In our last article on “Living in A Sexless Marriage,” we attempted to tackle some of the effects of living in a sexless marriage. Committing adultery is one of the main effects of living with a spouse who either chooses to not have sex or cannot have sex. The theory is that men require way more physical activity than women, but as couples age, the requirements and needs of both men and women seem to shift and for this reason, both men and women cheat equally. Why they cheat, however, is quite different.
For men, the need to stay physically connected to their spouses is paramount. Men desire sex, physical touch, and crave an emotional connection with their spouse to stay engaged. When men are young, the need for sex is purely physical. But as they age, they begin to require mental stimulation as well.
“My wife just doesn’t seem into me anymore. She’s not interested in my job, my friends, or my interests. We’re like to passing ships,” William from Cleveland Heights said. “When I discuss my day or the wonderful things happening in my life, she barely responds.”
The lack of mental interest that men encounter dims the passion for physical activity with their wives. For men over forty, if there isn’t a mental attraction, the physical attraction seems to be reduced as well.
The number one complaint that many men discuss when talking about living without sex is how lonely they are in their marriages. Lonely men quite often will seek attention from women who will pay attention to them, create a mental bond with them, and share in common interests they have.
“When I was married, we didn’t sleep in the same bed. She stayed upstairs and I stayed downstairs. We were like two passing ships. We no longer laughed together or anything. We just ate together and lived in the same house. It was easy to cheat because we were no longer having sex. She seemed OK with us just co-existing,” Preston from Parma explained.
For women, the reasons they cheat are far different from men. Women also feel loneliness and abandonment in their marriages, but when asked, they quite often cheat because they’re bored — a huge reason they stray as their marriage ages. Women feel like their spouses no longer pay attention to them and they stop trying to make them happy. This results in a vicious cycle of not paying attention to each other until they are approached by someone who will pay attention to them.
“We have this idea socially that men are cheaters, all men are susceptible to cheating, that men are dogs, right?” said Alicia M. Walker, an associate professor of sociology at Missouri State University. “But the data tells a very different story.”
In the process of authoring her book, The Secret Life of the Cheating Wife: Power, Pragmatism, and Pleasure in Women’s Infidelity, Walker learned that women cheat at the same rates as men. Turns out, the cheating wife is not an anomaly. And depending on the age group and behavior, sometimes women cheat even more often than men.
“Way more women are cheating than we think,” Walker said. “We just don’t like to talk about it, and we don’t like to think about it. You don’t want to think that your neighbor, your Sunday school teacher, or your friend doing this. But the reality is, you know a woman who is cheating, you just don’t know that she is.”
With the understanding that both men and women cheat, why don’t couples choose to separate when they’re unhappy? Why do people stay in marriages if they feel lonely, bored, or abandoned?
There are many answers to those questions on why so many sexless couples choose to remain unhappy. In a post-pandemic society, everyone is thinking much more about what they want out of life, including married couples.
There are no easy answers as to what couples should do. The public stain on getting a divorce is never easy to overcome. There are finances to address and children to consider. But what are the consequences of living in a marriage without intimacy?
Life is shorter than we think, and how we spend our brief time on this planet can only be realized by the decisions we make. The people who want to get the most out of life will make the right decisions for themselves and their spouses. ●
