WHY DO MOST WOMEN END
UP CHEATING ON THEIR PARTNERS?
Men and women cheat on their partners for different
reasons. Men tend to cheat because they want more physical stimulation,
while women generally have more psychological and emotional motives for
cheating.
Chief among these reasons is loneliness. Women often
look to relationships with individuals other than their partners
because emotional companionship is lacking in the primary relationship.
It may appear to be a contradiction that women who have partners are
lonely, but often, this partnership is less than emotionally
fulfilling. Women may have affairs if they feel they do not receive the
attention they deserve from their partners. If a man is too involved
with his work or a hobby, he may have little energy left to pay
attention to the woman in his life. Women often feel lonely even in the
presence of their partners at times. A man may be physically present,
but emotionally absent, and this can lead a woman to look for
fulfillment outside the relationship.
Revenge is another reason
that women cheat on their partners. Women of today are not willing to
suffer in silence as their counterparts did in previous generations. If
a woman feels wronged, if she has an indication that her partner is
cheating on her, she will often have an outside affair to retaliate for
the pain she is feeling.
Women who find their partners have been
cheating on them feel completely justified in having an affair for
reasons of revenge. They view an affair as way to make their partners
hurt in the same way that they do.
Boredom may cause a woman to
look for love outside her primary relationship. As time goes by,
relationships may become routine and lose the excitement of their first
days. Instead of trying to remedy the current relationship, women may
try to inject excitement into their lives by having affairs. Affairs
are exciting, both because they involve sex with a new person, and
because they involve a considerable amount of 'sneaking around,' hiding
things from friends and family, essentially living a second life. For
some women, the excitement is so attractive that they are willing to
lose their primary relationship in order to pursue an affair.
Low
self-esteem can also be a reason for women to cheat. They may feel
unattractive and unwanted in their current relationship, even if this
is not the case. Partners may not make the same efforts at reassurance
that were common in the early days of a relationship, and women's own
feelings of inadequacy can make them look for affirmation from new
people that they are still desirable. Having an affair with a new
partner who finds her attractive and interesting may be compensation
for the low self-esteem that characterizes a woman's everyday life.
Women who have healthy opinions of themselves and are self-confident
are usually happy in their relationships, while those with low
self-esteem tend to look outside their relationships for affirmation
and end up cheating on their partners.
WHAT IS AN OPEN MARRIAGE?
Life is often very funny. Those people who are not
married wish to get married and, those who are already married, want
something else. Humans can never really get satisfied with what they
have. When you are married, all your sexual needs are met by your
partner. What happens if you are not totally fulfilled? Several things
will happen. The first thing is to repress it. In other words, you
ignore it and pretend you do not have a problem. There are very many
couples who are not happy with their sex lives but, because they feel
they have no choice, they choose to bear with the situation. The other
thing you can do if you are not satisfied in your marriage is get a
divorce. A huge chunk of the married population has done this and, many
do not regret their decision. They have opted to find other people who
might suit them better. The other thing that couples do when they are
not satisfied is cheat. Many men and women have been caught doing this.
In this generation, cheating is no longer news and, it has become
rampant.
Many of the couples, who cheat without the knowledge of
their spouse, usually want a different experience and their objective
is not to break their families. The other thing that couples who are
married do is to recognize their problems and work on it. This does not
happen very often because some husbands or wives would die to hear that
they are not good in bed. This brings us to the other option which is
an open marriage. An open marriage is one with couples getting their
sexual satisfaction from their spouses as well as other people with
their full knowledge and consent. Roughly 9% of all marriages in the
United States are open. This comes with a realization that other people
are necessary to fulfill the desires of relevant partners sexually. In
other words, open unions can be seen as an accepted form of adultery.
We are living in an age where people are governed by decisions.
Whatever you choose to do, you are your own master.
Open
marriages are very common in the western countries but, there are other
countries which have practiced a form of open marriage for generations.
For example, in villages of Africa, the Masai culture was open to a man
having his way with a woman even if she is not one of his wives. This
was meant to enrich the genes of progeny and maintain a strong
community. Another reason was for the sheer excitement of it.
Therefore, the idea of an open marital union is not new and, more and
more people are becoming open to it. Popular TV shows like Oprah and
Tyra Banks have been seen to highlight the topic more. When you choose
to have many lovers but still maintain a marriage, it is referred to as
a polyamory. An open union will have its own fair share of problems one
of them being jealousy. Before you decide to try an open marriage,
weigh the advantages and disadvantages and, then decide on what will
suit you.
Marriage - Open Both Eyes
Before, Close One Eye After
"Undress yourselves before you get involved and make
a commitment to someone for there's no turning back once you're there."
These were the words given to all couple-participants when my wife and
I had our pre-nuptial seminar given by a parish worker in a local
church where our wedding is to be solemnized. The room was filled with
laughter when I replied, "I thought undressing comes after the wedding
ceremony?"
These words though rhetoric but are as equally
important like what an African proverb says, "Before you get married,
keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye."
Before
you get involved and make commitment to someone, don't let lust,
desperation, pressure from others make you blind to warning signs. You
and your partner have many different expectations, emotional needs,
values and dreams. Keep both eyes open and don't fool yourself that you
can change someone during the course of your marriage. Before
committing yourself, have some time to observe the person who will
become a part of your life. The more you open your eyes to evaluate
his/her quality, respect, love and truth, the more easer it will become
for you to decide who gets to sit beside you while watching your
favorite television program.
Once you decide to commit to
someone, over time, their flaws and vulnerabilities will become more
obvious. But if you love your partner and want the relationship to grow
and evolve to the next level, you've got to learn how to close one eye
and not let little thing to bother you. These flaws however can turn
into your advantage depending on how each one of you compliments the
other. Neither of you are perfect, but you can be perfect for each
other depending on how one completes the other. Look at the gap in the
fingers of your hand. Do you know what those gap means? Those gaps are
meant to be complimented by your partner's hand.
Marriage is
accepting the person as what he/she is and not what you expect him/her
to be. Partners are two imperfect but unique children of God who have
decided to share a life together. And despite these imperfections that
were seen by both eyes before marriage, closing one eye after will
enables you to see not these imperfections but that someone who shared
the altar with you when you said, "I do."