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Reasons for Female Infidelity
The common understanding of infidelity has men out with other women, while the wife sits at home alone. Studies show, however, that that's not usually the case; in fact, according to infidelity expert Ruth Houston, up to 55% of married women cheat on their husbands. Since two-thirds of marriages that experience infidelity end in divorce, it's a good idea to look at the reasons women give for cheating.
- They miss the feeling of "falling in love." Whatever the emotional connection between people, the process of falling in love changes people's brain chemistry and floods their systems with hormones which increase sexual desire, happiness, and anticipation—all the things they used to have with the men they married. Sometimes that chemical high fades after marriage, and women long for those happier times, so they seek them outside of their marriage.
- They feel neglected and unappreciated in their marriage. Husbands often work long hours to establish themselves in relatively new careers, as do wives. Babies arrive and the balance of time and energy is tilted far away from romance, affection, and attention—and yet the woman still wants those things. When a person outside the marriage pays a wife the attention she's not getting from her husband, it's hard not to respond.
- They were unprepared for an attraction to another man. In many cases, nobody has told a new wife that her feelings of attraction to other men won't be turned off like a light switch after the wedding. People are attracted to many people in their lives; they choose to act on some attractions and not on others. But many women are taken by surprise by their attraction to someone other than their husband, and attribute an emotional cause to it that can eventually justify acting on that attraction outside the marriage.