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I have a good friend who was unmarried and when married women would complain about sex (tired, busy, it's all my H wants), she'd say, "I don't get you guys! I love sex!" Now she is married.

The other day she said, "I get it now. Sex hasn't changed, but I can't just do it at the drop of a hat. What's in my mind matters! But not to my H. He can just separate physical sex from life, and it seems like women can't."

Yep.

We can love shitty sex--and truly think we love it--if we are feeling good about ourselves from it. And we can hate great sex--even if our guy is doing everything right--because we are pissed off about something. And we can feel everything in between--all because of what is going on inside our minds. Can we love good sex? Sure, but most likely because our head was in a good place at the time. Can we hate bad sex? Of course. But if we stay away from you anyway, then it's because you weren't important to us or were in the doghouse with us or whatever. Otherwise, we have probably convinced ourselves that the sex wasn't that bad. Lol.

I guess I would like to know, how many women have willingly gone back to mediocre or lousy sex partners? And why did you do it?

I have done it many times.

Why?

I liked the guy and how I felt with the guy.

LOL, OIN.

Yes, that absolutely sounds like and mirrors my past experiences with women. But it's very confusing for me, because, the concept of "shitty sex" doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. It's like bad ice cream. It just doesn't exist. There's good sex and there's great sex. Those are the only two options for me.

Sex puts life on hold for me. Yes, it's completely separate from the rest of my life, I've related before, I've had quite a bit of sex with women who I didn't even like, let alone love. If I was sitting around doing anything but sex I was thinking about how I could get away from the situation, but.. Once we started having sex, all that stopped, and it was sex, and that was good. Stressed at work? Sex will help. Mad at the dog? Sex will help. Kids drawing in perm marker on the white carpet? Yup.. Nothing like a good romp in the hay to take your mind off it.

And, sad as it is to say this, in a lot of cases, the "who" doesn't matter all that much. Yes, I love having sex with my W. But I love having sex, so, if we D'ed, I'd quickly look to restore that part of my life in some way, likely with a woman who I didn't like very much but was willing to have sex (not because of her, because of me, I don't like many people). I've heard another poster describe is like water for a man, and, that analogy fits me. Yes, I could go without water for a period of time. But eventually, I'm going to get to the point where the only thing on my mind is a nice tall glass of ice cold sparkling water. If I'm walking along with my dreams of Poland Springs and a mudpuddle is all I come across, guess what? Mmmmm, mudpuddle.

I guess I would like to know, how many women have willingly gone back to mediocre or lousy sex partners? And why did you do it?

This is the crux of the question really. But it's a tiny bit more complex. It's not just why did you go back. I get that part, you might really like the guy, you might enjoy his company, you might like going out with him. That makes sense, the entire world isn't about sex, he could have other qualities you really enjoy together. However, what seems to happen in a LOT of A's is the woman will say "the sex sucked" and yet, all they did together was sex. So yeah, sex sucked, but he was great at painting and we did that together all the time, occasionally we had sex (which sucked for me). Make sense. What doesn't make sense is "I loved to paint with him and the sex sucked". And then, come to find out, exactly 0 paintings were completed, but sex was had multiple times a day every "painting session". That's what a lot of WW's seem to say (including mine).

[This message edited by Rideitout at 6:08 AM, June 28th (Thursday)]

Because, as you have pointed out, male APs come to the A looking for sex. He expects it. That is why he is there. If female AP stops putting out, the A is over. And, on that note, why in the world would a male AP settle for a BJ? He is there for sex! He is there for EASY sex.

Waiting around for sex, playing hard to get, settling for handjobs, is not easy! Its why I did over the top sex in random hookups. I implicitly knew what those men were there for in my past. Female APs know it, too.

Now, when I fixed my shit, and started my relationship with WS, it took us a long time to have sex. Why? Because he was there for more. He wasn't looking for easy with me.

And I am going to go so far and suggest that even the female APs who say its all about the sex, they liked it, whatever, don't know it yet, but it isn't about the sex. Once upon a time, I felt like some of the shitty sex I was having was good (and I never had an O ). Looking back, I can see it was because I was so desperate for anyone to accept me. Most female APs are just sad, lonely women looking for acceptance and because women learn at an early age that sex gets them that, they use it.

For example:

Eventually I just stopped initiating bc I couldn't take the rejection. 

Foenix then started an A. With all due respect, Foenix, keep digging. It wasn't the sex. It was the rejection.

[This message edited by Hardroadout at 6:43 AM, June 28th (Thursday)]

When things were very raw, I asked my wh “why’d you sleep with her?” He’d said (in a mean, accusatory way) “ she listened to me, she got me”, and i figured, well, if you’re together all day at work, and that connection is so great, why not just go to Starbucks, why the hotels, the lying, etc. He couldn’t explain at the time. Super painful for me.

With time behind all this, he sees that he and mow were motivated by different things. Not because of gender but individual circumstance. He was fucking up his business/personal life and the A was the method he chose to quiet the noises telling him to grow the fuck up. She was super competitive and always needed to feel like she won. She was very threatened by her female coworkers and told lies about them to keep them from being promoted. I was unknown to her, but she still had to take from me. They both behaved ugly and for different reasons. He was running away from himself and he said fuck it when it came to the sex.

Sex was the currency in the transaction for sure. He says having sex with her was a breeze because she used sex to feel validated. If she was screwing the boss, she was one upping the other women at work, which gave her the edge. (It didn’t). He used sex to get her to continue to flatter him and tell him how awesome he was. (He wasn’t). If the affair were an object, it would have a very very fragile easily breakable shell with nothing inside, easily broken and thrown away. No love, no respect, neither of them cared about the others family. But having sex together somehow “connected” them and that bond made it “real”. It crashed hard because nothing was real and even sex couldn’t make it real.

Like another AP wrote earlier, it disgusts him now. I still wish they’d just gone to Starbucks for the stroking though because now my sex life is affected negatively.

RIO, one thing my IC pointed out early on after dday is that many, if not most of us, in relationships make a huge mistake from the getgo. We think the other thinks like us.

Hence, your fallacy, if she is having sex with me on the first date, she must like sex. Or, he is having sex with me on the first date, he must really like me.

We make that mistake often. This is where empathy kicks in. We really need to be able to see things through another's eyes. It is so hard, and even us BS are not always very skilled at it until we face dday.

OneLittle, I would be willing to bet some liked A sex. But it isn't a universal thing. And I'd bet that those WW dig some more and figure out it wasn't really about the sex.

Female APs know it, too.

Do they? I guess that's really the deeper level of the question. Because a whole lot of WW's come here and say "I thought we were in love". Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but, that is what is often said. Now, if they know "it's only for the sex" or the "guy is only there for the sex" then, yes, it does make sense.

There are just big logical gaps in what happens during an A. It's not about sex, but that's all we do. It was love, but an A is flat out the worst place to find anything lasting you could possibly pick. It was for ego kibbles, but how could you not know he/she would "say anything"?

I just wanted more sex. OK, that makes sense. I wanted sex with someone else. Also, makes sense. I thought he loved me, but then became a porn star so he'd keep calling? That does NOT make sense. Unless you know as a female AP that the guy is only there for sex. In which case, how can any of the rest of it (the "I love yous") carry any weight at all?

Perhaps I'm looking for logic where none exists. What bothers me is that I can build a perfect logical chain for myself (and most men, I think) for why to have a PA. I can't for women (unless I assume their motivations are the same as a guy's) and that really bothers me. What I don't understand scares the crap out of me.

I think some women use the sex to lure a man in, maybe hoping that it will be followed by love, or at least a financially secure relationship. I’ve been watching The Americans and it’s always the sexy woman that brings down a powerful man. He’s suddenly powerless because he believes he’s so desired. Meanwhile, she’s faking it and he’s buying it.

Granted it’s a fictional show, but it always makes me cringe. One bj, and bam, governments tumble. Makes me feel very hopeless in my teeny weeny world.

I think most female APs know implicitly. That doesn't make it a conscious knowledge. Keep in mind, I didn't have active knowledge of my motivations for what I was doing in my past until I had detached from it and could look at it with an objective and reflective eye. This is why "the work" is so important for WS. They have to look back, examine, question. People act without fully understanding at times. For example, is a morbidly obese person REALLY hungry? No. They would live many weeks on a hydration diet. But, they eat. Why? A person who laughs when he is ridiculed...does he really think the cruel jokes are funny? If not, why laugh? That is the work....to figure out why you did something that makes no sense and what gymnastics did you do to get there.

I’ve been watching The Americans and it’s always the sexy woman that brings down a powerful man. He’s suddenly powerless because he believes he’s so desired. Meanwhile, she’s faking it and he’s buying it.

Life imitates art. And yes, I do think there's an element of "lure him in". But that assumes that women aren't really enjoying sex that much, which, I'm not sure is the right assumption. Yes, women clearly use sex to get things from men, have since the beginning of recorded history. This is why I always have a laugh or an argument when people tell me the sex drives are the same between the sexes; if that were the case, the economic value of sex would be about 0. Supply and demand would be equally matched. And, as we all know, the economic indicators tell a very different story. That would not be the case if supply/demand were balanced.

I don't think he's powerless because he "feel so desired". I think he's powerless because he enjoys the sex, or the thought of the sex so much he can't think straight. "Being desired" is about as attractive to me as "the check is in the mail". Yeah, right. When I was dating; "your hot" carried 0 weight. "Want to go back to my place", now, that was very valuable. But a lot of people seem to place that metric elsewhere, they get a lot of value out of a "your pretty/hot" comment that I value at 0 (or less than 0 because, anytime someone says that, I feel they are trying to manipulate me to get something; IE, tying it back to the powerful man brought down by the "your so sexy" comments from a pretty woman).

Thing is, there are 2 power plays that the sexes make here. You illustrate the typical female one, using sex appeal to get people to do things for them. The male power play is getting sex for little/no investment; using their power/looks/status/lies/etc to get sex from women. And that's what happens in a PA. An EA is more the "female power play", I'll talk about sex with you, make you think it's on the table and never give it to you to get what I want. Once it's a PA though, the power flips, now the sexually motivated partner is getting what he/she wants and they have the power. Makes sense to let it flip if you really want sex and don't give a crap about your marriage. But that's not what your typical WW says, even though that's exactly what they do. Words =/ actions.

Why they take it physical is they have no regard for anyone but themselves. Sex wasn't good but keep going back that's a oxymoron don't like but keep doing it really. I know if I don't like something I stop,doing it.It really is just another facet of a wayward fucked up logic.

Do they? I guess that's really the deeper level of the question. Because a whole lot of WW's come here and say "I thought we were in love". Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but, that is what is often said. Now, if they know "it's only for the sex" or the "guy is only there for the sex" then, yes, it does make sense.

I said this more lightly in my first response...

I am a successful, smart, intuitive woman. I read people very well. The narrative in my situation changed rapidly. But, it changed only in my own mind.

So, at first, the AP was pretty up front that he just wanted to have fun, didn't want to change his situation, etc. I got it, it didn't matter, and I was thinking along the same lines. At this point, I am not thinking I am actually going to have sex with him, I just keep talking to him because he was fun to flirt with. He was good at it. (Yeah, we all know why that is...and even at the beginning I knew why it was). But as the talking continued it was probably 70% non-sexual. There were things in common, finishing each others thoughts or thinking the same thing at the same time...I look back and know that the mirroring starts very early.

So I will echo the other female posters that say it's just wherever your brain is. So, the escalation of feelings kept happening through all the other talking/flirting/endorphins running rampant. And, soon you are ignoring anything logical, or "what might be right in front of your face" and you start projecting a lot of things that aren't there.

At this point the AP in my situation either caught feelings too, or more likely mirrored what I was doing to stay in step. I don't know really, and it doesn't make a bit of difference to me now. But, whichever it was it made what ever I was projecting seem more valid. To the point that when the opportunity to be alone arose again, then we moved to physical. You already are telling yourself a bunch of shit that already made everything else okay and you are now in the thick of a big fat lie...to yourself. (And, I am not minimizing the lie to the spouse is worse, it's just hard I think for BS's to understand how logic is thrown out the window.) You lie and brainwash yourself so you can keep getting the feelings. You feel alive, vibrant, euphoric. But, it's not the person that you are having the A with that makes you feel this way - you are actually making yourself feel this way with all the fantasy, projection, etc.

This is why by the end of it we sound like loons and connecting the dots with logic is difficult.

I think many men have affairs for validation as well. They may think it's about the sex, but I can tell you in hindsight I can clearly see that's the biggest thing it was for the AP in my situation.

I will also echo some of the other posters - the females are mostly all saying similar things here. I don't have any reason to lie about this, my H does not come to this site. I have nothing to prove to any one on here. I have many experiences in my youth that Hardroadout describes with faking my way through really shitty sex, and with people I was maybe only remotely attracted to at best. Why did I do it? For validation, attention, some company? The A really was no different. And, the sex was not the main attraction to me. I didn't sit around thinking "Oh I can't wait to do that". I was anxious for a first kiss, or this or that, but I was certainly more interested in being romantically swept up...so I saw romance where I wanted to see it (at every turn). I maximized any evidence of it and minimized any non-evidence of it. Our minds do that with a lot of things actually, we often focus on things we want to more fully than things we don't want to.

At any rate, I don't see myself as a victim in this. I was not a fool that a predator took advantage of. Whatever happened was because I refused to focus on any of the things I should have - firstly and most importantly not doing any of it in the first place. Secondly, ignoring reality of being used and taking in only emotional gratification. And I can go on. I did all of it to myself, so it really doesn't matter what motivations the AP might have had. It really doesn't matter whether he was using me for sex. What matters is I ignored all that and re-wrote the entire story and fell for everything hook line and sinker.

Another poster on this site said something I think was true - maybe it was Jorge - something to the effect of he could see a woman who had been married a long time being more naïve, or who had put on a few pounds and maybe took it off and was getting attention for the first time in a very long while. He is right, those things were powerful in my situation, and part of it. But, it also takes away the power of all the other things the person has going for them that should have directed them better from cheating. As I said, I am not a dummy, in the end I chose every single thing. I was not a victim of circumstances, or of a predator - I was a victim of my own lies to myself. My own delusions that was feeding the whole thing. I have gotten off point now but I think in the end the take-a-way is the reason the physical happened, and the reason that the man's motivations were ignored, and the reason that I did things I really could have done without (wasn't seeking) is because I decided them. There were skewed motivations behind all of it, but I kept choosing that path of escape at any cost.

DIFM, Hardroadout, OwningItNow, and hikingout all echoed my feelings.

I’m a WW and I liked the sex. I liked it a lot. But my A wasn’t about sex. I wasn’t looking for sex, I wasn’t unhappy, with my sex life at home, I didn’t have an itch. The sex was a way for me to get my AP to fawn all over me, which gave me my real drug of choice, validation.

You know why I liked the sex? You know why I did things with my AP that I’ll regret for the rest of my life? It wasn’t because he had a magic penis. Yes, it felt good. But it really was because of how I felt in my head while I was doing those things. It wasn’t the pleasure of sex. It wasn’t the orgasms (during my A I’d honestly say I orgasmed about half the time). It was how those things made me feel emotionally. The messed up part is that I was an emotional crack addict, debasing myself for the next hit, but I didn’t view myself that way. I was powerful and sexy and felt wanted, and loved, and special. That was how I viewed what I was doing.

Some women are in it for the sex. Some women are not. Some women are lying when they say it wasn’t about sex. Others are telling the truth. What’s really important is knowing your own situation and whatever the answer, whether your WW is telling you the truth. That’s what matters.

At the risk of generalizing, I would guess that the sex would be the best part for most guys and the attention would be the best part for most of the women... and in order to get the attention, you give sex. Not saying this is fact or always the case, but the running theme around here is that men want sex and women want emotional connection.

All of the adrenaline comes from the illicit aspect, the thrill. Sex is a quick and direct way to get there.

Real life and responsibilities are a buzz-kill.

[This message edited by Hg65 at 9:34 AM, June 28th (Thursday)]

I had a higher sex drive than my husbands. You have any idea how shitty it is to not be wanted by the man you married? I was thin, attractive, fit and my husband would rather watch tv than have sex with me. I know now he needed the emotional connection whereas I didn’t. It was just a physical release for me. I am more like a man in this aspect.

I had an EA because I knew a PA would mean the end and I didn’t want that. The EA satisfied that feeling of being wanted. Knowing that I could have sex if I wanted it was enough to hold me over and then I continued to take matters into my own hands.

Bottom line is it’s a generalization to say women don’t like sex. There are plenty of us who want it more than men do.

Why does anyone do anything for anyone else? To make them happy. And perhaps as a result get what they want in return.

One AP who is really after sex will give give shoulder rubs, long meaningful conversations, stare into their AP's eyes, tell them how amazing they are? To get sex.

Another who wants the emotional ego stuff will give sex to get what they want.

I like sex but it really isn't an essential to me. However loving, appreciative words and a bit off someones undivided attention are a damned good way to make sex much more likely.

Also there is that cliche that BWs are more upset about the emotional connection in the affair and BH's care more about the sex. It's a cliche because there is a large element of truth. So why are you surprised when WW's have sex - for many they have already crossed the boundary that matters most to them.

Mrs walloped the issue is why believe anything a wayward says they have exhibited characteristics of being unable to tell the truth Obviously or they wouldn't have had affairs.

For most WW's it's pretty simple, they use sex as a currency. They get what they want in exchange for sex. What they want is attention, compliments, flattery, the feeling of being desired by another man, etc. Add the taboo part of sneaking around and the "newness" of another man and it is like pouring gasoline on a bonfire.

Hardroadout explained it herself about how she traded sex in her past for the feeling of being desired or wanted. My WW had a similar past.

Of course this is not a one size fits all blanket statement but I am willing to bet that it covers 75% of all WW's.

Mrs walloped the issue is why believe anything a wayward says they have exhibited characteristics of being unable to tell the truth Obviously or they wouldn't have had affairs.

I know that you addressed this to Mrs. Walloped, but I would like a stab at answering this if that's okay.

People believe what they will believe, so I don't think I will change your mind here. But, do you believe that people can change? That they can look at what they have done and see the error in their decisions? That they can become remorseful and take steps in redemption?

If you to believe that, then I will tell you that most of the WW who have answered this question have been working on that for a year or more.

We are here frequently working hard on understanding the trauma we have caused and dissecting our own thoughts and feelings so that we can be safe partners and women who have restored their integrity.

If you don't believe that people change, nothing I can say will make you believe that our answers are honest. I don't come here for any other reason than to learn and grow and help others when I can, but not every one will be able to see that because I have the WW label.

Whichever camp you fall into I am sure you have your reasons and I am good with that.

You have any idea how shitty it is to not be wanted by the man you married?

Change that "man" to a "woman" and I think you'll get a lot of shaking heads. At least one, mine. So yes, I know exactly how you feel, and I'm sorry, it's awful.