Women Who Cheat - Infidelity Leading to Divorce

Monogamy, in a marital relationship, is becoming widely sparce. With recent media attention indicating the majority of households contain non-married couples, many individuals are, obviously, opting out of marriage. Additionally, recent studies have shown women, almost as often as men, will stray from a marriage. This fact, alone, may be a key indicator for the rising number of non-marriage couples cohabitating. In fact, as many as one in five women have admitted to cheating while married. Unfortunately, with the divorce rate at 50 percent, many of the marriages still intact do not survive any degree of infidelity. So, why do women cheat?

Many women contemplate the idea of having an affair but not all act upon the urge to do so. For women who do cheat on their husbands, there may be several factors which led to the decision to stray from the marriage. Such factors may include physical stress, emotional stress and even neglect by the husband. However, researchers point out that, more often than not, women engage in affairs strictly based on the sexual passion so often dissipating from a marriage, even after one year. Women, as often as men, seek the passion and desire that was found in the initial onset of dating and, often, do not seek out the affair to make an emotional connection. In rare cases, however, women may engage in an emotional affair with or without a sexual component. Most often this is the result of a neglect or a distancing marriage at home resulting in lack of communciation. Women like to communicate. As a result, the emotional aspect of an affair may simply be to satisfy the urge to communicate with someone of the opposite sex and feel as if she is being heard by the opposite sex.

For women who stray from the marriage, it is a commonly known that repairing the marriage is often more difficult than had a man strayed or had the man been involved in an affair. The basis for this lies, historically, in the women's ability to be more forgiving than a man in situations of extra-marital activity. With advances in societal norms, however, this may no longer hold true. Although many marriages are complicated and problematic, those who have affairs report they were simply unable to communicate and resolve those complications which led to a physical and emotional breakdown. Unfortunately, for many men, the distinction between wanting to have sex and the emotional intimacy connected to sexual contact is a damage to the ego and, therefore, many marriages fail when the wife becomes involved in extra-marital activity. What is important to understand is that the affair is most likely not a result of a specific interest in a particular man. Instead, it is a sign the woman may simply feel a void in the marriage that requires fulfillment. For this reason, men should learn to communicate and listen to the needs of their wives.

Conversely, women, when feeling neglected or distanced from their spouse, should establish a method by which communication and bonding can be reinforced. For many men, communicating with a spouse who is negative and considered unhappy, is difficult to do. To communicate more effectively with a husband, wives should focus on items that bring joy to the husband so as to offer a more approachable platform in which to begin conversation. For example, if the husband appreciates restoring old cars, conversation and bonding should be positive, non-intrusive, and may be at times around the time the man begins working on cars in the garage. For women, it is about creativity.

With societal statistics working against the institution of marriage, many couples are finding happily ever after is not so happily achieved. When dealing with a wife who has strayed from the marriage, examining the issues which may have attributed to feelings of neglect and distance, while in the marriage, is a first step to improving the marriage and improving the statistics of marriage in the United States.