How to avoid having your spouse cheat on you.
I have been cheated on, cheated, dated married women who were cheating on their husbands and some married women who had their husband's OK to date other men. For the most part it mostly is due to taking your spouse for granted. When your spouse meets someone who shows an interest in them, they feel good about themselves and will hang around to hear more. The other person will make them feel attractive and desirable. They will agree with everything your spouse says and sympathize with them. They will want to take them out to eat or dance. They will compliment your spouse on how they dress and smell. Your spouse will feel desirable, sexy and attractive, something they have not felt since your courtship days. Worst of all, sex with a new partner is always more exciting than with someone you have had sex with a few hundred or thousand times. All poly people know this.
Courtship. That is what most of us want to feel again. That disappears after a few years of marriage and we stop making our spouses feel desirable, sexy and attractive. We stop taking them out to show them off, to be admired or just have a good time together. The other person will have sex in a way that is not your routine way. New sex is always exciting. It is genetic. Sex also produces Oxytocin which emotionally bonds two people together and therein lies the problem for a future affair. The other person will usually be more into oral sex than our spouses who seem to stop doing it much after a few years of marriage. Your spouse will be made to feel like a superstar by the other person, in bed. All of this is very addicting.
The biggest problem is that when a spouse cheats, they are with the other person for only the fun and games times. No having to deal with all the mundane aspects of a marriage or relationship. No one cares if the other is lazy, does not cook, take out the trash, is a slob, etc.. They have no areas of conflict or long periods of boring administrative stuff of marriage. They just have fun and have wild sex. That is difficult to compete with. Add that we are genetically designed to be attracted to more than one person and certainly designed to have sex with multiple partners, and you have a high divorce and cheating rate under the current structure of marriage. Women still have orgasms when not fertile and even after they are impregnated. Men can impregnate multi women a day. We fool ourselves that we are above animals when in fact we just are smarter animals, but still animals. So when we marry we go against our nature hoping that our brains can keep our genes in check, something very hard to do.
What is the answer? You should tell you spouse that you love them every day. Make them feel desirable and hot every day. Do not take them for granted by feeling that no matter what, they are there for sex whenever you want it or that you can put sex off since there is always tomorrow, next week or next month. Spice up your sex life by changing things up. Try a new kink or fetish if only to blindfold your spouse or trying different positions. We tried wife swapping and threesomes but I know that is not for everyone. For us it kept sex very exciting for the 44 years of our marriage. Our sex life was a lot of fun which made our marriage fun too.
Also go out on weekends with your spouse, if even once a week. Get a babysitter if you need to. If you are a husband, buy your wife a new dress every so often; perhaps a sexy one. Take your spouse out so that they can see others look at them or you. It is a good ego boost. I take pride when other men and women look at my wife. It makes me feel good that I have such a hot wife that others admire her too. Go out. Have a few drinks away from the daily marriage routine. Have fun. In short, act like you did during your courtship and your spouse will not feel the need to cheat. Of course you have to treat each other well. My wife and I always, always, consider the needs and wants of each other in anything that affects the other or our marriage.
Treat your spouse with respect and love. There are other ways to disagree on things than having a drag out name calling fight. That is not how people still in love act. My wife and I just argued out loud about something but 5 minutes later we were joking around again because we know that we love each other despite what may be said in anger. Also do not forget the importance of sex in a marriage. As I said above, sex releases the hormone Oxytocin which bonds you to your spouse emotionally. The more sex you have, the more you want. The less sex you have, the less you want. When we started to skip having sex we would schedule one or two night a week. No excuses not to attend no matter how tired, stress or not in the mood you are. You do not even have to have sex, as cuddling can release Oxytocin too. Do this for a few weeks and your emotional bond will make you want to have sex again and the more fuel you the fire, the bigger and brighter the fire will be.
Also beware of how having a child changes things. The mother's focus and time shifts from that of her husband, to the child. The husband feels neglected and also views his wife as a mother more than a hot sexy lover. They become parents and forget that they are lovers. They use the child to avoid intimacy, going out and living in courtship mode. Also keep in mind that for many, marriage makes you view yourself as half of a couple. You lose your individuality. You give up things that make you happy and end up resenting it. There is no need, for this but most become part of a couple. Look up the Madonna/***** complex to understand what happens after a wife gives birth.
I will be first to admit that our marriage is far from what any of you would want. The idea though is that we always chose our marriage above all else, even monogamy when my wife had a need to explore her bisexuality. Our marriage and love is not based on sexual monogamy, but it was polyfidelitious. It is based on the fact that we have chosen each other to be our life mate. Someone to grow old and die with. We should not have to first destroy what we built together by a divorce, to have a one night stand or a friend of the opposite sex who fulfills a need in you that your spouse cannot. That leads to resentment and expectations that they cannot meet. You can still choose marriage even if monogamous. That is a personal preference. You just need to know that no two people can fulfill the needs of another. Faults and defects in each other do not matter when we are in romantic love, but romantic love disappears and we are then left with a choice to leave or stay with your spouse for the rest of your life. If you feel that you want to spend the rest of your life with your spouse, you then develop mature love. All too often when spouses come to this waypoint in their marriage, they choose to stay for the wrong reasons that do not have to do with love.
My wife and I have nothing in common except a burning love for each other. I mean nothing at all. Yet our love makes it work for us and when I read the things spouses say or things they do, I do not see love at work. I see a couple staying together out of habit or convenience. I always treat my wife as if she can find someone better out there. I give her a reason to stick with her old comfortable slippers that fit her so well and make her feel good rather than go out and find something that fits better. Monogamy is a construct of religion and society to being order to the world and control people through their primary reason for living, sex. It is not natural in most of the animal kingdom. It does not have to be the keystone of your marriage as we have all been taught. Even though that is my thinking, monogamy can work. All of our current friends are monogamous and married longer than we are. We have been monogamous on and off for most of our 44 years of marriage. I do not recommend non monogamy unless both spouses can handle it and they have a very strong marriage devoid of jealousy. We saw our friends divorce one by one, both monogamous or not. The idea is that taking each other for granted also gives rise to unrealistic expectations from each other. We cannot fulfill all that our spouse needs even if we want to. So figure out how to do it before it leads to resentment and unhappiness. For us, another women fit in perfectly but it was a woman we both knew from childhood and loved as family long before we invited her into our marital bed. We did not just go out looking for others to play with. Every partner we had is a long time friend. I am not pushing my way of life, but rather my way of looking at marriage as something that is not one size fits all. The things I read here upset me. I wonder how can you love someone and treat them that way. I think most are no longer in love and try to fool themselves that they are. This is a good article about the phases of passion. Take note of what happens when romantic love goes away.
How long does passion last? The four stages of love - TODAY.com
I have been cheated on, cheated, dated married women who were cheating on their husbands and some married women who had their husband's OK to date other men. For the most part it mostly is due to taking your spouse for granted. When your spouse meets someone who shows an interest in them, they feel good about themselves and will hang around to hear more. The other person will make them feel attractive and desirable. They will agree with everything your spouse says and sympathize with them. They will want to take them out to eat or dance. They will compliment your spouse on how they dress and smell. Your spouse will feel desirable, sexy and attractive, something they have not felt since your courtship days. Worst of all, sex with a new partner is always more exciting than with someone you have had sex with a few hundred or thousand times. All poly people know this.
Courtship. That is what most of us want to feel again. That disappears after a few years of marriage and we stop making our spouses feel desirable, sexy and attractive. We stop taking them out to show them off, to be admired or just have a good time together. The other person will have sex in a way that is not your routine way. New sex is always exciting. It is genetic. Sex also produces Oxytocin which emotionally bonds two people together and therein lies the problem for a future affair. The other person will usually be more into oral sex than our spouses who seem to stop doing it much after a few years of marriage. Your spouse will be made to feel like a superstar by the other person, in bed. All of this is very addicting.
The biggest problem is that when a spouse cheats, they are with the other person for only the fun and games times. No having to deal with all the mundane aspects of a marriage or relationship. No one cares if the other is lazy, does not cook, take out the trash, is a slob, etc.. They have no areas of conflict or long periods of boring administrative stuff of marriage. They just have fun and have wild sex. That is difficult to compete with. Add that we are genetically designed to be attracted to more than one person and certainly designed to have sex with multiple partners, and you have a high divorce and cheating rate under the current structure of marriage. Women still have orgasms when not fertile and even after they are impregnated. Men can impregnate multi women a day. We fool ourselves that we are above animals when in fact we just are smarter animals, but still animals. So when we marry we go against our nature hoping that our brains can keep our genes in check, something very hard to do.
What is the answer? You should tell you spouse that you love them every day. Make them feel desirable and hot every day. Do not take them for granted by feeling that no matter what, they are there for sex whenever you want it or that you can put sex off since there is always tomorrow, next week or next month. Spice up your sex life by changing things up. Try a new kink or fetish if only to blindfold your spouse or trying different positions. We tried wife swapping and threesomes but I know that is not for everyone. For us it kept sex very exciting for the 44 years of our marriage. Our sex life was a lot of fun which made our marriage fun too.
Also go out on weekends with your spouse, if even once a week. Get a babysitter if you need to. If you are a husband, buy your wife a new dress every so often; perhaps a sexy one. Take your spouse out so that they can see others look at them or you. It is a good ego boost. I take pride when other men and women look at my wife. It makes me feel good that I have such a hot wife that others admire her too. Go out. Have a few drinks away from the daily marriage routine. Have fun. In short, act like you did during your courtship and your spouse will not feel the need to cheat. Of course you have to treat each other well. My wife and I always, always, consider the needs and wants of each other in anything that affects the other or our marriage.
Treat your spouse with respect and love. There are other ways to disagree on things than having a drag out name calling fight. That is not how people still in love act. My wife and I just argued out loud about something but 5 minutes later we were joking around again because we know that we love each other despite what may be said in anger. Also do not forget the importance of sex in a marriage. As I said above, sex releases the hormone Oxytocin which bonds you to your spouse emotionally. The more sex you have, the more you want. The less sex you have, the less you want. When we started to skip having sex we would schedule one or two night a week. No excuses not to attend no matter how tired, stress or not in the mood you are. You do not even have to have sex, as cuddling can release Oxytocin too. Do this for a few weeks and your emotional bond will make you want to have sex again and the more fuel you the fire, the bigger and brighter the fire will be.
Also beware of how having a child changes things. The mother's focus and time shifts from that of her husband, to the child. The husband feels neglected and also views his wife as a mother more than a hot sexy lover. They become parents and forget that they are lovers. They use the child to avoid intimacy, going out and living in courtship mode. Also keep in mind that for many, marriage makes you view yourself as half of a couple. You lose your individuality. You give up things that make you happy and end up resenting it. There is no need, for this but most become part of a couple. Look up the Madonna/***** complex to understand what happens after a wife gives birth.
I will be first to admit that our marriage is far from what any of you would want. The idea though is that we always chose our marriage above all else, even monogamy when my wife had a need to explore her bisexuality. Our marriage and love is not based on sexual monogamy, but it was polyfidelitious. It is based on the fact that we have chosen each other to be our life mate. Someone to grow old and die with. We should not have to first destroy what we built together by a divorce, to have a one night stand or a friend of the opposite sex who fulfills a need in you that your spouse cannot. That leads to resentment and expectations that they cannot meet. You can still choose marriage even if monogamous. That is a personal preference. You just need to know that no two people can fulfill the needs of another. Faults and defects in each other do not matter when we are in romantic love, but romantic love disappears and we are then left with a choice to leave or stay with your spouse for the rest of your life. If you feel that you want to spend the rest of your life with your spouse, you then develop mature love. All too often when spouses come to this waypoint in their marriage, they choose to stay for the wrong reasons that do not have to do with love.
My wife and I have nothing in common except a burning love for each other. I mean nothing at all. Yet our love makes it work for us and when I read the things spouses say or things they do, I do not see love at work. I see a couple staying together out of habit or convenience. I always treat my wife as if she can find someone better out there. I give her a reason to stick with her old comfortable slippers that fit her so well and make her feel good rather than go out and find something that fits better. Monogamy is a construct of religion and society to being order to the world and control people through their primary reason for living, sex. It is not natural in most of the animal kingdom. It does not have to be the keystone of your marriage as we have all been taught. Even though that is my thinking, monogamy can work. All of our current friends are monogamous and married longer than we are. We have been monogamous on and off for most of our 44 years of marriage. I do not recommend non monogamy unless both spouses can handle it and they have a very strong marriage devoid of jealousy. We saw our friends divorce one by one, both monogamous or not. The idea is that taking each other for granted also gives rise to unrealistic expectations from each other. We cannot fulfill all that our spouse needs even if we want to. So figure out how to do it before it leads to resentment and unhappiness. For us, another women fit in perfectly but it was a woman we both knew from childhood and loved as family long before we invited her into our marital bed. We did not just go out looking for others to play with. Every partner we had is a long time friend. I am not pushing my way of life, but rather my way of looking at marriage as something that is not one size fits all. The things I read here upset me. I wonder how can you love someone and treat them that way. I think most are no longer in love and try to fool themselves that they are. This is a good article about the phases of passion. Take note of what happens when romantic love goes away.
How long does passion last? The four stages of love - TODAY.com