SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Most boyfriends and girlfriends (other than those waiting for marriage or ritual ceremonies) have sex.

Cheaters are just taking on another relationship and making that person their boyfriend or girlfriend. Why wouldn’t it lead to sex? It’s a natural progression of a relationship.

Yes, women are sexual. They can enjoy sex, and sex with someone new may be exciting for both men and women. There are other factors in play, as forbidden, secret, dirty, etc. whatever.

And, honestly, it’s just sickening to constantly read how these poor overweight, haven’t been in the dating pool blah blah women are just so vulnerable

When adults cheat and are in physical proximity to each other, they generally have sex.

What they tell you, when caught, is sometimes laughable. She didn’t enjoy it; (went back twice a week for 4 years); he couldnt keep it up (had sex with her 30 times); he/she hated the sex just did it for kibbles (long term affair); couldn’t come (not every time for three years); etc.

I guess I don’t get the question. Do you think women cheat for the tea and crumpets only?

My husband and I always had a terrific and active sex life. But our emotional/mental connection and level of intimacy lacked. I don’t think sex is what I was seeking in the A. I wasn’t missing anything in that department.

As the ea progressed, I did want to have sex. I have never denied that. It felt like a relationship to me. I wanted him to want me. I do think some of the texting and sex stuff was to keep his attention and to make him want me more.

None of the logical stuff you mention was in my head at all, or dismissed quickly. I am a smart woman, and intuitive. But projecting all these things onto a person you don’t know, it’s easy to fall into distorted thinking and seeing things where they are not.

I did enjoy the sex, you can find that in a number of my post responses. But it wasn’t some mind blowing experience. We did not know each other well and for me the better you know what to do for the person the more confident and heightened of an experience. And as a woman, we all have our differences and nuances that take a long time for a man to perfect. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that a woman such as myself would find that their own long term partner just does it all better- there has been a lot of time to practice.

It’s also important to understand for many women the emotional is more of a big deal than sex - we sometimes forget that is the opposite for men. Once the emotions were there to me the damage was done. I didn’t see the physical as a new boundary but more of an extension of what was already occurring.

When I look back on it now it all makes me want to puke. I was disgusting, he was disgusting, and it’s even more so shaded with that making it seem even more lacking.

I am 100 percent honest in this answer.

RIO you seem super invested in the idea that men and women must approach sex differently. I don’t know if you’ll ever get the answers you’re looking for but I wonder if it would be helpful for you to examine the reason why this is so important to you?

As a WW I can comment a couple of things. I certainly was not doing any calculations of how moving from EA to PA might impact reconciliation. I didn’t know any of those terms, or have any awareness of how affairs progress and it certainly never crossed my consciousness that reconciliation might become necessary some day because I never expected to be caught. I wasn’t doing any calculations tbh I was just going with the flow of the sexual energy.

I never had any desire for any kind of permanent relationship. Neither was I interested in unemotional sex. It was somewhere in between. I considered him a friend of sorts and I don’t think I could have or would have engaged in

emotionless sex.

For me the fun was in the sexual energy, the sexual tension, the slow build up towards having actual sex. I cannot say the actual sex act was all that thrilling. I certainly had better at home. But I don’t consider the sex act alone to BE sex. I think of it as a whole package.

On another note I think women have been very strongly conditioned to limit their sexuality and I think society actually has come to believe that is normal and thus the stereotype. Women have far greater potential consequences from sex - pregnancy, unwanted advances, violence, bad reputation. All things that men don’t have to consider in the same way. Women are taught to consider these things and suppress their urges or at least put on a front of having the suppressed. So while I don’t believe women inherently are less interested in sex than men, I don’t know if it would be possible to get a true measure of what they ARE like and what they DO want.

Bottom line is that even if you had a majority of women on this site telling you the same thing, it might be totally different for your WW and you are going to have to find a way to work through that. I’m. So sorry yo find yourself in this place.

Do you think women cheat for the tea and crumpets only?

No. When I came here for help right after d-day, I thought women cheated for sex, same reason I think men cheat. Then I read 100's of posts talking about "ego kibbles" and "validation" and "broken women". And it was from both WS and BS. So I started to change my view, especially since, in my experience, women generally have as much sex as they want in a marriage (the marriage tends towards the female's sexual frequency preference). So, I started to change my viewpoint from "women cheat for sex" to "women cheat for something else" (to find someone to tell them they are pretty, that they matter, to find a new husband, etc).

If most/some women don't cheat for sex, then my question makes sense. If most women are cheating for the same reason the men I know are, sex with someone new, then no, I agree, it doesn't make sense at all. They take it physical because they are having an A to have sex. Makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is page after page of women saying "it wasn't for sex" and then having sex all the time in the A. And if that's the case, then, yes, I stand by my question because, that doesn't make sense to me.

I also don't think most women know how men feel about sex. Those dudes in the friendzone are simply patiently waiting for an opportunity. Some women view sex as a transaction too.

Many women, including my W, have no idea how men feel about sex. I can say that pretty definitively. There are 100's of posts on here from BW's looking for the "why" and, often I read those posts and think that their search is concluded neatly in one word, "sex". The why isn't that hard for most men, at least not the men I know having an A. And, yes, the concept of a male "friend" is a bit of a misnomer, male friends are very often just "waiting their turn". I realize that's terribly offensive, and casts women and men negatively, but it also happens to be true. There's been research on this, the numbers of overwhelming, as a guy "friend" of a woman if he'd sleep with her and the answer is incredibly slanted towards "yes". Ask a woman the same question, the answer is nearly always "no". Do women realize this? I have no idea. Do they understand and exploit the male psyche for their benefit the same way we exploit theirs when we're "out to get laid"? I have no idea. But what a whole lot of women do seem to do is claim "I didn't realize" when the SHTF, that's definitely a true statement. I had no idea he wanted to sleep with me. Really?? Come on, why do you think he was being nice to you and offering to help you? Of course he wanted to sleep with you and jumped at the first opportunity that presented itself.

Bottom line though is the some men will be what they need to be to get what they want and either the woman is unaware of this false sincerity or fools herself into thinking he's sincere and special, but really knowing full well he isn't so that the "he fooled me" card is available to them. Regardless, it's the nastier side of life and I believe many woman aren't as clueless as they appear.

And maybe this is it, wrapped up neatly with a bow on it. It's a way to get the sex they want without being an active participant and feeling bad about themselves. But, the interesting question is are they fooling themselves, or just acting fooled when it all comes crashing down? Are they thinking "I want some sex" and then later saying "I had no idea what he was really after" or.. Are they thinking "I just want to be his friend", wind up sleeping with him, and then saying "I had no idea" after the fact? That's a very important distinction; it's the "motive" component of sex or an A.

For me, I really don't think my W was looking for sex. Maybe she's playing me like a fiddle. But I think she would have been happy as a clam to have the AP do nothing more but write to her and call her and tell her how wonderful a person she was. That was her payoff, in her words, and that lines up to the person I've known her to be. It's just hard to align that with her actions during the A; you wanted him to tell you were pretty, but spent so much time having sex it was about impossible for him to get word in edgewise. It just doesn't make sense. And like all great mysteries, it DOES make sense, I just don't see how it fits together yet. The "easy answer" is "dude, she just wanted to f**k someone new". And maybe that's the right answer; I know it would be the right answer to describe the A's I know my male friends have had. But it feels very blunt, and it also doesn't seem to line up with what other WW's here say.

ETA:

RIO you seem super invested in the idea that men and women must approach sex differently. I don’t know if you’ll ever get the answers you’re looking for but I wonder if it would be helpful for you to examine the reason why this is so important to you?

I think I addressed this in the "blunt instrument" part above, but, basically, I want to understand it so I can see/prevent/know it's happening in the future. If I can understand the motivations, I feel like I can understand how to prevent it. I know, that's probably a fools errand. But I'm the kind of person who likes to think a lot, and really understand why things are the way they are. Sure, it's easy to just say "she was out for a f**k and he said yes". But does that accurately describe it? I don't think it does. It would accurately describe most A's I know of (because they are all men), but it doesn't "fit" for most female A's I've read about. None of it fits really, I don't understand it, and I fear things I don't understand, especially when they have such a horrible impact on my life. It's really that understanding that I seek; sure, it's not about sex, but all you did was have sex.. So explain it to me. Why? (this isn't to you, just what goes around in my head).

[This message edited by Rideitout at 6:40 PM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

I had not had sex w H in two years and it was not for lack of my trying. And before that it was sympathy sex. Like, "i know you want to have sex and it's been months since I've put out for you so I guess I should." Eventually I just stopped initiating bc I couldn't take the rejection. A marriage with no emotional or physical intimacy is not a marriage to me. It's a friendship, if that. I was checked out when my A started. It was with a friend that I knew for 15 years. I had seen him in relationships, he had seen me in mine. There was an emotional aspect already but no romance. He was my H's friend too. When he first reached out it was all about the physical. All about the sex and it was good sex. The more we had, the better it git, the more emotional the A went, the better it got. Not gonna lie... it was amazing sex and I totally thought we were in love. I thought there was future for us. The connection, emotional and physical, was nothing I had ever felt before. I was in deep physically and emotionally.

[This message edited by FoenixRising at 6:41 PM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

Rideitout, you have to change your limited and myopic view of what sex is and what it provides to different people. Perhaps to you, and others, when you say it was about the sex, you really mean it was about the ejaculation the buildup to the point of meeting the objective. You mean that sex is about the big O at the end of the slippery feel good activity. I think when many men say it was about the sex, that is what they are really equating the "sex" to. It was about the dick in vagina followed by a happy ending.

I believe for many, maybe most WW's, it is absolutely about the sex but not is the way it is about the sex to you. I am certain that for most WW's the sex is the rocket fuel that flames the excitement, the elicit activities are the "high", the back seat danger, the process of engaging in sex where they should't be with who they shouldn't be is the rush. THAT is the sex that it is about.

There would be no high, no rush, no lustful excitement without the sex. BUT, it is not the same as saying that what sex did for them was the equivalent of a man getting off, the focus on the physical objectives. Some men likely see the sex as the means to an end and it is that "end" that I think you are focused on when you say "sex".

Many WW's honestly would say it is was never about that definition of sex, but it was absolutely about the brain sex that coexists with the physical sex. Next time, ask your WW if there had been no hotel rooms or car back seats, the anticipation of the elicit meetups, daring embraces, how likely would there have been an A. I think most WW's that were in a PA would say the sex was essential to getting the feeling they craved. But that is not the same as it was all about the sex in the way you may limit the concept of what one uses sex for. But it was still very much all about the sex as sex was the high and the means to get their kibble addiction met.

I think for most WW's it was very much about the sex, but in a way that got them what they needed or wanted, vs as a means to reach an orgasm.

I am not a wayward but I was a very promiscuous young woman. The sex I was having all over included NSA, FWB, and bar hookups. As pathetic as it is, some of it was on first name basis only.

And it wasn't about the sex. Sadly, I never even had an O with any partner besides my WS. It wasn't fantastic. Most of it was barely even arousing.

It was because I had zero self esteem. Sex told me that someone, really anyone, wanted me. It made me OK, accepted, not a reject.

As a backstory, I was a nerdy little girl that eventually developed a boyish body. I watched the girls around me develop into young women, and I stayed brutally thin, small, and boyish. I'd hear things like "HRO has a pretty face but no tits." I was weird all my life. I didn't "get" how to be like other girls. I never fit in. I didn't paint nails, wear bows, or do dance recitals. I read, played outside, and sewed. I cooked and tended to my many pets. I understood animals more than people. People were mean. I was teased and talked about by both boys and girls. As I became an adolescent, I learned that girls were liked when it was about sex. Big tits? Automatic popular girl. Everyone liked to talk to those girls. Boys wanted them, girls wanted to be around them.

So, I learned to use sex to find acceptance. It was a poor substitute for what I now know to be real acceptance. But after years of rejection, sex showed me someone liked me, in some sick, contorted, selfish way. The sex sucked mostly. But, I could walk away from a random encounter, and for a moment, not feel so rejected and alone. Of course, none of those randoms actually wanted me or accepted me, and the cost was more than I ever intended. But, I didn't see that then. I saw one thing: HRO IS OK. SOMEONE WILL ACCEPT HER.

Do all women feel this way? Of course not. But, there are many women and men that act from the same place of pain. I didn't have great sex. But I did have momentary relief from rejection, even if it was through bad sex.

I had to say that Hardroadout just expressed what I have heard several young women say. That it is low self esteem that caused the behavior.

I am not a cheater but I wanted to add what someone said as to think about all those romance novels that women buy. That women are starving for romance. The affair is a fantasy. It often is about the way the other person makes them feel. They feel wanted and desired. That doesn’t mean the sex is always great. Just as in real life, not everyone is sexually talented per say.

Rideitout, they take it physical because they enjoy it. I think, no, I know that WW’s tell their BH that sex was no big deal because they want to minimize. My ww got off on getting him off on the phone. She felt important, beautiful, special and powerful in that moment. I’m not stupid and neither are you. Read what the WW’s on this thread are telling you. You know the answer to your own question. Now, can you move past that? That is what you need to ask yourself.

What Hardroadout said, what Hardroadout said, what Hardroadout said!

Is it to try to draw the male AP closer?

Yes.

I believe for many, maybe most WW's, it is absolutely about the sex but not is the way it is about the sex to you.

Yes.

I think for most WW's it was very much about the sex, but in a way that got them what they needed or wanted,

Yes.

I wanted validation. Why use sex? Because that's a man's language, how he gives validation, how he gives more validation. And a woman's brain, being far more sexually complicated, intertwines the longing for love, validation, affection, devotion into . . . sexual desire for the giver. Even when the sex is not physically rewarding. It feeds our emotions.

P.S. I could be wrong, but I believe every poster telling you that the woman obviously physically enjoyed it is male. Only believe women on this point. I have no words to describe how physically unsatisfying the sex was, and yet I was desperate for it.

P.P.S. Years later I cannot recall any single positive memory about it. Zero. It was maybe the worst sexual relationship of my life. I'm a lot of things post cheating, but I'm not a liar. I'll never lie again. Believe me.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 8:25 PM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

Of course the sex is generally great. I like sex a lot, and I've never been with a woman who didn't enjoy it more than me. I believe, in spite of the popular cultural narrative, that most women are just as into sex, if not more, than most men.

I think the issue here is that you believe women who are cheaters who don't want to be judged for enjoying the sex, or are posting here as a show of "remorse" for their husbands. Of course they like sex. They just like lying more.

ETA:

There's been research on this, the numbers of overwhelming, as a guy "friend" of a woman if he'd sleep with her and the answer is incredibly slanted towards "yes". Ask a woman the same question, the answer is nearly always "no".

This is among the biggest loads of horseshit I've ever read on here, and I've read posts that contained dump trucks upon dump trucks of it. A Chris Rock line isn't research. I'm a teacher, and most of my friends are women. I'd sleep with some of them and wouldn't sleep with others, them being married or in a committed relationship being my biggest turnoff. We're men. That doesn't mean we have to be misogynists.

[This message edited by h0peless at 8:48 PM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

A male view. ^^^^

Believe women. Only.

Let me put it this way: how frequent is it for married men to complain that their wives aren't into sex anymore? Is it fair to say, "Very"?

Ok, so if sex were just a physical enjoyment, a release, why do so many men continue to want it all their lives while so many women begin to devalue it and do without?

A second example: when a man is stressed out, he comes home and desires sex to decompress. Do women do the same? Usually no. They want sleep or a bath or a book or a glass of wine. Why is that?

If women want sex and love sex just as men do, then why do monogamous, trusting marriages produce different sexual outcomes over the years? (**There are variances of course.)

That's right, because for men sex is frequently purely a physical release, and for women it is frequently a manifestation of what we're feeling in our heads.

Not 100% of the time, but if you ask around enough and check around enough, males and females are not sexually wired the same. And that absolutely includes in affairs.

I think you have your answer. I would add that all women are different, this isn't a one size fits all situation. For some it is just PIV they were looking for. I suspect for most it is as described here, looking at the entire process and circumstances as foreplay to the sex in a sense.

Also, I put on some porn worthy performances. I didn't like it, it didn't make it better, and I never had an O. I let men do things to me that were far beyond my comfort zone. Sometimes, it hurt. I slept with men I wasn't remotely attracted to, and I screwed them good. And I did it a lot.

So why did I do that? Because I learned how to use sex to have maximum impact. If no man "really" wanted me because I was strange or had an adolescent looking body, then I had better be a porn star, because that was "all I had to sell." (Or so I subconsciously thought then). I learned that there was a market out there for easy, over the top sex. (As an aside, porn fuels men to want this, and its silly, because most real sex isn't like that. Its a fantasy, a performance. Sad.)

Sex was nothing more than a business transaction. I gave porn worthy sex, and in exchange, he bragged about his good fuck. I was someone's good fuck. I wasn't a reject.

Mark Manson has a really good article on transactional relationships called something like "How to Grow the Fuck Up." I give, then I get. There's a blurb about using sex as a transaction. Very interesting.

[This message edited by Hardroadout at 11:23 PM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

Hardroadout has a lot of really valid points going on here about transactional relationships.

Sex as currency.

I would even venture to stick my toe in the water and say that sex for men in an affair can also be a transaction of sorts that goes well beyond just a "happy ending."

I once had a very long in depth conversation in person with a male Wayward and picked apart his motivations for his (many) affairs. A big part of his high was about the conquest, the game to see if they would sleep with him, the role-playing he changed around for different women, and the eventual prize of being able to get them in bed.

I asked bluntly if it was just about the sex and he told me that was part of the final prize, but it was just as much about what the whole process did for his own ego. Complete external validation.

I think we simplify if we try to cut things too close along gender lines.

Hardroadout, while I understand what you've been through, you tell us not to listen to the guys, but there are women in this thread saying the sex was good.

This topic is one that needs to be chalked up to personal motivation. One answer does not fit all in this case. A woman enjoying sex does not have to equal low self-esteem and if some men view sex as currency, why can't some women? This entire thread is full of sweeping generalizations. "I think of sex this way, so my entire gender does as well." I call bull on this.

What Barregirl said. I've been in relationships where I didn't love the sex. I've been in relationships where I loved having sex. Merely being women does not mean that we get validation/ego kibbles/commitment out of having sex. Sometimes we just like sex. No apologies

Hardroadout has a lot of really valid points going on here about transactional relationships.

Yes, and it sounds a lot like what my W would say if asked about sex during the A (or before it with other people). So maybe recentering this a bit; if someone claims it "wasn't about the sex" and, at the same time, has sex pretty much non-stop during the A, does that make it fall into the "transactional" box? I sleep with you, you tell me I'm pretty? Which seems to be what a lot of people say coming out of an A. And we've gotten some very interesting viewpoints on it, all the way from "she's lying, she loved it" to "she is telling the truth, it was just a way to keep what she wanted flowing from the A" (summarizing). If the answer is "she loved it", yeah, I get that. That's what my answer would be, that's why I'd do it, and that make sense.

But what doesn't make sense is the experiences in here from other women that seem to be "it wasn't that great" or even "I hated it". Why do it so much then?? That's the part I don't understand. I get it, you have sex to keep the guy coming around, I think that's a pretty clear pattern in male/female relationships. But you don't need to have sex 5 times a day to keep him coming around. You don't need to be a porn star for him. In fact, if you just kissed him and gave him a HJ, I'm pretty sure most male APs would keep coming back for more for a long time. But that's almost never what happens. So, to the poster who said that she hated it, why did you do it? Guys, especially in an A, are generally pretty thirsty; they'll keep coming back for more as long as they have the hope of sex at some point. If you didn't really want sex, why not give him a HJ/BJ, or just send him so dirty pictures? Or is it just a lie to yourself to not feel guilt about wanting sex?

I wanted validation. Why use sex? Because that's a man's language, how he gives validation, how he gives more validation. And a woman's brain, being far more sexually complicated, intertwines the longing for love, validation, affection, devotion into . . . sexual desire for the giver. Even when the sex is not physically rewarding. It feeds our emotions.

I understand what you're saying, but.. If you typed that as intended, I don't think you view it the same what I do. It's not how a man GIVES validation, it's how a man gets it. When I was single and sleeping around, trust me, sleeping with me was only validation that you were easy. I'm sorry to put it that way, but, that's what it meant to me, it had nothing to do with validating the woman; and, in my experience, this holds for most men. If a woman makes it easy enough, it doesn't matter what she says/looks like/intelligence/etc. There's a man out there who will take her up on the offer. And many WW's make it really easy. But thinking that "he's sleeping with me so he must like me" is a terrible fallacy of imagination, just like I had a terrible fallacy of my imagination thinking "we're having sex on the first date, she must really like to have sex". It had absolutely nothing to do with "liking her" and, I now know, for at least some of those women, it had nothing to do with them really enjoying sex. We're projecting our motivations onto the other person and, honestly, that's the point of this thread. To try to understand the motivations of a WW (for me) and why they jump to a PA at the first opportunity but, when questioned about it, it's often not what they wanted from the A (and, of course, the PA is really dangerous part for a woman, both physically and to their marriage moving forward so you would think there'd have to be a strong motivation to get over that "hump").

This entire thread is full of sweeping generalizations. "I think of sex this way, so my entire gender does as well." I call bull on this.

Not to call out the OP on this, others have said things like this on other threads, but, we really need to try to stop negating threads based on "it's a sweeping generalization". Because, with very few exceptions, that describes nearly every post on this board. Someone will post something about their BS or WS and then we will come in an generalize; "well, as a BS, when I say that, I mean this". We HAVE TO generalize because we can't trust the individual we really want the answer from to be honest and forthcoming with the information. Yes, what I really want to know is "what was my wife thinking". Not what all the other WW's were thinking during their A. But she'll never give me a straight answer, I know that you, you all know that too. So, instead, I ask other WW's why they did things that my W did to try to gain a perspective. That requires generalizing "WW" into a group, when, in fact, the WW I really care about is a group of 1. But we have to do it if we hope to gain a broader understanding. And, very often, those groups are divided on gender lines, a WW vs WH's motivations/actions/etc are often vastly different from one another. It's not sexist to say and think that women and men have very different motivations for an A. If I had posted this, same question, but directed at WH's, I'm pretty confident I would have gotten vastly different answers that had very little to do with needing validation and a whole lot to do with enjoying sex. In fact, I think if I posted this to WH's, I would have gotten a "really dude, you don't know??". So yes, we need to generalize in many areas when talking about something that's intensely personal like an A; it's 2 people, those are the people who matter. But there's so much misdirection/lying and minimizing from the WS that it's difficult to know what's true and what isn't anymore. That's where threads like this help, at least for me.