When he cheats vs. when she cheats

January 24, 2009 at 7:36 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: blogging, cheating, culture, dating, family, friends, health, human nature, infidelity, infidelity gene, life, life blogging, love, men, opinion, personal, relationships, science, sex, thoughts, women

[Note: A post about the recent air missile strikes in Pakistan will be posted in a few days, don't worry. I just need some time on it.]

 

Is she the reason you don’t call like you used to?

Is she the reason my deepest love couldn’t please you? You got me feeling like I wasn’t good enough

- “Is she the reason” – Destinys Child

 

Im thinking one girl

She thinking me, earl james and jimmy

Yep she had plenty

But love for me, she didnt have any

I was inviting, her into my heart

But she was out riding in some other man’s car

- “Go On Girl” – Ne-Yo

 

Not being able to sleep, and TV being too dangerous to skim through at that late hour, I turned to my ever so faithful laptop. Watched a few episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report, and then randomly browsed through news, current events and the Golden Globe red carpet (on that note, I would like to shout out to my fellow Indian friends and congratulate them on the buzz that Slumdog Millionaire is causing and the awards it’s picking up along the way).

While browsing, I had my itunes playlist playing on shuffle. And that’s when “Is She The Reason” by Destiny’s Child came on. I automatically stopped reading about how P. Diddy is being brought into the spotlight regarding being the brain behind Tupac’s assassination and my attention reverted to the lyrics of the song. The song revolves around the questionable behavior of male partners. Beyonce asks, “Is she the reason why you don’t call like you used to?”, while Kelly says, “I can’t believe you let me fall this hard” and Michelle states, “You had me believing that this was all my fault. I guess me seeing you with her, says it all”.  

After that, came Ne-Yo’s song ,”Go On Girl” where he sings about how a girl has played with his heart by cheating on him and deceiving him. And when two “The Other Person” type songs come in sequence, you can’t help but get into that heartbreak mood,  now can you?

I then found out that I had loads of songs like that. “It’s not right, but it’s okay” by Whitney Housten, “Shattered Glass” by Britney Spears, “Heartless” by Kanye West, “Cry Me a River” by Justin Timberlake, “Thanx for Nuthin’” by Mariah Carey, “Beautiful Liar” by Beyonce and countless of others. And those are the “The other person” songs, which means sad, tragic and heartbreak songs are in a category of itself. Then I have the love songs. Then I have those poetic deep songs (usually of Indian and Pakistani descent). Then I have the political raps.  

I seriously need to get some new, happy music.

But beside that reality realization, it got me thinking.

I have to be honest, I don’t get into relationships for countless of reasons, but one on my list would be the fear of being screwed over.  I’ve always been a social person, and being around many people gave me an inside look on people’s lives, their struggles and their both won and lost battles. The one common issue that all of my female friends had at some point or another was infidelity. Their guys had “other girls”.

My mom could not get around this issue with her friends either. Women were finding out that they were not the only ones sharing a bed with their man.

And I had guy friends who wouldn’t confess it to anyone but me that their girl was shouting some other guy’s name. My mom would often tell me stories of men in the family who had been played and screwed over by their cheating women.

The exposure to disloyalty,  infidelity and unfaithfulness in relationships made sure that I would stay far, far away from any sort of intimate relationship whatsoever. It was in human nature to cheat and deceit, and I’m already a super-ultra emotional person, (I cried in The Simpsons Movie when Marge records a farewell message on a videotape and says in a hurt voice, “And to prove it’s over, I taped this over our wedding video. Good-Bye Homer”. Anything else needs to be said?) so getting screwed over by a man is the last on my list.

Infidelity has been an issue for partners for as long….well I don’t know. But its been around for quiet some time, hasn’t it? And it seems that the focus has always been on “the other woman”.

Just to give you a taste where we stand on the “other woman” issue, let me share with you some information.

• Percentage of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had: 57%
• Percentage of men who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught: 74%
• 22% of married men (in US) have strayed at least once during their married lives. 
  
• Affairs affect one of every 2.7 couples

I’m going to stop now. I don’t want you to be man-less for the rest of your life and if you’re a man, I don’t want to embarrass you any further. Other studies show that many affairs last up to two full years.

Talk about guilt and moral sense taking a long vacation.

Ok, that was mean, I apologize. But the truth is that’s what I would have believed in a few years back. Now, that I’m older, I look at things a bit differently.

The first issue has always been, why on EARTH would a woman want a married/taken man? (I’m looking at you Angelina Jolie). Why would you want to sleep with a man, knowing very well that there is another woman who, most probably, has been told her man is working late? Why would you trust a man who is capable of betraying the trust of another woman? I don’t know, and I will never know, and nor will you (unless of course you are the other woman. If so, please feel free to contribute). It’s rather unexplainable, beside the “He just happened to be married” argument that I have a hard time falling for. So, I’ll leave that for now and turn the coin. Why do men have other women (who may or may not know about the fact that they already got a girl)?

The most easy and straightforward answer would be: sex. Men are naturally sex-driven, sex-obsessed creatures that don’t think with their heads and fall easily for temptation. (Even in the Quran, the male specie has been described as weak as they tend to think sexual thoughts when alone with women). After marriage, it seems that men lose interest in their wives, and miss the chase and the thrill. Sex becomes predictable and touching the same flesh gets, well, boring. And after women give  birth, men see them more as maternal figures than the sex partners. 

At least that’s the original version. Or the fling version at least.

I’ve always seen male infidelity in two ways. One is most defiantly the sex side (I’ve watched enough Dr.Phil, read enough Cosmo, talked to enough women to confirm that theory for me) and the original explanation is not far from the truth either (sorry guys) but there is one more side to the story. Especially when we’re talking about long-term affairs.

Men are natural braggers. It’s in a man’s nature to prove himself, as it is to boost his ego. But it’s wrong to suggest that sex is the sole reason for why men have an other woman.

• Dr. Jan Halper’s study found that very few men who have affairs divorce their wife and marry their lovers. Only 3% of the 4,100 men surveyed eventually married their lovers. 
•  Frank Pittman has found that the divorce rate among those who married their lovers was 75%

What does that tell you? Sex almost always plays a role in infidelity, but it seems that it is when comes to long term affairs, the very reason for cheating changes.

Men in marriage usually cheat because 1) They aren’t getting enough sex at home  2) There is some turmoil in their relationship or 3) They are just plain, pathetic morons, who are morally bad of character. 

Men need to be told they are good. Seriously, no joke. If a man is unhappy in a relationship, or has a wife/girlfriend who nags/complains constantly (yes, I’m looking at you ladies), then a man is more tempted to cheat. Why? Because he needs to prove to himself that he’s still got it. He needs to prove to himself that he’s good enough. Psychologically, women are more social creatures than men are, and women are thus better at resolving emotional issues than men are (which is why more men than women turn to alcohol). So when a man has a woman who constantly puts him down, constantly bugs him, constantly wants to “talk about the relationship”, he will eventually fall for that smiling woman at office who says that he’s going a good job.

But rarely do they marry the other woman. Why? Because there is not the connection of an emotional bond. The other woman is the object of self-satisfaction. The proof that they can still bring it on. And besides, a relationship born out from secrecy, lies and deception is very unlikely to survive.   

Going back to the ego boost subject, some men cheat because they want to prove to themselves that they still have what it takes. “Notch under the belt” i think it’s called. To experience the thrill of the chase again. 

Then of course are the men who have everything, but still cheat. No idea why they do it, so I simply assume they are not of good character.

But what happens when she cheats?

Female infidelity has always been brushed underneath the carpet. Everyone knows it’s there.

The assumption that women cheat for different reasons than men is a 50/50 deal. I was reading an article recently which brought the stories of cheating women. A few women said because their husbands didn’t show them affection or didn’t give them quality time, so they went out and found a man who did. Others said because sex was getting boring.

The myth that men cheat more than women is, according to statistics, dying. In fact. a study showed that young females and males had cheated on a partner equal number of times, and infidelity from the woman’s side is now rapidly growing.

It is true that many women cheat because they are not getting enough attention, love and emotional support from home. But the interesting thing in female infidelity is that it is viewed with more sympathy than male infidelity. And why is so?

I guess it’s because we in a society  where we believe that men cheat because it lies in their nature, while women cheat only when they are pushed in that direction where no other options are available.  Although, I read an article in the newspaper which said that scientists and now trying to find a specific gene in men that biologically programs them into cheating. A kind of infidelity gene.

And no, it’s not a lie;

Hasse Walum and his colleagues made use of data from The Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden, which includes over 550 twins and their partners or spouses. The gene under study codes for one of the receptors for vasopressin, a hormone found in the brains of most mammals. The team found that men who carry one or two copies of a variant of this gene — allele 334 — often behave differently in relationships than men who lack this gene variant.

The incidence of allele 334 was statistically linked to how strong a bond a man felt he had with his partner. Men who had two copies of allele 334 were also twice as likely to have had a marital or relational crisis in the past year than those who lacked the gene variant. There was also a correlation between the men’s gene variant and what their respective partners thought about their relationship.

“Women married to men who carry one or two copies of allele 334 were, on average, less satisfied with their relationship than women married to men who didn’t carry this allele”, says Hasse Walum.

The same gene has been previously studied in voles, where it has been linked to monogamous behaviour in males.

“The fact that the corresponding gene has proved important for similar behaviour in voles makes our findings even more interesting, and suggests that the thoroughly studied brain mechanisms that we know give rise to strong bonds between individual voles can also be relevant to humans”, Hasse Walum concludes.   

 

I have to admit, I laughed. A nervous laugh though. Can you imagine?  ” Sorry honey, I cheated ‘cos it’s in my genes”.

However,

He stresses, however, that the effect of this genetic variation is relatively modest, and it cannot be used to predict with any real accuracy how someone will behave in a future relationship.

But why all the focus on the men? Women cheat too!

Women cheat on men for their own needs but superb starling females stray from their mates for the sake of their chicks, according to recent Cornell research. This reasoning includes being able to know if mates are too ‘genetically similar’ for breeding

 

So let me get this straight. We are all biologically programmed someway or another to screw around, so to speak?

Honestly, there shouldn’t be so much focus on the biological part, because it’s what, 1 in 10 men who have this gene, and it’s not 100% certain either. 

More focus should be put on the social aspects of infidelity. Women and men cheat for the same reason.

For their own needs.

Men may cheat for sex, because they’re not getting enough.

Women may cheat for love/sex because they’re not getting enough.

 

In reality, no gender should get a so-called “free-pass” when it comes to infidelity. So dear men, pay your wife some attention, help around the house and buy her the occasional bouquet of flowers (and keep in shape, no one wants Mr. Beer Belly), and dear women, stop nagging (and keep in shape…) and give some exciting sex to the man. It’s best for both of you really…

All this infidelity talk has made me go crazy. I think I’ll go listen to some love songs.

Until next time,

Mamashaal (( desi diva ))

 

Sources;

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902161213.htm

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/is_allele_334_an_infidelity_gene_for_men

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/why_females_cheat

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/ariel_leve/article4742877.ece