The # 1 Reason Men Cheat = Unmet Emotional Needs
What will blow your mind is something that really surprised me when I first began researching and treating unfaithful husbands. Behind the tension and the drama of affair discovery, is a man who truly desires a loving monogamous relationship. Monogamy is still the goal of the unfaithful man! So unlike the perceived view of the cheating man being a womanizer who can’t get enough sex, here is the man in front of me looking for answers on how to save his relationship, and if it can’t be saved, how can he ensure this never happens again so he can be in a loving monogamous relationship.
In all the couples who have taken the 7- step infidelity recovery course to date, and have completed the emotional needs questionnaire, we have collected over 3000 responses to the Emotional Needs Questionnaires:
Unfaithful husbands (Age 40+) reported the #1 reason they cheated:
54% Emotional Connection
37% “I feel underappreciated by my wife. She was not sufficiently thoughtful and caring towards me.”
17% “I feel emotionally disconnected from my wife.”
29% Sexual Connection
17% Other
Did you think the #1 reason was sex? If I published the entire study here, you will see that sex is the #2 reason. But it is so important to understand that sex is NOT the #1 reason. I will discuss the difference between the sexes further below, as it is very important to understand how men and women understand and process LOVE.
Understanding emotional needs are important for both the individual and for the couple. In long-term relationships, the importance of individuals’ feelings and emotions gets pushed aside to serve more functional needs. Over the years, many men state that they feel unrecognized and unappreciated by their wives.
Typical responses from unfaithful husbands:
” I am nothing more than a paycheck”
“I don’t even get a thank you”
“I am not even acknowledge when I walk through the door”
“If I tell my wife she looks good, she thinks that I’m asking for sex. That’s not always true.”
“My wife has not complimented me in over 25 years”
“I couldn’t even hug my wife before the affair.”
The truth about the other woman
The truth about the other woman and the affair relationship, especially in the beginning of the affair relationship, is that the other woman makes him feel special. She reminded him how good it felt to be appreciated. She talks in a feminine voice, and always has nice things to say (or she talks about the things which she knows he is interested in talking about.) She makes life light and fun, if only for a minute.
Remembering that most affairs begin in an environment where two people get to spend time together, completing tasks, enjoying activities, relaxing etc. Workplaces, friends, church, neighbors etc are all common starting points of long term affairs. People are generally pleasant in these environments, and don’t have the stress of functional activities or boring daily “operational” tasks to perform as they do at home.
From a client:
I can’t remember the last time my wife complimented me. Rebecca started at my work place as a receptionist, and I know her job was to be polite to everyone who walked through the office door. Still when she said “good morning Mike, that shirt looks great on you. It really brings out the color in your eyes,” that really meant something to me. Every morning when I got dressed I thought about which shirt I should wear. Thinking maybe I’ll get a compliment again if I wear another good shirt. Sometimes Rebecca would notice and other times, she would just nod and say good morning. It was a few months later when Rebecca sat next me at lunch. Again she complimented my eyes, and told me how lucky my wife was. To talk about it now sounds so silly, but to have another person notice me and make me feel special with a simple compliment was what I looked forward to every day…..”
There seems to be a point in time when the wife stops or slows down her communication of appreciation to her husband. For example, commonly children are now taking the time and attention away from the husband. Make no mistake, even if the husband wants the children, he stills wants & needs the emotional need to be fulfilled.
Affairs happen when another person begins to satisfy the needs which the spouse once satisfied.
In most cases, the affair partner is not “the one,” or sort out specifically for her beauty or some other ability. Just that she was available when the need had to be satisfied.
- The need for appreciation
- The need for communication
- The need for recreational companionship
- The need for intimacy
- The need for sex
Over the years, couples create their own communication styles or “Relationship Dances.” These patterns become so predictable, some personality types will stop being their true self. Other personality types will use arguing as a form of communicating. The affair is one way to correct the relationship dance.
Does Testosterone affect the possibility of Infidelity?
Men in committed relationships tend to have lower testosterone levels than those who are single, according to a study in the October issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 91, No. 4). However, men in relationships who report cheating on their partners–or even who just say they’d consider it–have levels about as high as single men, notes Steve Gangestad, PhD, one of the study’s authors and a psychology professor at the University of New Mexico.
“They are really in some sense not taken off the market,” says Gangestad. “They are still interested in other women, and they are still high in testosterone. They are still engaged in the mating effort.”
Past research suggests that elevated testosterone aids men in their efforts to attract mates by increasing their confidence and aggressiveness toward competing men, he adds.
Gangestad and his colleagues collected the saliva of 176 undergraduate students and then asked them to complete a questionnaire assessing their current relationship status and attitudes toward cheating. Some of the students were asked whether they’d consider cheating and others were asked whether they’d cheated in the past.
The single men, including people who would consider cheating and those who said they never would, had equally high levels of testosterone. The men in relationships who would not consider cheating, however, showed low testosterone compared with the relationship-bound men who would.
The results suggest that testosterone levels change in response to social conditions and that the hormone helps men meet the perceived challenges of their environment, Gangestad says. While elevated testosterone levels help men find mates, lower levels may promote affiliative and nurturing behavior, he notes. In fact, lower levels of the androgen are associated with increased responsiveness to infant cries, past research shows.
“Testosterone facilitates competition with other men for partners…but it may interfere with other kinds of tasks, such as parenting,” Gangestad notes.