Ada Obiako: 4 Reasons Why Husbands Cheat

I’m not a relationship expert.

I am, however, a gal who believes I’ve learned a bit about the inner workings of relationships and it’s clear there are certain factors that help push a man towards, or pull him away from, the likelihood of infidelity in marriage. Here’s 4 of those factors:

He Believes He’s His Own God
DANGER ZONE. If he doesn’t answer to God, you’re in trouble. This means that when it comes to being faithful, he will initially attempt to put you first and prove his nobility by his own strength because he’s still reeling off the emotions from the honeymoon phase of your relationship – big mistake. You see the honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever; things will change as the years pass by. You will have your high points AND low points in your marriage. You will go through wonderfully happy times and wonderfully challenging/depressing times. And because feelings change, his feelings for you will change from time to time; if he does not consider God, his heavenly Father, as #1 in his life (yes, God as #1 not you, love) and is not faithfully rooted in the desire to honor God through your marriage, it will be 100% EASY for him to step on out and get a “feel-good girl” to make him happy when times are rough in your relationship (i.e. due to constant bickering, financial struggles, infertility issues, etc).

You Emasculate Him
I’ve noticed that a good number of women belittle their husbands. Let me give you an example. I was at the grocery store the other day and I noticed a man with his wife (they were a Caucasian couple, seemingly in their early 30s) standing and talking next to me in the cold cut meats aisle. After a few seconds, the wife picked up a pack of pepperoni, told her husband that she wanted to get it, and asked if he would want it. Politely, her husband said he didn’t want the pepperoni and the wife quickly dropped it back in annoyance. Her husband then proceeded to pick the pack of pepperoni back up and place it in their cart. The wife asked him what he was doing and he said since she wanted it, they should get it. She said he shouldn’t bother but he insisted they should get it. She told him again there was no point in getting it since he wouldn’t have any and she didn’t want to eat the whole pack by herself but he said that was okay because they could save the rest in the freezer for later on when she’d want it. At this point, the wife was so angry that she walked up close to him and said in a very harsh and menacing tone, under muffled breath, “Stop it! You’re embarrassing me. Stop embarrassing me.” I was shocked.

The way she spoke to him was so disrespectful. She didn’t speak to him like a wife who respected or honored her husband. She spoke to him like an irate mother who was disgusted with her child’s behavior. Now he didn’t say anything after this. He just dropped the pack of pepperoni back and quietly kept pushing their cart. I felt terrible for him. In that moment he looked like a man whose confidence and spirit had been beaten down – for trying to be considerate of his wife’s desire for pepperoni. In that moment, she had not treated him as her partner and equal; instead, she had emasculated him. And as an observer, I saw how such emasculation done regularly by a wife could make a man lose confidence in himself and dread being near her. Same goes for excessive nagging. Making a point of only telling your husband that he doesn’t do anything right, only pointing out his weaknesses, and comparing him to other men that you feel act better, will eventually break his spirit. In fact, excessive nagging will successfully push him away from you and increase the likelihood that he will feel drawn into the arms of a non-nagging, supportive, uplifting woman. .

He Has No Boundaries Set Up With Female Friends
I watched an interview recently in which Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Ranch in Los Angeles, was asked how he avoided infidelity in his long-standing marriage to his wife, Kay Warren, for 40 years. His answer both surprised and impressed me. He said that in honesty, he has a desire to sleep with the beautiful women he sees and so, he protects himself and his marriage from infidelity by never being alone with a woman. Yes, you read right – HE IS NEVER ALONE IN A ROOM WITH ONE WOMAN. He does spend time with groups of people – including women – at Church, his office, and social events, but never one-on-one. He even said that he’ll go as far as taking the stairs if his female assistant is the only one in the elevator and he needs to get onto another floor in a building. HIS OWN ASSISTANT. To some of you, that might sound CRAZY. That might sound entirely too extreme. But, to a man that has every intention of maintaining fidelity in his marriage, “crazy” and “extreme” are lengths he’s willing to go to in order to protect himself, his wife, and his marriage from ever-tempting lustful desires. Now, I’m not telling you that your husband can’t have female friends but I am telling you that based on the relationships I’ve seen that have successfully kept infidelity out, and the ones that have been riddled with infidelity and lies, if your husband is not intentional about setting boundaries with his female friends, it’s not unlikely that things might graduate from a “friendly bond” to an affair when the opportunity presents itself (i.e. when you’re dealing with marital strife or financial woes or grieving the loss of a loved one or something else).

You Do Not Resemble The Woman He Married
I truly believe your identity is not found in your looks and weight size/fashion sense should be superseded by character and mutual purpose when it comes to choosing to love another person as husband or wife. However, I also believe that as ladies we must be careful of the saying, “start as you’d like to finish”. Before you get married, while still in the courting phase, how are you presenting yourself to him? As a fashion diva, makeup slayer, and stiletto connoisseur? As more of a street-casual, comfortable dresser who likes to wear minimal makeup and flats? Keep in mind that however he started off with you is how he’d naturally expect to continue on with you. I’m not saying kill yourself in the gym or stop eating. I’m not saying to sleep in your makeup or get your hair curled every day. I’m not saying to live in daily anxiety of not being “pretty enough” or “skinny enough”. All I’m saying is that there is a significant difference when you go from “beating your face with makeup” and doing “fit-fam” during your courting phase to wearing old, torn t-shirts with baby’s spit-up on a daily basis. It’s not a far-fetched thought that he might start losing his attraction towards you and feel a stronger pull to the other gals he encounters at work or in public settings that resemble the “courting phase” you. If you know you want to go through married life with less fuss about clothes, makeup, and stilettos, let your husband get to see and know that side of you BEFORE you say “I do” so that it won’t come as an unpleasing surprise later on.

There you have it, folks: 4 Reasons Why Husbands Cheat. Of course, these aren’t the only reasons a husband might cheat, and I’m not making a public declaration that any of the above listed actions automatically means a husband will cheat; however, I have observed many relationships in my day, spoken to different couples, and reviewed several studies on relationships and infidelity that support the idea that these 4 are great contributing factors to infidelity in marriage by husbands (and wives; but that is for another article). So, if nothing else, I hope my fellow single chicas, as well as those that are currently married, find this an article of cautionary help 🙂

Photo Credit: Dreamstime | Darren Baker