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I really don’t understand so much of this. One of the things I’ve found so hurtful is that we always had what I believed was a great sex life. He always called it amazing. We were intimate frequently and I thought it was exciting and passionate. He always professed to loving being with me that way. So my question is — why would you need sex outside the marriage? We were still having sex twice a week during his affair, and I just can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve always loved sex with my husband. It never occurred to me to want to sample someone else. Why wasn’t I enough?

People don't cheat because of their relationships. They don't cheat because they aren't getting enough sex. They don't cheat because they aren't attracted to their partners.

People cheat because they're childish, selfish, entitled pieces of shit who don't care about the person they've committed to.

Agreeing with h0peless here.

If you wanted to at any time in the past decade, without much effort you could have gone out and found 10 new attractive sexual partners and had all kinds of fun and different sex with them.

What stopped you from doing that?

If you do that thought experiment for a while, you'll discover that the reasons mostly center around your value system, your moral compass, commitments you've made, a future you're planning and working toward, promises you've chosen to honor, empathy and care for your husband and children, and so on.

All of these things inside you have made sex with another person outside of your marriage inconceivable.

One or more of these things are missing in actively wayward people, generally.

Why they're missing and what to do about it is another story entirely.

We were very young and inexperienced when we met and the sex for me Was simple awful.

It wasn’t until my children were born and we were possibly 10 years into our marriage that I dared to teach him how to make love to me.

He tried to push me to the dark side as I call it and I refused to go there.

So he was content with lots of sex. Quantity over Quality. At times I thought we had a happy and healthy sex life. (When he wasn’t violent and raping.)

But He took his Darkest Side to others who were willing to go there.

I wonder the same thing. We were only four months into marriage when he engaged in his first online affair. How he thought online/phone/self pleasure was better than the real thing, I have no idea. So messed up.

When someone is in a good emotional place, they don't often think about getting high on heroin, gambling with money that they need for bills, flirting with strangers or colleagues, joining a dating website even though they are married, stealing from their job, drinking in the morning, or joining a cult, to name a few. But when someone feels an emotional emptiness--either permanently as in a serial cheat or just during a difficult time--those distractions and artificial highs become appealing. For a little while, you get high on the moment of success or the feeling that you are important, that shot of extra validation. If you need that artificial stuff, the extra high that comes with a huge risk to other parts of your life, it's because you are lacking in your view of yourself as enough. Nobody needs to gamble their rent money at the race track, have a couple shots of Jack at 7 a.m. or get a side piece outside of their marriage. Those behaviors are cries for help, but those people have to help themselves to choose differently and not ruin what they have. It's on them to fix these holes inside.

His need for cheating is about the void in him, not about a void in you. Why did he need the extra, in spite of the risk of ruining his life? Without figuring that out, he is vulnerable to a repeat or to finding a new type of fix to fill the void. This is why addicts often have more than one addiction or hop from one to the next. Because they are empty. It has nothing to do with you.

People who sabotage their lives and goals have voids.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 5:55 AM, June 30th (Tuesday)]

You have received a lot of good insight here. I am the WS, and our sex life has always been very good to spectacular at times.

People who cheat are selfish. I truly believe that selfishness stems from a lack of self love, lack of responsibility over making yourself happy. We tend to want to be filled up by other people's love and for them to make us happy. That is impossible, and will only work as a veneer for so long.

Some of us are outwardly selfish, wanting more and more and more. Some of us express that lack of self worth by being outwardly unselfish as we do and do and do to hustle for love. Regardless of which category, we do not get the reward we hoping for because it's usually undefined and/or unrealistic. We turn that into to resentment (either consciously or unconsciously) and fuel it into entitlement of what it is we believe we deserve.

But that is all filling a void because we didn't do anything to nourish healthy ways of creating passion, happiness, self love, etc. We just kept trying to fill it up with other people, and other people can't do that for us. It would never be enough.

I have read a lot of stuff you have posted over the time, and in your case I think you are truly married to an abusive person and probably should cut your losses as soon as possible. I believe people are redeemable, but keeping yourself hitched to a person who does nothing but undermine your self worth is destructive. I wish you well.

Onlyjan, it truly wasn't about you. I was the one in my marriage who would have been down with daily sex of all kinds of variety and I remember actually thinking that this man would never have the energy to cheat on me. It was a frivolous thought that amused me at the time. Not so funny after finding out how wrong I was. It wasn't about you and it wasn't about me. It wouldn't have mattered what we looked like or how skilled we were in the bedroom. It is not a judgment on us, though it feels like it at the beginning. It takes time to stop looking at yourself for what caused it and realize that it was 100% that there's something wrong with him.

This is why addicts often have more than one addiction or hop from one to the next. Because they are empty. It has nothing to do with you.

Amen, OwningItNow!! Currently going through this with the WW. To her, the addiction was spending money that we did not have albeit FB auctions, online casino games (microtransactions are a bitch), then to drinking and ultimately working her way up to the A. It was all about acquiring something and she has very low self-esteem. She's constantly looking for validation from everything she did and got to the point where it was exhausting. She was constantly trying to fill that void.

Do not try to understand their mindset because you'll cause yourself to second guess.

[This message edited by heartbrokeninNC at 8:27 AM, June 30th (Tuesday)]

I think the simple answer to your question, because it can always be better or you can always get more.

Now, I hold a very unpopular view here that a lot of men are cheating because of sex, they feel (legit or not) starved for sex in their relationship and cheating is an easy way to fix that and keep the relationship they really want (their marriage). My W's AP fell into this category, when I spoke with the OBS, she said "we have sex at LEAST a few times a month, he gets plenty". Sigh. He had as much sex as you have with him in a month in a single day with my W. He was, again, perhaps entirely his own doing, "sex starved" and sought out an A to fix that. People don't like this explanation, but it's as direct an A-B as you can get, sex is the one thing on offer in most affairs that's not available from a friendship and yes, IMHO, it's the reason that a lot of people pursue them.

So, why? Well, one explanation is above, "sex starved". For me personally, sex with someone new is often very exciting and I think that certainly describes a lot of cheats I know, they just enjoy it (the sex) and want to continue to recreate the experience. There's the whole madonna/whore thing, he may have wanted to do things he was either embarrassed to bring to you or he knew you didn't want to do, so acted it out in the A.

I think a lot of this comes down to personal difference, for example, where you say "never occurred to me to want to sample someone else" that statement just doesn't resonate with me at all. I'm a BS, and I've never cheated but I completely understand the allure of it; yes, "sampling" someone else sounds like something I'd enjoy, and I think a lot of it, particularly for sexually motivated cheats, comes down to just that, the curiosity and desire for something new.

Now, if you've made it this far, please let me turn this around, while I can give you lots of "reasons" why he might have or why I can see his point of view, NONE OF THAT MATTERS. What matters is he promised he wouldn't and then did. Sure, he might have had, what in his mind seemed to be a "good reason", but guess what? I can generate 100 "good reasons" (top of the list, you cheated on me first!) to go have an affair and yet, somehow, I don't and haven't. Because I promised I wouldn't, and I intend to keep that promise. My W was very asexual in our relationship before the A, we did not have an "amazing" sex life we had a mediocre one, I still didn't cheat. So when people tell you "It wasn't you", in most cases, I think that's true, it wasn't you, it was him. Having a mediocre sex life isn't license to cheat, if it was, I would have been out years ago "sampling" other people.

You weren't enough because he didn't make you enough. It's that simple. People here have said I'm one of the most sexually motivated men they've ever heard from (I prefer "most honest" but, whatever) but I made my wife enough and didn't cheat. Yes, I do think, in many cases and perhaps yours, the WS is cheating just to get their rocks off, but that's not because you're not good enough, it's because they can't (actually, WON'T, they can, but don't) control themselves.

It's often a poor attempt to recapture youth. Feeling like a teenager again. Or to escape in general with someone that doesn't carry the same history as you and your spouse. You get to tell the stories your spouse has heard 100 times for the first time again. And gosh aren't you interesting!

It's often a poor attempt to recapture youth. Feeling like a teenager again. Or to escape in general with someone that doesn't carry the same history as you and your spouse. You get to tell the stories your spouse has heard 100 times for the first time again. And gosh aren't you interesting!

Yep, this is what it was for my fWH. He was his mid 40’s (aka: midlife crisis). We’ve been together 20+ years. We both only had one partner before we were together, and his was a one-night stand. So I was really his first and only. He realized he was getting older and wanted to live like he was young again.

Hikingout - what an amazing post, particularly the third paragraph. This is the best, most straightforward explanation of my WH behaviour that totally helps me understand properly for the first time WHY and fits so well. I just couldnt find the words, but you have nailed it.

Thank you

Never mind. I commented but didn't read something closely.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:53 PM, June 30th (Tuesday)]

I also think that for men, it’s an ego boost. “Look! I can convince other women to sleep with me even when I’m married, I must be an awesome stallion!!!”

So, the problem is not whether he was satisfied at home, but rather his need to feed his ego, at your expense (the selfish part everyone is mentioning).

What is absolutely crucial is that you understand that none of this is your fault.

It has nothing to do with you, the sex, anything else. If a WS says so they are lying through their teeth.

They cheat because they are selfish and self centered and want the best of both worlds - they feel entitled to both reality and fantasyland.

Anything else is just a fu*king excuse. Don't fall for it.

When I first came to SI after DDay#1, I asked this question. And after reading articles and asking for advice I found out that xWH cheated not because of our intimate life but because he was escaping reality. His world with me was about the kids, the bills, the complaints, the dinners, the responsibilities. His world with OW1 was about trips to the beach, weekends away from the real world. He CHOSE to throw everything away that we had built together because it was his way of satisfying himself. But he never "left" me. He was able to enjoy both worlds...the family life and the free life. OW2 was another escape, but still within his world and he still had the family on the side. If I hadn't initiated the divorce it wouldn't have happened.

To sum it up, the decision to cheat was NOT about you, but about his own selfish needs and desire to escape reality. I would have had more respect for him if he had just ended the marriage but been faithful.

Many great posters on this already. I will say again it was not about you or your sex life. Many of us have heard such a thing as take care of your man or he will stray and so on. I agree that this is more about blatant selfishness, ego or filling an empty void the wrong way. I will share a little bit of my story so you can see this.

My H had an LTA of 2 years while still being with me. He also began drinking. He drank more and more. He had regular sex with his very attractive AP. Then he went on a business trip and had a ONS with a stranger even though he had a W and an AP. His life got more and more out of control until I found out. He had a brokenness inside of him that nothing was filling.

I do not agree that it is about better or even curiosity. It is about being a totally broken person for a reason that as not your fault. You should have been enough.

There are many reasons. Most likely being he is either sex addict or sexually hyperactive. Other reasons often included proving your sexuality, thrill, boosted ego, getting kinky sex he couldn’t get from you etc. Either way, if WS was sexually active with you as well AP, he will very likely be serial cheater.

It isn’t the sex. It’s the depravity. They enjoy how interacting with another monster makes them feel.