Sometimes, even the seemingly strongest of marriages can suffer from a moment of infidelity. And it only takes one to haunt your relationship for a long time. You may find yourself asking why your husband is in love with other women. You may wonder whether it’s your fault.
The answer to that second question is easy: it’s not.
There is one caveat though: it’s not, unless you’ve talked it through. In some cases, there are underlying problems in your relationship that culminated in your husband being in love with other women.
Your husband will have his reasons, and there’s going to be a lot of them. So let’s walk you through some of the possible reasons why he’s in love with other women.
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Reasons why your husband is in love with other women
1. He wants a(nother) friend
We can’t fill a person’s every need, nor can we find everything all in one person. Sometimes, a man will look for something he’s missing in another woman, especially if he has trouble communicating this concern with his wife.
He may want to find someone who is more emotionally or sexually intimate, someone who listens and understands, or someone with no inhibitions.
2. He’s immature
He needs something carefree and spontaneous, untethered from the daily grind of everyday life. Marriage brings that into the fore because it is often associated with obligation and responsibility.
Your husband may be like this because of a shortage of experience in committed relationships. It could also stem from his not fully understanding the consequences of his actions (just like a child would do something without thinking of how other people could get hurt).
He might think that the commitment to monogamy is something that he can just take on or off depending on his whims.
3. Issues occurring at the same time
His being in love with other women may have coincided with an ongoing issue, like addiction (alcohol, drugs, gambling) which affects his decision-making process.
These issues can also lead to regrettable sexual decisions.
He may also have a sexual addiction that he’s trying to satisfy as a way to numb himself or avoid life.
4. He’s insecure
He may feel that he’s not good-looking enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not strong enough, too old, or too young. It’s that feeling of lacking something that’s hard to fulfill.
It may be a mid-life crisis (an astonishing amount of male infidelity is linked to this). He needs to boost his ego by seeking validation from other women than his spouse.
5. It’s Over, Version 1
He wants to end his current relationship, but instead of telling the other person he’s unhappy, he just cheats.
6. It’s Over, Version 2
He wants to end his current relationship, but he needs to be sure he’s got a backup relationship for when the current one ends.
7. Lack of social support from friends
He may have undervalued his supportive friendships and now expects all his social and emotional needs to be satisfied entirely by his partner. When the partner fails to satisfy his needs, he looks elsewhere.
8. Confusion between infatuation and commitment
He probably misunderstands the difference between infatuation and long-term love. The romantic intensity of infatuation is a neurochemical rush of early romance (in technical terms, limerence) which he probably mistook for love.
He also may have failed to understand that healthy, long-term relationships consist of limerence or infatuation being replaced over time with a less intense but ultimately more meaningful form of connection.
9. Child abuse
He may be reacting, reenacting, or responding to unresolved childhood traumas. These could be neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, or sexual abuse.
In such cases, childhood trauma creates attachment or intimacy issues that makes him unable or unwilling to fully commit to one person. It’s also a way for him to relieve or soothe these old traumas.
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10. He’s selfish
As is often the case, it could be that his primary consideration is for himself alone. Because of this, he won’t find it hard to lie and keep secrets without remorse or regret. It’s all about getting what he wants.
11. He feels he is special
He could feel that he is terminally unique and thus deserving of special circumstances. He thinks that normal rules don’t apply to him. This is a manifestation of his egocentrism.
12. He is impulsive
He may have never thought of cheating before. It just happened because he saw the opportunity and seized it without thinking of the consequences.
13. Unmet (and often unrealistic) expectations
He felt that his spouse should meet his every want and need, 24/7, 365 days a year.
When he thinks this, he fails to understand that he and his wife are two separate persons with agency, their own lives, feelings, and thoughts. Once this need is not fulfilled, he will seek it elsewhere.
14. He’s angry or he wants revenge
It could a way for him to get revenge on his partner. When he’s angry, he wants to hurt his partner as painfully as he can. So he won’t even try to hide it. He wants the spouse to know. It’s all to inflict maximum emotional damage.
Being in love with other women
We can’t stop infidelity from happening when it happens. These “sextracurricular activities” are often symptoms of a deeper problem and must be addressed to avoid any other negative effects that can destroy your marriage or family.