Improved
6112 HealthChanged
3786 LivesSaved
3568 Lives1 lives impacted in the last 24 hrs Learn More
Relationship expert Michael Lindstrom explains the top reasons a man cheats on his partner.
Mike Lindstrom:
Why do men cheat? Our research showed that . . . well this is one of the big reasons why we . . . what inspired our research in the first place because as two guys that are in the world of sports and guys trips and the locker rooms and you hear the banter amongst men, and then you see a lot of the things being brought to the consciousness of America with all the scandals that have gone on in the last couple of years. We are really intrigued by how men view cheating versus how women view cheating, whether whoever the violator or the aggressor is not relevant. Let’s look some of the men for a second.
So men, surprisingly men had reasons to cheat because they had lack of needs that weren’t happening in their relationship and they were usually emotional needs, believe it or not. A lot of people believe that it’s more of the physical. They weren’t getting sex enough or they weren’t getting the sex that they wanted; they weren’t having the variety or what they see on television, and that wasn’t true.
You sit down with focus groups and with the men, they all start talking about their ego, we call it the ‘male fragile ego’, when you can sit down and talk to the male fragile ego, when women are not around, when it’s just two guys researching and talking to, they can be totally authentic and honest about what’s going on and what makes those proclivities of cheating go on. A lot of it goes back to their needs weren’t getting met. They didn’t felt important.
And the word we always came back to or we kept coming back to was the word significance. They didn’t feel significant. They didn’t feel like it’s kind of a playful term in a culture; they didn’t feel like they were ‘the man’ and it would cause them to want to find vehicles to go feel like they were the man, whether it be immersing themselves in their work because they’re the boss and maybe they feel significant at work, whether it be dating someone else out of the relationship or getting the physical act of being with another woman. When they walk away from that interaction they feel like they’re the man.
So when we were coaching women in our events women wanted to know why do men cheat, and we would say always go back to if you can do things in a relationship and make him feel like he is the man, you know, again that’s a male fragile ego thing when they are honest about it, and create a communication dialogue around those things the probabilities of cheating go way down.
So when you looked at fulfilling fantasies from a man’s perspective that was yet one small reason why men like to cheat. We have this thing that we found out about. It’s called the line. Guys want to walk up to the line, you know? They’ve made a commitment to their partner, whether it be in a relationship, dating or they’re married, and they want to honor that line.
There’s lines that every relationship creates. What’s out of balance? What’s in balance? But guys have this need to want to walk up to that line. They just want to look over the line. They want to see what’s on the other side of the pasture. They want to see what’s out there and just out of curiosity, because that’s what’s in the male nature to want to be curious and to see what’s out there, but the biggest difference we found was that the guys that would continually honor the line was where there was trust and respect in their relationship.
Guys still have the fantasy to go out there and be with someone who is different or who is younger or maybe it’s completely different from the person they have been with for the last 15 years. It’s one of the human needs; it’s called variety. It’s one of the six basic human needs.
So if a guy has a need, a human need of having variety in his relationship and he is not getting it at home he is going to go out and find the line, walk up to it, look out over the sideline and see what else is out there because it fulfills a certain human need which we call variety, but it wasn’t as big as what most people would think.
Most women would think in their groups that that’s why guys would go out there and want to flirt with younger women or to actually just go out and cheat and have it be it totally meaningless sex – completely not true. There is a small percentage of guys in the research that fell into that category. The larger percentage of the guys, when they did cheat, are the guys that felt like there was something lacking at home. It was more of an emotional disconnect between him and his partner.
About Mike Lindstrom:
Dan Lier & Mike Lindstrom have been coaching and speaking about success for a combined 30 years. Dan & Mike are well-respected success coaches and have studied the behavior between men and woman as it pertains to sex, love, communication, intimacy, loyalty and finding the partner of your dreams. As proud parents and loving partners, they are passionate about the relationship secrets set forth in "Dan & Mike’s Guide to Men". They have been featured on several media outlets including Fox News, ABC News, HLN, CNN and the Howard Stern Show.
Visit Mike Lindstrom at Ask Dan & Mike
Add a CommentComments
There are no comments yet. Be the first one and get the conversation started!