2247: Why Women Cheat on Their Husbands by Evan Marc Katz on Marriage Advice

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[00:00:14] and you can summarize them or link them with the note assistant in a few key points. Super practical if you want to shine with clear notes later. Galaxy AI is here. Learn more about the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 on samsung.de. This is Optimal Relationships Daily, episode 2247.

[00:00:34] Why Women Cheat on Their Husbands by Evan Marc Katz of evanmarccatz.com Hello everybody and thanks a lot for joining me over the weekend here on ORD. My name is Greg Audino. I'm your host and narrator of the show,

[00:00:48] with you every single day to read from some of the best blogs we can find that cover relationship building. Today's post is sure to get you thinking. It's an article that is not afraid to dive into the nitty-gritty of relationships,

[00:01:00] which is absolutely what we're here to do on this podcast. So listen closely as we start the reading now and optimize your life. Why Women Cheat on Their Husbands by Evan Marc Katz of evanmarccatz.com It's hard to keep up with statistics.

[00:01:19] People cherry-pick the ones that make their case, and I suppose I'm no different. I instinctively abhor statistics that insinuate that men are bad, relationships are doomed, and marriage is a dying institution. Probably because I consider myself a good man who is happily married.

[00:01:36] That said, I'm always trying to challenge my own confirmation bias, having come to terms with the unfortunate facts that one quarter of women have been assaulted and that only one third of all marriages are happy.

[00:01:49] This latest study is another example that flies in the face of something that seems obvious. Men cheat more than women. Not so, says Esther Perel, author of State of Affairs – Rethinking Infidelity. On this very blog, I reported something that seemed likely.

[00:02:07] 23% of men and 19% of women cheat over the course of their marriage. But Perel says that times have changed and that while men's infidelity rate has remained constant, women's has jumped 40% since 1990. What can we make of this statistic? Is it to be believed?

[00:02:28] Well, according to a New York Magazine article about Perel's new book, women have many of the same sad, mundane rationalizations for their own affairs as men. The article says, quote, It occurred to me as I listened that these women were describing infidelity not as a transgression,

[00:02:58] but a creative or even subversive act, a protest against an institution they'd come to experience as suffocating or oppressive. In an earlier generation, this might have taken the form of separation or divorce.

[00:03:11] But now it seemed, more and more women were unwilling to abandon the marriages and families they'd built over years or decades. They were also unwilling to bear the stigma of a publicly open marriage or to go through the effort of negotiating such a complex arrangement.

[00:03:26] These women were turning to infidelity not as a way to explode a marriage, but as a way to stay in it. End quote. Ugh. If a man said this, he would rightfully be skewered. But let's not lose sight of the big picture.

[00:03:42] Women do have a lot to complain about, as the bearers of the emotional load within most marriages. As the article points out, it's hard to feel hot for your husband when you're taking care of him like another dependent.

[00:03:54] Some part of that is inevitable within marriage, which opens up a much larger can of worms. Are our expectations of marriage setting us up for failure? The author of the New York piece, Kim Brooks, seems to think so. She says, quote, End quote.

[00:05:04] Personally, I think a huge part of life is having realistic expectations. If you think you're going to sign up for match for a month and find your husband, you're going to be disappointed.

[00:05:16] If you think that your boyfriend is going to understand and intuit all of your emotional needs effortlessly and without fail, you're going to be disappointed. If you think that your initial chemistry will continue unabated for the next 40 years, you're going to be disappointed. The problem is not life.

[00:05:32] It's our expectations of what life has in store for us. The strength of my marriage lies in its honesty. My wife can tease me about my foibles, my impatience in looking for lost items, my inability to fix simple things around the house, my remarkable penchant for getting injured.

[00:05:50] I can tease her about hers, her refusal to throw out any item of clothing, her insistence on taking a full week to pack for a three-day weekend, her uncanny desire to eat the least healthy item on any menu. At the end of the day, we accept these flaws.

[00:06:06] We understand that we're not going to be intimate every time we see each other like we did in that first year. We joke about desiring other people, knowing full well that neither of us would do anything to jeopardize our marriage.

[00:06:18] Looking at what I just wrote, it sounds like a cliche. The secret to marriage is open, honest communication. Then again, maybe it's no more complex than that. Maybe cliches are cliches for a reason. You just listened to the post titled,

[00:06:37] Why Women Cheat on Their Husbands by Evan Mark Katz of evanmarkkatz.com and I'll be back right after this with my comments. Alright, and thanks a lot to Evan for this post. I really, genuinely appreciate an article like this.

[00:06:53] To be honest, there have been many times before in which I've felt a little bit at odds with Evan's ideas, but I have a lot of admiration for not just his thoughts today, but also the thoughts shared from the New York Magazine article.

[00:07:06] I just think it's so critical to think of relationships in this way. Needless to say, so many of us have been tailored to believe in the fairy tales of marriage that have been fed to us, but there's just so much more to it.

[00:07:20] What do we do when the level of attraction changes 20 years in, or less? How do we find that sweet spot between self-service and sacrifice? When times get tough, how do we know if we're still there because we want to be,

[00:07:33] or because we fear the emotional and logistical complications that come with leaving? Questions like these do not have concrete answers, I don't think. At least it doesn't seem that way for me as someone whose relationship has not been tested by time yet.

[00:07:48] I suppose the real bravery and courage of committing to a relationship, and if you're willing and able to truly contemplate these questions, then it does indeed require bravery and courage to proceed, comes from diving in anyway,

[00:08:02] and trusting that you and your partner can and are willing to bear down and work through these challenges together when they arise. It's very serious business, which is why we're here. Time to go though everyone for today, and I hope you really sunk your teeth into today's article,

[00:08:18] and that you'll continue to contemplate it. Thanks a lot for being here and being brave every day. We're all in this together, and I hope to see you again tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.