Relationships Talk

The usual cheating story we hear goes like this: wife is amazing, husband cheats, breaks up marriage and family, ruins everything. Exhibit A: Gwen Stefani and Jennifer Garner (where both Gavin Rossdale and Ben Affleck cheated with the nanny).

But women can be cheaters too — we just don’t hear about it as much. It happens all the time. (Exhibit B: Some sources are claiming that Khloe Kardashian “retaliation cheated” on Tristan Thompson with her ex French Montana.) In fact, one relationship expert in New York, Rori Sassoon, co-founder of upscale match making agency Platinum Poire, said she’s seen it happen throughout her career. She said while there are “a million reasons” women cheat, there are two main things that often drive a woman to seek another guy.

“From my experience, it’s either women who are a little bored — they have a great husband, a great life — but they’re bored. They’re usually the women whose life looks perfect from outside, like on Instagram. They are looking for sex, or emotional affection, or some kind of attention, basically they are not getting what they need.”

It’s easy for those women to cheat, Sassoon added, because they are often not getting what they need at home, the husband is usually neglecting them, and so they find someone to make them feel good who fits easily into their schedule. “It’s the classic story of cheating with the physical trainer,” she said. “It’s very easy two or three times a week for an hour.”

There is also one major clue a woman is cheating on her partner. (It’s not texts, sexts, or physical evidence.) Before all that, Sassoon said, the woman will become totally indifferent at home. “If a woman becomes very indifferent to her husband, like doesn’t care anymore, something may be going on. Think about it, he’s carrying on, and you just don’t care, and that could be because you have someone else in your life. It eases the guilt if the husband is off doing his thing.”

Another reason many women stray is because things in the marriage have changed. “Sometimes men can’t perform and that’s not just in the bedroom,” Sassoon noted. “Maybe emotionally they’re not there, maybe work isn’t going their way, they’re not making the money they used to and there’s a lot of pressure. Sometimes people just need that adrenaline rush of a love that’s exciting and new.”

Sassoon added that women are often the more emotional one in relationships, so if her husband neglects her, she feels she can “revenge cheat.” “That also happens after he cheats… she’ll cheat for revenge,” Sassoon said. “At that stage, it’s over.”

The good news? A couple can recover from cheating. Sassoon has seen it happen with therapy and communication. “Often they can get past a one-night stand, but everybody’s level of cheating is different.”

According to U.K.’s The Telegraph, men and women “tend to two-time for different reasons.”

“Research suggests that the majority of men stray in search of get-the-job-done sex, whereas women want their sizzle with a side of emotional connection,” said the report. “A study by anthropologist Helen Fisher concluded that women tend to cheat when they are dissatisfied with their relationship as a whole and seek what is missing elsewhere. But when it came to male cheaters, Fisher found that 56 percent claimed to be ‘happily married.'”

Modern technology and women having careers are also huge contributors to the gender cheating more, reported The Toronto Sun. 

“According to Dr. Ashley Thompson, director of the Sexuality and Relationship Science Lab at the University of Minnesota Duluth, there are several factors at work…Technology is making it easier for women — for everybody — to find extra-dyadic partners, whether it’s on Ashley Madison or Tinder… Women also have more opportunity now than they did in the past … If, traditionally, women were homemakers and men were going off to work, men had more opportunities to cheat. But now you’re seeing increased gender equality, and women are out in the work force, gaining more autonomy. Women are engaging as much as men because now that opportunity is there.”

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