Reasons for Extramarital Affairs
Why Partners Cheat on their Spouses & How to Deal with Infidelity
There are several reasons for extramarital affairs and sexual infidelity. Knowing why partners cheat helps when you're dealing with infidelity.
Don-David Lusterman wrote Infidelity: A Survival Guide, which contains dozens of stories of extramarital affairs, reasons for infidelity, dealing with infidelity, and surviving extramarital affairs. Many of his stories are about hope and healing, but some describe why extramarital affairs can be the death of the marriage.
Below are Dr Lusterman’s reasons for extramarital affairs or why both women and men cheat. Knowing why your partner cheated has many benefits. This marital infidelity expert also points out that there are different types of extramarital affairs or sexual infidelity, which also changes how you deal with infidelity.
Why You Might Want to Know the Reasons for Extramarital Affairs
- You’re better able to determine if your relationship will survive the extramarital affair.
- You know what approach you should take when dealing with infidelity.
- You’ll learn how you can resolve your feelings about the extramarital affair.
- You’ll learn which treatment or way to deal with infidelity would be most helpful.
Knowing the reasons for extramarital affairs or sexual infidelity can help both partners survive the infidelity.
Reasons for Extramarital Affairs
- Inability to cope with cultural or ethnic differences.
- Disappointment that one partner hasn’t grown in the same ways.
- Unrealistic expectations about marriage.
- Sexual curiosity.
- Lost sense of fun and excitement in the marriage.
- Sexual addiction.
- Inability to accommodate a partner’s needs, interests or expectations.
- Inability to communicate one’s own interests, needs or desires.
- Boredom with the marriage, work, life, the relationship, or the routine.
- Lack of verbal skills or motivation to solve marriage problems together.
Do Men and Women Have Different Reasons for Extramarital Affairs?
Women may look for more emotional involvement when they’re involved in marital infidelity. “Men and women often seek different things when they become involved in extramarital activity,” writes Dr Lusterman in Infidelity: A Survival Guide. “…women are more likely to link sex with love, while men’s involvements are more often primarily sexual.” Why men cheat may involve more physical reasons.
Dr Lusterman points out that this isn’t true for all men and women. In other words, not all women are looking for emotional attachments as part of their reason for extramarital affairs. Similarly, not all men are looking to satisfy a sexual addiction or physical need as part of their reasons for extramarital affairs.
Knowing the individual’s unique reasons for extramarital affairs will help with dealing with infidelity.
If you found Reasons for Extramarital Affairs: Why Partners Cheat on Their Spouses helpful, try:
- Surviving an Extramarital Affair
- After You've Betrayed Your Spouse
- How Emotional Cheating Starts
- Three Stages of Love
