SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Anyone out there ever heard this reason for having multiple affair partners one after another?

In her exact words: "I feel the need to conquer men."

This came out in one of our recent conversation about the why's and how's of her infidelity. It struck me cold but it's maybe the first honest thing i have got out of her so far.

Broken Bill

I haven't heard that one but it sounds like an excuse rather than an underlying reason. It may be the start of figuring out what her motivations were. The next question is why she felt like she needed to "conquer" men?

In her exact words: "I feel the need to conquer men."

Um...

Is she in IC? Because with a comment like that I think she really needs to be there. Conquer men? I really don't know what to say.

Now that's a new one.

I guess you were "conquered" years ago.

Maybe it's time to get away from an attitude like that.

I dont know what conquering a man looks like but my guess is she never conquered anything. My questions if she were my WW. What was the end game, what does a conquered man look like? What need is this conquering meeting? Why do you feel the need to conquer? and why is its value greater than her commitment to you and your relationship?

A beginning, so the next question "Why did she feel a need to conquer men?" What is she doing to replace this need to conquer men?

I feel I may understand what she means. It is ego stroking and validation, really. It builds her up to "conquer" men, especially if they are married. If her "golden va jay jay" can lure a man away from his spouse to have sex with her, she feels powerful, superior. Men can't resist her! The more men, the more powerful, superior, beautiful she feels.

If men are particularly resistant to her charms, the more she needs to seduce them. Proves to herself how utterly irresistible she is.

This is my take on it anyway.

I think SisterMilkshake hit the nail on the head. Sounds like your WS is very insecure and needs to do some major IC to get that resolved.

Well, perhaps you should cut her free to conquer away. Tell her, I feel the need for a faithful spouse, so I'm cutting you free so that you can be happy and I can be happy. I'll have my lawyer send you the divorce papers and then we both can live happily ever after. BTW, move out of my bedroom today.

And do it. If the shock snaps her head from her neighter region, then you can always put a pause on the divorce, but as long as she feels the need to go out and put another man-shaped rubber stamp on her Vagina Passbook, you shouldn't be married to her.

Yep, sister nailed it.

I read on here a while back that there was a WW that 'got off' on luring men into her clutches just so she could 'see the look in their eyes as they realized they had just sold their souls'. Chilling. And IMO, a sign of a sociopathic personality.

The single OW in our life we call Hagrid, or Hag for short, is a conqueror in every aspect of her life. She lives her life recklessly swinging away at every person in her path. She takes jobs, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, and husbands. She is the ultimate queen bee and mean girl. She stated that she was her Daddy's little princess and she still has to have everything her little heart desires. Pretty sick at 36. If you have it she wants it. She thinks nobody likes her because she is such a strong woman. No, nobody likes her because she steals, plunders, and "conquers" everything in her small life.

I cannot imagine her ever being in a real relationship because she alone has to steer everything.

Bill, take a look at her whole life and see what else she has to conquer. FOO issues drive many sexual compulsion activities, so if this is really her issue, she has a lot of IC coming before you can work on your M.

My wayward husband has "the damsel in distress" syndrome. It seems the more problems they have and the more unattractive they are- the better!! And I believe it's true- they stroke his ego and it's his own sick need for validation. Like he's saving these women! It's all so sad and pathetic! IC all the way!!!

I do not think the word "conquer" means what she thinks it means. . . . .

I do not think the word "conquer" means what she thinks it means. . . . .

Inconceivable!

This made me spew my late night coffee on my keyboard, I laughed so hard:

but as long as she feels the need to go out and put another man-shaped rubber stamp on her Vagina Passbook, you shouldn't be married to her.

Thanks to all of you for caring and taking time out to reply, your support goes a long long way... ((H))

As far as i can tell, her "Conquering men" is an "Acting Out" of some serious childhood abuse. She also displays all the signs of a Borderline Personality Disorder except for drugs/drinking, she's the Super Control Freak so that's not an option! Seems our whole marriage has been a well orchestrated lie, she’s been doing this since before we met.

Borderline Personality Disorder - http://gettinbetter.com/anatomy.html

The love letter (not an email) from her one Affair Partner says, Quote:

"I am into making love and believe it is a partner activity where both contribute equally and fully. Also, I would never never want to cause you any pain, emotionally or physically, less maybe a little discomfort you sometimes experienced when i sucked and nibbled on your nipples - that i intend to keep doing."

FYI, she never really participated in sex with me either. Early on I thought it would improve with love, closeness, the security of marriage and i made that space for her. It never was taken up and i eventually gave up on our sex life in September 2011. Often it felt more like silent rape than loving sex. She would rather go to the gym or run or (anything) other than share intimacy, make love, give or receive pleasure.

So, it's not about the sex per say, it's the power trip, ego feeding, self boosting, the chase, the conquer, the take, the deception ...the thrill of fucking around (rather than the actual fucking)... That's her drug.

Still, it's disgusting behavior. It's not an excuse.

So it's tempting to run into my corner and throw up the victim card. I felt nauseous waiting to see the divorce lawyer and i'm not ready to run away from this. For sure, the biggest personal/moral challenge of my life. There is a part of me that wants to understand, be strong and there for her if she is sick, but am i just throwing myself on her grenade?

I'm doing 180 ...finally, and have started IC over the phone, it's the best i can do until i return to Canada, we are on foreign assignment until the end of September this year. Counseling is helping but i am getting better support here on SI from you all. The articles, links, other people's stories and comments are giving me perspective, direction and strength. Counselling, i'm just telling the story AGAIN, like i haven't been over it a billion times in my head already! I see the value in it though, not knocking it.

As for her: She is not wanting to own ANY of her shit (fog). In fact she's walking around like she just won the Lotto, big smiles and joyful. She said sorry and everything's better now, ahhh ...nice! I know she's taking this game to another level behind a fake attempt at patching things up.

Does this kind of person need to be almost forced into IC and MC?

I'm trying to put my best foot forward, really trying but it's so hard.

Man, i'm hurting.

BrokenBill

This describes the MOW in my FWS's case.

She was married to a really nice guy, had three children and yet was a serial cheater throughout her 30+ year marriage.

She had her first LTA with a married co-worker right after she got married, she cheated before during and after the birth of her children.

Her first LTA was discovered by her husband 30 yrs ago.

He decided to stay married but....he thought he could 'nice' her into being a good wife.

He never set down boundaries,never demanded she change jobs,never made demands for transparency and truth, never demanded IC or MC -just swept it all under the rug.

and guess what?

she continued cheating on him with married co-workers for 30 years!

This middle aged mother of three would prance around her professional office showing men her thong and even exposing her breasts! (This was an accounting office for heaven's sake!).

She stalked her victims and pursued them relentlessly.

( I am not excusing my FWH's part in this at all...just trying to stay focused on this sort of woman).

I do believe that conquering married men was what attracted the MOW to my FWH.

He was a challenge because he did not succumb to her immediately.

It took a year of pursuit but after that he was off and running.

I found all of this behavior so difficult to understand that I searched for info online and in books.

Borderline Personality disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder as well as female sociopath.

A good book by Charlotte Kasl: Women, Sex, and Addiction -A search for Love and Power

I agree she most likely suffered some sort of early abuse at the hands of a man. You see behaviors like that with many men. We call them ladies men, a player etc. Its more about the hunt and chase than the actual sex acts. Most of these guys act out in that fashion due to an overbearing female presence in their early childhoods. Same for serial rapists. They basically harbor a hatred for women due to their experiences in their pasts. Its all about control and dominance. The difference with a female harboring these traits is that they have no need to rape as the woman pretty much has control over the sex acts. She has the final say as to if she wants to or not. I'm not trying to compare rape to infidelity here. And I apologize if anyone is offended. I'm only trying to explain my interpretation of the pathology of these folks.

Most women enter into affairs due to a lack of self esteem. The actual sex is just a trade off for another form of adulation IE attention, validation etc. But from what you she has said I don't think self esteem is the problem. I think she uses men and sex as a means to quell other demons. And those demons most likely developed in her upbringing. I would not be surprised if she was sexually abused as a kid. And if my assessment is correct she has some really serious issues that require deep and regular therapy. To "CONQUER" is just another term to dominate. And I feel her need for dominance stems from her childhood. The woman need some intense help. The kind that you can not provide. If she wants her life to change she has much work to do. And that work will require her to revisit situations she has long ago buried. I would not expect a quick fix here my friend. If she evens agrees to therapy its going to take years to get to a better place. This is only my opinion. I'm no doctor but she exhibit's traits that are very scary to say the least. Good luck my friend.

I'm Sorry, Broken Bill.

This strikes me as extreme narcissism, like Perv has. Others have said it on your thread, too.

Validation is needed by all of us and it is said by some that the best validation should come from within. But it's a struggle oftentimes and with Perv, he even admitted that his ego validation and "feel good" stuff came from other people.

He twisted it though, and said I failed at feeding his ego, when it was him that shut me out. I was there all the while, rooting me on, but he decided I wasn't enough for him.

He is also a sex addict and hid porn from me, somehow, and believed that the acts he saw are real. He was not daring enough to do them with me, so found someone without standards who would F a married man and she got attached to him and supposedly, vice versa.

What I think she is and I was, is a living situation he liked for a while, but he didn't want responsibility as he aged and that's what he had here as a married guy.

I have to wonder if you were a good situation for your WW for a long time and maybe has some similar things going on that Perv did/does.

He feels very in control with his version of sex and yes, feels like he conquers women. I saw this first hand during false reconciliation, where he made being physical a direct challenge to me and actually stood there to see what I could do.

He was so strange in demeanor, so different than the 20 years I had known him, a stranger in my husband's body, which is even different in physical appearance.

I'm sorry to write all about my situation but did in an effort not to generalize and show an example of "conquering" with sex.

The theory on the change in him is that there were significant life pressures-job loss and such-and he took to physical acts like porn as a vice, also.

Reading about narcissism (NPD) really helped me and still does, because I can understand more how to "relate" to him now. Narcissism is all about ego and can be related to sex for some people who have it.

The hard part is that a person doesn't know they have it, many times and it is ill advised to try to be the one to tell them.

If you ever want to "talk" more about it, feel free to PM me anytime, for this really helped me to understand that I think nothing I could have done would turn back the tide.

I'm sorry for your difficult time.

P.S. And, FWIW, a theory about him now is that he got married so I was locked in to only "being" with him, but he doesn't have the same boundaries, so he could kind of rest assured that I would be "good" and he didn't have to.

He spoke of M with OW and I suspect this in her future, because I've also heard rumors that they will have an "open" relationship. I could not, so I didn't "work" for him anymore.