By Dr. Alyson Nerenberg
In my practice recently, I have been seeing a lot of people devastated by the impact of an affair. I do not want to imply that it is only men who cheat. In fact, in the past 30 years I have worked as a therapist, I have also seen that many women have had affairs and have blown up their relationships too. For the sake of this blog post however, I thought it would be helpful to focus on just the men who have cheated. I will address the women who have had affairs in a future blog post.
Also, I want to emphasize my opinion that it is generally more than 1 of the these following factors that contribute to a person cheating on their spouse. By no way, is this list intended to justify or rationalize that it is okay to cheat. Cheating is a cowardly way of solving a relationship problem and creates many more difficulties that will reverberate within the family system for years to come.
Reasons Why Men Cheat
1. Alcohol and Drug Abuse- Intoxication leads to regrettable decisions
2. Insecurity- Need approval and validation
3. Immature Understanding of Love- mistakes the initial rush of romance for love
4. Impulsivity- opportunity presents itself and although men don’t intend to cheat they impulsively engage in an affair
5. Unresolved Childhood Trauma- reenacting neglect and sexual abuse to try and control issues he couldn’t control as a child
6. Trying to Get Out- a way of getting caught to make the spouse do the “dirty work” of ending the relationship
7. The Backup Plan- wants out of relationship but tries to line up the next relationship so that he is not alone
8. Terminal uniqueness-deserves something special that other men don’t and thinks the usual rules don’t apply
9. Unrealistic expectations- a man thinks his partner should fulfill his every desire. 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Impossible standards so will constantly be disappointed
10. Sex/Love/ Porn Addiction- affair is a way of numbing feelings
Affairs usually arise as a response to multiple factors but one thing I know for sure is that Men Don’t Have to Cheat. Affairs create their own problems and tend to make everything worse by creating trauma. Check out No Perfect Love for some practical strategies to protect your marriage from affairs as well as cope if there is an infidelity.