Why do men cheat?

[kyotokate]

I heard this early in the morning on BBC World Service.

Peadar De Burca an Irish Comedian/playwright has written a play about just this subject which is being performed in Edinburgh at the moment.

The Daily Telegraph

The Independent

The Play is based on a lot on interviews he did and what he found is reflected in this forum IMO. Women on the whole are reluctant to leave cheating their adulterous Husbands.

Any opinions???

I think when your in love with someone you want to so desperately believe they'll change, or never do it again.

Also they may feel like faliures, to admit to family and friends, maybe they feel it'll relect badly on them too.

And that is why men continue to cheat because they can get away with it... It is called collusion.

I have been with a few cheating partners and they all got the bums rush. One of them was positively proud of having fathered so many children. i have also learnt probably rather late that the only person I can change is ME...

Yeah. I remember the very day I decided I was fed up of colluding! My best friend was giving me a pep talk along the lines of "You've got so much to lose - if you want to keep it, fight for him!"

I looked at her and thought, you know what? A cheating toe-rag isn't worth that much energy.
I fired him the next day.

Because they can. It's a kind of hobby for a lot of men.

And they can because women collude with them in doing it and it is time women stopped doing this. What on earth does it teach our children about relationships.

Erm Kate. Is this a woman-blaming thread?

Men can go and jump off Beachy head if they want to, but they don't do it just because they can.

Women blaming thread????

Hmmm. I don't blame wives for their husbands' cheating or vice versa. Neither do I believe infidelity is a sign of a broken marriage.

But if OP is saying too many women silently put up with it (which is what I understood) - I agree. Probably never going to happen but, if everybody sacked their partner for breaking their particular rules, people would think harder about it.

Well put Grace. That is exactly what I meant. Too many women are silent and this play is concentrating on Why MEN cheat not women.

Peadar de Burca was shocked that only 5 of the 60 women he had interviewed whose had cbeen heated had left them.

In fact I am shocked at that 5 out of 60 figure as well.

I asked that because you stated twice, in separate posts, that it was about time women put a stop to it, and that men did it because they can, because women collude with them.

It seemed as though you were trying to make a point about women being the cause of men cheating.

I'm sorry if I was wrong but that's how it came across.

Maybe I sounded flippant, but cheaters (male and female) do do it "because they can" - as, indeed, the article says. They don't think about the ramifications - they think of it as a bit of illicit fun, like taking drugs.

There is a difference between collusion and causation. There is no way that I believe women cause men to cheat. What amazes me is that so many women remain so silent. That is what I call collusion.

I see what you mean but saying 'men cheat because they are colluded with' sounds like causation to me.

It's difficult to quantify. I disagree UQD at least in that what you describe is universal.

I think sometimes people cheat because they feel unfulfilled, feel there is a side to them which their current partner does not get or perhaps they are unhappy with their husband or wife.

It isn't always a cheap thrill situation.

I often wonder if, in plenty of some cases, men cheat because they know that if/when the wife finishes it they will still see their children regularly if they want to but will have escaped the full-on hard work of raising them, and if they don't want to see them at all or irregularly, there's nothing a wife can do to prevent that. Nothing.

If you are a man in an unhappy marriage it's much easier mentally and emotionally I think, to find a new woman to move on to first, (because they are shit at going for too long without regular sex) cheat with her, safe in the knowledge that their hand will be forced when the wifey finds out (rather than having to face telling her himself he wants out with no new sexual partner lined up)...then he has to leave...but he can still see the kids and hey presto he has sex on tap, no full-time children and so can start having fun again too.

Simples.

.....in which case, if it was the norm for wives to set out making his life crap if he cheats - like, say, announcing it on a designated national internet site, leafleting local houses, Crimewatch has a monthyl sklot naming and shaming with mug-shots, banners on all local roundabouts and the threat of castration by the local branch of the WI, then maybe he would think twice.

Joking of course but I am sure you get my drift.

"castration by the local branch of the WI"
Spatulas at the ready, ladies! Quick march!

Hmmm a bit too much ......

My eyes are watering now!!!

The fact is, either sex can cheat.

You could look at it another way completely: if a woman has an affair, the man knows that his children are more than likely to remain living with her than him if they split: so a loving/dedicated husband/father gets the really shit end of the shitty stick - he is left on his own, with much less access to his beloved children, and has to pay his cheating wife maintenance.

How awful is that.

I don't know about that. I do think people can be so unhappy that they are driven to it. Some use it as a route out of an unhappy relationship but probably don't realise they are doing it. You probably know if that is the case when the new relationship doesn't work out and you still don't want to go back to the ex. I have done this a few times and I don't particularly feel guilty about it. I think an affair can clarify things sometimes, this is my experience of it.

However I 100% believe that any man will cheat given the opportunity and certainty that his wife will not find out, the only exception, maybe, is if he is loved up at the beginning of the relationship. I do not think this about women though.