1. Only idiots have affairs.
In fact, the opposite is true in most situations. One thing we often hear from betrayed wives is that others would be very shocked if they found out about their husband’s affair. Most of the time it’s the quintessential good guy who has an affair. He is the guy who helps everyone in the neighborhood and at work and is also a mainstay in his church or synagogue. The kind that no one would believe would do this kind of thing. Usually, it’s their ‘nice guy’ nature that gets them into it in the first place. Since they are kind and considerate by nature, affairs usually start with the married man helping or being nice to the other woman upon meeting her.
2. Men who have affairs don’t love their wives.
In most love situations, the married man is still very much in love with his wife (and she with him) and has no intention of leaving his wife or family for the other woman. Married men who find themselves in an affair often find out after the affair is discovered, and they are uncovering the layers of their dysfunction with a therapist, that they have an uncanny knack for compartmentalizing. This means that they are able to keep the different parts of their lives in separate compartments in their mind. The wife and family are in one compartment and the other woman and affair are in another. By keeping them separate in his mind, he can avoid guilt and shame and continue to love his wife and go on with the other woman because the two don’t intersect in his mind at all.
3. Men have affairs with women who are prettier, younger, smarter, or skinnier than their wives.
It is often believed that a man will choose a partner who is superior to the betrayed wife. In most situations it is the opposite. Men will often “take a chance” by choosing a partner who is much less in all areas than his wife. There is a deficiency to begin with. A woman who has everything under control has no need to settle for less. She wouldn’t tolerate being a dirty secret in someone’s life. So where does the attraction come from? Initially it comes from the other woman being different from the wife in some way. It may be that she is more outgoing where the wife is reserved or a career woman and the wife is a homemaker. The other woman’s shortcomings are overlooked due to the allure of having something different available and willing. The real seduction comes from ego-bumping the other woman in casual conversation. Eventually, sexual attraction arises from the other woman’s explicit and open sexual conversations or when she allows the married man to do so. This opens the door to forbidden sex.
Most men will tell you after the affair is discovered and they have time to get out of what is often referred to as “the fog,” that they weren’t as much in love with the other woman as they were with her. how they made you feel The other woman will often strategically get clues about the married man’s dissatisfaction with his wife and his marriage and turn into the complete opposite. For example, if a man says his wife is nagging too much or being too controlling, the other woman will make sure he never asks her questions or asks her to do or be anything other than who she is at the moment, often at the expense of their own desires and desires.
For many married men there is an unconscious element in that they will select women who do not compete in their own mind with their wives. Women they know they couldn’t love but certainly can desire.
4. Men leave their wives for the other woman or break up with the other woman once the affair is discovered and the divorce occurs.
The truth is that only about three percent of men who have affairs ever break up with a partner. Once again, the love partner is often not the type of woman he wants to have as a partner for life. Sexual partner, yes; life partner, no. So even when discovery ends in divorce, the other woman is often dumped, and more often than not abruptly, as she becomes an icon of her shameful behavior that ruined everything she loved. and appreciated.
5. Men are fully aware of what they are doing and all the consequences when they have affairs.
Most cases are just a different form of addiction. Just like people who abuse substances or have a gambling addiction, affairs become a secret world of deceit and take on a life of their own in the same way that any other addiction takes hold. Men get into adventures and often find themselves in situations where they can see the destruction in them, but don’t know how to stop it. And if they do quit, they often fall back into it just like any other addiction. It is not the person to whom they are addicted, it is the caresses of the ego, the forbidden sex and the world of illusion where the demands of daily life do not exist. He is an escape from reality, like an alcoholic or a crack addict. And like other addictions, the abuser loses his objectivity and the ability to see the destruction he is creating. They build walls of denial and deception that often take years to dismantle. When they get caught, most men will say they never expected someone to get hurt because they never expected to get caught. In other words, they never considered the consequences of what would happen if they were caught.
6. Men actively seek business partners.
Most men are not actively looking for flings or fling partners. Not on a conscious level at least. They really “just happen”, or at least in their minds they do. What they don’t realize at the time is how vulnerable they are to another woman’s attention. They don’t realize how damaged their self-esteem is, and when a woman comes along and begins to assume the role of confidant with a handful of ego jabs, men who are out of touch with their own emotional health will bite hard at the bait. In return, the married man will shower attention on the other woman who has little or no self-esteem. With both sides feeding the ego beast, the affair soon begins. This explains why we see so many successful men risk everything on an affair. Our society teaches men that it is weak to examine and be in touch with their feelings. Climbing the ladder of success or simply overcoming the demands of everyday life can set off chain reactions of emotions from the past and present. When those emotions fill up, there is an insidious decline in self-esteem and self-worth. Once it reaches a certain threshold, men begin to search for an escape from their reality without even knowing what they are looking for.
You’ll often hear from the married man and the other woman that they didn’t plan for this to happen and that it “just happened.” He really didn’t. There is almost a formulaic process from which each issue is born. It all stems from a lack of self-esteem on both sides, unaddressed emotional issues, and a longing to escape from reality. Unfortunately, the escape is often out of the frying pan and into the fires of illusion, denial, and addiction.
7. Most marriages end when an affair is discovered.
There aren’t really any statistics on this, as most couples choose to keep the affair a secret if they’re going to reconcile. We see a lot of these “kept secret” marriages reconcile on Infidelity Mavens and feel that there is a very high percentage of marriages that reconcile after an affair is discovered. In fact, marriages can not only be mended, but better than ever after an affair. If the partner having the affair is open and willing to let the truth prevail and give up their “addiction,” the marriage has a fighting chance. There are many more steps to getting to “better than ever,” but from the start, openness and a willingness to reconcile in both the erring and betrayed spouse makes a world of difference.