5 Surprising Reasons The 'Other Woman' Slept With Your Man
Untangle if it is about you, her, or him.
Microgen | Canva In I Went Undercover On Ashley Madison To Find Out Why Women Cheat, by Charles J. Orlando, Charles goes undercover on the "We're Married, but Let's Have an Affair" website known as Ashley Madison to discover what women seek in online affairs.
His findings parallel many of the points I understand about being the other woman and why the other woman slept with your man.
Here are 5 surprising reasons the 'other woman' slept with your man.
1. Women want and need attention, appreciation, and passion.
When there's a long lapse in fulfilling these needs in their relationship, they seek ways to fill the gaps. At times, these efforts will be obvious. Such as creating an Ashley Madison profile, or it may be a sudden opportunity taken without much forethought.
On Huffington Post, Jennifer Garam wrote Why I Had An Affair With A Married Man. In that article, she described her affair experience.
"Before meeting David, I felt dead. But suddenly, I was alive, desired, and filled with passion and vitality. Overnight, I went from years of celibacy to being naked on the floor of his office in the middle of the afternoon, constantly emailing and sexting, and having late-night dirty chats on Facebook. Consumed with thoughts of him, when we weren't together, I was either lost in memories, reliving every detail of every second with him, or longing for him, trying to figure out the next time we could see each other."
She felt alive again, and that's a crucial component of why we choose to have an affair. The thrill is too hard to avoid.
She further explains, "This feels so good I don't want to walk away. I want to follow this feeling wherever it goes. I have such an overactive conscience I couldn't even take a paperclip from work without being swamped with guilt, but for some reason, entering into an affair with a married man didn't faze me."
As humans, we all have an erotic energy. The level of intensity of this energy varies just like our temperaments, both of which are innate aspects of who we are. When our erotic energy is out of sync, we will work to meet these needs, even if doing so includes questionable choices with the potential for negative consequences.
You may still ask, why did she choose my man?
2. Your man showed his willingness to step out of his relationship.
Men have the same needs as women: attention, appreciation, and passion. He wants to feel capable, sexy, wanted, and valued.
If the other woman shows that he's indeed capable, sexy, wanted, and valued, the chance of crossing relationship boundaries increases. The combination of unmet needs with available opportunities can lead to an affair. Your man is the number one reason the other woman slept with him. He consented.
The other woman is not the issue. If it wasn't her, it would have been someone else. Stop blaming and demonizing her, and look at what you and your partner can do to repair the relationship.
3. Choosing a married man can be safer than having a committed relationship.
Married men can bring passion, time, and experience to create a bubble of erotic and emotional pleasure without the daily grind of household management, child raising, and checkbook balancing.
Some women who have been in bad relationships don't want a commitment. The woman gets the appreciation and attention that they crave while knowing the man could leave at the tip of a hat.
Women who have experienced being the other woman are not looking to "steal" your man. They are looking for a thrill, for connection, for pleasure, and if he can give it to her, she'll take it. The chance your man will leave you for her is slim, and even slimmer still for that relationship to last.
Some women prefer to compartmentalize the rest of their lives from their erotic lives; having an affair with a married man makes this compartmentalization easy. They don't want the daily drama, and they want their space.
Most women enter affairs with married men while believing it will be temporary, not attached, and emotionally safe. Yet the biggest challenges are the emotions and attachment. An affair is such a deeply emotional thing, even when unintended. What is a human but a bipedal ball of emotion?
Despite the desire to keep the relationship on a sexual level, emotions interfere and can cause fantasies of creating a true couple relationship. The other woman and your man have to work out the boundaries of the affair. Remember, if he chooses the other woman over you, it is his choice to leave, not the other woman's.
4. They're looking for the thrill.
Dr. Valerie Golden reports in her article, Why Women Want Married Men, that sneaking around is a thrill. The sex itself may be lustier because it's clandestine. Having sex in the married couple's bed, for example, becomes a daring thrill full of lust and passion in a way not possible otherwise.
The need to be secretive, sneak around undiscovered, and grab quick sexual encounters on the fly can be a huge turn-on in comparison to a dinner date with a single man who calls on Wednesday night for Friday. Especially for rule-breakers, it's just more fun being naughty and bawdy.
Some of the best sex you may have include arousal and anxiety. Since both of these experiences run down the same spinal nerve, it intensifies the feelings. Having sex with your man elicits both neurological responses.
We often want sex with people who we would never marry. Marriage material and erotic actions can be antithetical. Affair sex can be hot, even when we love our spouses at home. An affair can frequently be full of fun, weekend excursions, sexting, gifts, concerts, secret rendezvous, and more. The thrill is intoxicating to the point where even those with strong morals or values have trouble denying their carnal desires.
5. She does it just because she can.
Yes, there's a difference between the "just because you can doesn't mean you should" line of thinking and the "just go for it" attitude. We make decisions every day, and some have little risk of consequences, while others are hefty in the potential for negative effects. We can make any decision we want — I can smoke a cigarette in a restaurant, but I’m likely to have the consequence of being kicked out.
Affairs tend to have a high price tag. However, both men and women use rationalizations that place the reward of the affair as higher than the negative consequences, as well as standing by the "what they don't know doesn’t hurt them" adage. Yes, sleeping with your man is selfish, but your man sleeping with her is also selfish.
The phrase "my man" in our language and this blog post connotates ownership, but we do not own people. Your man is a man who has chosen you as his partner. We cannot change or control others. Even when we want to put our claws in, claim him, and reaffirm his role in our life, it doesn’t mean he's yours. He's only himself.
She slept with him because she could, and it was the same with him. It's not uncommon for our values and behavior to misalign at times.
This doesn't mean the other woman is without values, morals, intelligence, and worth as many in our society would have us believe. It means balancing values and behavior can be difficult. Our Western society reaffirms life-long monogamy with our partner, and despite having the values and morals to support it, our biological nature can put a sledgehammer on our best intentions.
As Charles J. Orlando hypothesizes, women who were looking for an extra-marital affair with married men were looking to connect in some way and fulfill their unmet needs in the current relationship. In his adventures, he found that women had a strong need for connection, attention, and just pure sex.
Tiffany Anton is an intimacy therapist. With over 10 years of experience, she works to help individuals and couples create more intimate and fulfilling lives through psychotherapy that's compassionate, supportive, educational, and empowering. She is a regular contributor to We Want More Now and her articles have been syndicated by MSNBC, FOX News, and more.