seven reasons why women are likely to cheat in a relationship you're going to want to listen up if you're in a relationship with a woman and you worry that there might be some infidelity in the future let's look at what science says are the reasons that women cheat if you're new to my channel I'm Dr Wendy Walsh I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology I'm a psychology Professor not a therapist but I'm really obsessed with the science of love and I've written three books on relationships I did a dissertation on attachment Theory and I'm always
happy to weigh in with psycho education on your relationships okay first of all the good news women are actually far less likely to cheat infidelity step out on their partner than men are sorry dudes you know the science is clear men just want more sex than women do and that's why that is one of the conflicts that often come up in relationships also though when women do cheat it tends to me more often about emotional stuff less about the physical like oh I just want to have an orgasm I just want to have pleasure that's
more what a man would be interested in and Men we know their sexual psychology is very different from women so men can more easily separate sex from emotional connection not so with women okay let's go through the seven reasons according to science that women are likely to cheat and hang in there to the last one because I think it's the most important one that I want you to pay attention to all right the first one is simply emotional nourishment it is rare that an affair happens for a woman that doesn't have some kind of emotional
connection it's usually a friendship either a social friendship or a workplace friendship that grows into something else the boundaries start to get blurry and it moves to the next level this happens often because there's emotional neglect in her primary relationship and she meets this person at the office or out socially who seems to listen to her and pay attention to her so think about it emotional nourishment okay number two oh a woman scorned anger or retaliation now there's two things that could be going on one is maybe there are unresolved issues in her primary relationship
maybe the two of you don't have good conflict resolution skills and at the end you don't make good repair after these conflicts you think just if you don't talk about it it'll just go away but then she grows this kind of seething anger because she's not feeling hurt and it is not resolved this might help her justify having an affair but there's also the potential for retaliation that's maybe because her partner had an affair at some point so she's able to rationalize well it's good enough for the goose it's good enough for the gander I
can definitely do it I'll get back at him in some way and in fact in the research done by Dr David Buss at the University of Texas Austin he wrote a book called why women have sex he said that many women reported that they have sex with somebody to get back at somebody else think about it all right the third women of women the third reason that women have affairs is the same reason people of all genders often have affairs boredom they're just bored in their primary relationship now when I say bored I don't just
mean sexually bored I mean the relationship has become routine especially if you're raising kids and you're busy and you've got this division of gender roles and everybody's just sort of bored with the routine you know the research on long-term monogamous happy couples is always the most fascinating research to me and that research shows that couples who stay together and are happy add a lot of novelty their relationship now the novelty doesn't have to be sexual novelty but it can be but it might be things like just going on interesting trips or doing different things together
going to museums going to see concerts that or comedy you know some something different together and seeing your partner in a new light and that is how you Stave off the boredom okay the fourth reason why women might be likely to have an affair simple sexual deprivation physical loneliness women love affection not all women but most women and if they're in a relationship with a man who's not highly sexual or only gives affection if there's sex involved there's no hugs there's no kisses and they're just skin lonely then and don't think gender traditional gender roles
on this there are plenty of guys that are not you know attending to their wives sexual needs and when she feels physically lonely there may be a chance that she'll actually step out and have an affair all right number five opportunity here's the thing most Affairs are not premeditated in other words a woman or a man wakes up in the morning and says I'm going to go out and have an affair today I'm going to find somebody and I'm going to have sex rarely happens what happens instead is they have unattended two feelings feelings might
be loss might be anger might be unresolved issues might be unhappiness in their relationship but they haven't done the work they haven't gone to therapy they haven't worked it out they haven't talked to their partner about it then they go out in the world and they happen to cross paths with somebody else who also has those same feelings so they commiserate together they lean on each other's shoulders and before you know it opportunity is there and that's how you get into the slippery slope of Affairs that's one of the reasons why I recommend especially if
your relationship is in crisis or a hard time stay off that social media and don't be on those DMS with those people because that's how you create that slippery slope of boundary violation okay uh number six oh women do this a lot relationship shopping here's the thing often for women when a relationship ends like a window closes in their head and I'm sorry gentlemen there's often nothing you can do to get her back at that point so many men are often blindsided by divorce because they didn't even know that their wife was as unhappy as
she was but once that window closes women start to worry about oh what is it going to be like out there on the mating Marketplace what kind of people am I going to meet how attractive am I out there am I going to be out there and so they may have affairs to test their attractiveness in the bigger mating Marketplace they go and have affairs to just kind of maybe shop for a new relationship wouldn't it be nice if it was seamless just go from one ease into another very common for both men and women
or no for women not necessarily men men will more likely have an affair for sexual novelty and less for the emotional pieces and less because they're relationship shopping all right the final one I mentioned to you that is the most important and it impacts people of all genders one of the biggest reasons why people have affairs is something called attachment insecurity either they have an anxious attachment style they fear abandonment they're they have lower self-esteem they're worried that their partner doesn't love them enough or they haven't avoided Detachment style where they're literally afraid of closeness
so the people with the anxious attachment style are more likely there's lots of research to support this are more likely to have affairs because they want assurances that they are worthy and valuable and attractive the avoidant person is more likely to have an affair because they're afraid of emotional intimacy and if they can have just a sexual relationship where nobody touches anything too tender there's no threat of intimacy then they'll actually do better it's really important whether you're a woman or man and you're watching this video to understand when your relationship might be vulnerable to
having an affair but also what you can do to prevent Affairs and that would be to reach out to a licensed psychologist or a marriage and family therapist if you think that your relationship is vulnerable and if you're hearing yourself in some of the stuff that I've talked about then it's really imperative that you figure out what's going on inside I often say that Affairs are not the problem they're a symptom of the problem or they're a messenger telling you that something's wrong so I really encourage you to reach out and get the help that
you need before you have an affair if you're a man watching this and you're worried that your relationship might be vulnerable to an affair then it's time that you do the work on your relationship practice emotional nurturing practice good healthy communication skills touch your wife let them know how valuable they are not just sex object but as a human being this can go a long way to you having a healthy relationship thanks so much for watching here on YouTube if you'd like to listen to my radio show I'm on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles every
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