 9. Influence of alcohol/drugs

Psychologist's advice If you connect your life with a man from the first group, do not close your eyes to it, you do not need to think that he will change. No, it won't change.

Identifying the traitor

Betrayal by men has become commonplace, which has provoked a collapse of moral values. Unfortunately, modern society is dominated by immorality and pseudo-freedom, which allows people to ignore family rules and behave as they please. The result is a huge amount of tears, broken hearts and bitter disappointments.

No one can imagine that minor quarrels and misunderstandings can lead to betrayal and separation; unexpectedness and suddenness make the pain even stronger. This is little consolation for women, but it should still be said that this situation is quite common. It must be treated philosophically, no matter how cynical advice it may seem. There is no need to panic, but you need to understand that the relationship will never be the same again. Trust and carelessness will become a thing of the past, and the memories will forever remain with a loving woman.

Signs of a cheating husband

If your husband suddenly began to perform the following actions, behave in a similar way, perhaps there is something hidden behind it:

• Seriously concerned about my appearance: hairdresser, gym, diet
• Started to stay late at work regularly
• I set up passwords on my phone and computer
• “Old” friends appeared from somewhere and he now meets with them regularly
• Started avoiding intimacy
• Constantly dissatisfied with you and clearly demonstrates it
• There was not enough money
• His car is now unusually clean, especially from the inside.
• Sudden business trips appeared or became more frequent
• New hobbies have appeared that require long absences - fishing, hunting, hiking
• Sudden gifts and flowers - this may be a sign of atonement for the guilt that an unfaithful husband experiences

Please note: All this should alert you only when your husband does not answer your questions or reacts aggressively. If there are logical, consistent explanations for everything, then there is no need to worry. People change, they develop hobbies, and a midlife crisis can force them to take more active care of themselves. By themselves, these signs do not mean anything.

If you are to blame

• Lately, your husband has been regularly hinting to you that it would be a good idea to exchange the cotton robe and pantaloons for red lace underwear, go to the salon and at least on holidays wear stiletto heels and dresses with a cut-out, but you were sure that your husband “loves you anyway.” ", continuing to fit into jeans and a shapeless robe.

• Lately, you have been constantly having a headache, the right little toe of your left foot, you were tired at work, and washing pots and ironing duvet covers took up all your free time, so sex was postponed until “distant later”, you yourself have already forgotten what it is.

• In response to your loved one’s innocent request to “diversify your life a little” with the help of scented candles or some products from an adult store, you turned on “grandma” and continued to insist on the missionary position in the dark. And in your opinion, you can only fantasize while cooking borscht.

Hence the result - the man’s patience ran out, and he went to get what he could not get from you elsewhere.

Why does my husband cheat but doesn't leave the family?

Husbands often cheat on their wives, even start second families, but do not leave the main family. Why? There are several reasons for this:

• Laziness. The man is quite well, he has a wife, he has a mistress, a certain status quo has been established. Why change anything?
• Fear of the unknown. A man can perfectly well be aware that his mistress is only kind and affectionate for now, but how she will begin to behave when she becomes his permanent official girlfriend, or even his new wife, is unknown.
• Fear has changed. A family is not two (two with children) people in a vacuum. This is literally a “cell of society.” Around the family there are relatives on both sides, friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc. How will all these people react to the news of the divorce, what ties will be broken forever because of this? A man cannot know this in advance and is in no hurry to check.
• Just a love of play, risk, flirting. For such a man, the mistress in itself is not very important, he is not going to leave his family, he just needs a thrill, this is how he has fun and gets away from the drabness of everyday life.

Please note: If you push a man to the wall, perhaps he will leave, but you must be firmly convinced that this outcome suits you, and you do not want to continue living with this person, otherwise you should not seek an answer that may not suit you arrange.

Advice for loving wives

Women's love is long and patient. The cure for a woman's passion can only be the time that separates her from her lover. But her love is able to save the relationship. But to do this, you need to follow several rules from the very beginning of the relationship.

1. We are all selfish. If we do something for another, we do it, first of all, for ourselves. Therefore, you need to learn unconditional love and not demand rewards for it from your loved one.
2. Remembering what is good for us may be bad for our loved one. In a relationship, “good” should be for everyone. And forget about complaints: they are the worst enemy of a love relationship.
3. Never dissolve in love and in your loved one. In this case, we risk being left alone. They love interesting, strong, self-confident women. A tattered book that has been read many times is, at best, pushed farther away.

Can a cheating husband stop cheating?

• The answer to this question depends on the reason for the betrayal. If a man is polygamous and wants love play, no, he will never stop cheating. But most of these husbands skillfully cover their tracks and do not upset their wife, and do not want to destroy the family, which is often the core of his existence.
• If a man decides to “shake off the old days” in the face of approaching age, and betrayal is a kind of escape to youth. In most cases, this one attempt will end the matter. As soon as the husband understands that it’s not about other women at all, but about his dissatisfaction with himself, the trips to the left end. But, of course, this is only if he understands.
• If the roots of betrayal lie in fundamental dissatisfaction with each other, then, most likely, a permanent mistress will appear, to whom the husband will sooner or later leave.

Advice from a psychologist If you suspect that there is alienation in your family, you have nothing to discuss except the problems of your children and parents, do not wait until the crisis unfolds in full force. Contact a family psychologist, or take an individual consultation. Understand your desires, dreams and goals, and it will be easier for you to restore the relationship with which your marriage began.

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Control over emotions

The betrayal of a loved one causes a storm of emotions and indignation. A woman begins to show her attitude to everything that happens in different ways, which were mentioned above. You can continue to push yourself and bring your body to the point of exhaustion, but it doesn’t make it any easier. It is worth remembering that everyone is alive and well, nothing irrevocable or deadly has happened. Psychologists recommend pulling yourself together as quickly as possible and not allowing yourself to abuse your body and soul. It is better to think about how to live further and what to do to resolve the situation. If you don’t have the strength to cope on your own, you need to seek help from specialists.

Is it true that all men cheat?

78% of men and 84% of women are firmly convinced that cheating is bad. But such views do not prevent them from personally cheating on their significant other. Otherwise, where do such terrifying statistics of divorces due to infidelity come from?

At the same time, 65% of marriages break up according to Rosstat for 2021.

Cheating is in third or fourth place among the reasons for separation of spouses:

According to statistics, every three men out of 4 cheat, and only one woman out of four cheats. At the same time, 74% of men admit that they would cheat on their wife if they were sure that she would never find out about it.

So no, not all men cheat, but the chance of marrying just such a guy is 3 to 1.

Quote “But usually, betrayal is the result of the fact that the relationship in marriage is already damaged. For example, sex is bad or a humanly bad relationship, or both are tired of each other, or conflicts and so on. That very “whining” of cheating married people is usually quite understandable: I can’t do this anymore, I feel bad at home, but he or she doesn’t understand me, and so on.”

Mikhail Labkovsky

Psychology of a happy marriage

Psychologists advise adhering to certain basics that allow you to build strong marriage bonds for a long period of time:

1. Spiritual kinship concerns most aspects of people's family life.
2. Having common interests, topics for communication, hobbies.
3. The difference is in temperament, psychology, individual aspects of outlook on life.

Absolutely identical people will not be able to live together for a long time, since the relationship will be monotonous.
At the same time, a large difference in understanding the world around them, the lack of common topics for conversation will quickly destroy the developing relationships between people.

Features of the first betrayal

13% percent of men cheat only once. As a rule, these are the very men whose reason for going to the left were those who had internal problems - a mid-life crisis, serious changes, upheavals not related to family relationships. Such men, as a rule, cheat situationally and do not prepare for betrayal in any way. Literally, “that’s how it happened.”

For other men, the first betrayal can be an exciting experience, for which they prepare in advance - they rent a hotel, take the lady of their heart to a resort, think over an alibi, they can persuade a friend or relative they trust, taking care of the cover.

Further, when the mistress becomes permanent, and infidelity is part of their life, such husbands can lose their vigilance, forget themselves, leave evidence, and then their infidelity is noticed by their previously unsuspecting wives.

Loyalty is not an innate quality. This is a conscious choice of the person himself. The reluctance to hurt and injure a loved one, respect for oneself and for one’s wife stops both men from cheating.

Shared fault

To understand how to survive the betrayal of a beloved man, you need to objectively assess the situation. Both partners are partly to blame for cheating, so you shouldn’t blame it on your husband or blame yourself. Perhaps the feelings cooled down a little, there was no peace of mind, there were still some misunderstandings. In any case, you need to draw the right conclusions for yourself so as not to repeat past mistakes in the future. This experience will be useful both for relationships with your husband (in the event of a truce) and for communication with your future partner.

Is it possible to prevent male infidelity?

In most cases no, unfortunately. An adult is responsible for his own actions and makes his own choices. A wife cannot influence her husband's fidelity or infidelity in any way. If he is looking for adventure, he will look for it in any family; if he is overwhelmed by a midlife crisis and the only way out he has found is an affair, then his wife has nothing to do with it again. And if serious contradictions and disagreements have matured in a couple, then the choice of a responsible partner is to try to resolve them, to improve relationships, for the sake of everything that happened, for the sake of the children, and not hide your head in the sand, looking for dubious consolation in the arms of another.

But here's what a woman can do:

• Initially, understand who exactly you are marrying, be aware of it and take responsibility for your choice.
• Try to solve emerging problems immediately, not allowing contradictions to accumulate to such an extent that the husband begins to commit rash acts, since normal dialogue in a couple is no longer possible.

Forgiveness

To understand whether to forgive a man’s betrayal, you need to look at the facts. You should not end the relationship if the following situations arise:

• if a man stumbles once, nothing like this has been noticed before;
• if the partner repents and sincerely asks for forgiveness;
• if the spouse is trying his best to hide the fact of infidelity and values ​​his family;
• if sexual life stopped and the woman did nothing to restore it;
• if a woman is ready to forgive everything, and it doesn’t matter to her how many betrayals she still has to endure.

How does a man feel who cheated on his wife?

Almost always, in addition to retaliatory betrayal or “revenge” for a serious offense, a man will experience a feeling of guilt. As we wrote at the beginning of the article, 78% of men are sure that cheating is bad. Having stepped over oneself and through those attitudes with which we all, one way or another, live, any person feels guilt, shame, devastation and despair. He feels sorry for his wife, he may feel sorry for his mistress, who in most cases is just an object through which he solves some of his personal problems. Cheating is like champagne, at first it’s fun and bubbles, and then it’s sad and gives you a headache. It is these negative feelings that make some men never cheat on their wives again.

Please note: All of the above does not apply to innate Casanovas and Don Juans. Those who have cheated feel a surge of vigor, pleasant satisfaction and a desire to go “hunting” again.

Parting

If cheating is just another unacceptable act, then it is not love. A woman should draw conclusions and decide to break up if a man behaves as follows:

• if betrayals occur systematically;
• the husband is satisfied with everything, he believes that nothing happened;
• if the relationship has completely devalued from the spouse’s point of view, he has ceased to respect and care about his reputation in the eyes of his wife;
• The husband’s betrayal turned out to be not only physical, he has serious feelings for his rival, in this case, separation is a matter of time, since the marriage is doomed.

Collect his things

And throw it out the window. Or pack your suitcase and throw it out the door. Thanks to everybody, you're free. Of course, this is not so easy to do, because it hurts, it’s offensive and you really want to return everything back, rewind the tape of life. But if the decision to break up with a man has been made forever, follow through and let all the things that evoke in you any memories of a happy life together leave your life with him (donated jewelry, mobile phone, laptop, cat, etc.) leave the old refrigerator).

Divorce is too complicated

Many men surveyed by sociologists realize that their marital relationships have outlived their usefulness. There are no former feelings, passion, interest. It would seem that we need to separate and go our separate ways. But the process of ending a relationship, especially if it lasted several years, is too complicated. A lot of moral, financial and legal problems arise. This may result in one spouse having limited communication with their children.

Or he will have to lose a considerable share of his property. Also, members of the male population may worry about the reputation they will have after leaving the relationship. At the same time, the prospect of being caught with a mistress somehow scares them less. It is much easier for men to periodically date a “left” girl and maintain their current relationship than to deal with the consequences of their breakup.

The opinion of one of the survey participants, Victor, on this topic:

“I lived with my wife for almost twenty years. We had an ordinary relationship. Children, home, work. Now I feel that she has begun to move away from me. She has developed her own interests, she is not very willing to communicate with me about her affairs. We don't have dinner together. Of course it's unpleasant. But where to go? I can't leave my family. While my feelings for my wife have weakened, I still love my children very much.

Divorce may make it impossible for me to communicate with them as freely as I do now. I do not need it. Sometimes we meet with our mistress and just sleep. I keep her at a distance, she doesn’t pretend to anything, because she’s in approximately the same situation. All my risks are reflected in her. But I don’t plan to leave my wife; this will significantly affect the lives of our children. I don't want them to think I abandoned them."