Have you ever cheated with a married man? Or maybe you've been cheated on and wonder why it happened? I’ve worked with hundreds of women who’ve been in this situation, and I’ve actually been on both sides of this equation myself—so today, we’re getting real and breaking through some taboos to discuss why affairs happen and why married men become the target.
Let me paint you a picture. On the outside you see a young, beautiful, talented, and successful woman. But on the inside, she feels ugly, unwanted, and discarded. She desperately wants to be wanted, to be chosen, to be cared for, to feel secure. She begs her husband for sex, for intimacy, for kindness. He turns her down, mocks her, and belittles her–telling her she’s not pretty enough, not fun enough, not fit enough. She didn’t want to get a divorce, so she tried for years to make it work. I know this woman by heart. I feel her pain and deeply understand how stuck she felt. And I know exactly why she started cheating, because that woman was me.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Affairs
Whether you’ve had an emotional affair, a physical affair, or you’ve been cheated on… there’s an uncomfortable truth that we need to confront right off the bat. Affairs happen when there are problems in a relationship. Period. When you’re in a loving, honest, and trusting relationship, cheating just doesn’t happen. It can’t.
Cheating and Impulse Control
Sometimes cheating happens due to an inability to withstand a compulsion. This often pairs with excessive drinking, drug use, or other reckless behavior where your inhibitions are down and the immediate need for instant gratification takes over.
Why Many Women Cheat
Today, I’m not focusing on that type of situation. Instead, I’m going to focus on the types of affairs that I see in my clients, and what I experienced myself.
Like me, most of my clients tend to struggle with codependency, they are people pleasers, they struggle with self-esteem, and many of them were abused, neglected, and/or raised by at least one narcissistic parent. That means that many of us ended up marrying a replica of our parents and recreating the toxic dynamic of being with someone who would not or could not love us. When you live with someone who isn’t able to be emotionally intimate with you, who regularly tells you you’re not pretty enough, thin enough, attractive enough, and who even withholds sex as a way to dominate and have power over you… you end up with a shattered sense of self-worth, starved for attention, and desperate for any tiny shred of love of kindness that you can find.
Why Cheat Instead of Leaving the Relationship?
So why cheat? If you’re so unhappy, why not just leave?
This is what’s so strange. When you know you’re doing something morally wrong, and you’re deeply unhappy, yet completely unable to garner the courage to leave… it points to something deeper going on.
Childhood abuse can actually rewire your brain, so that heightened arousal becomes confused with love. This isn’t about sexual arousal, it’s about your body’s fight or flight response and how that adrenalized state becomes confused with love or connection.
These types of dysfunctional relationships are often held together by something called a trauma bond: a complex psychological phenomenon where an emotional connection forms between the victim and their abuser, especially when the abuser offers intermittent reinforcement—small periods of kindness or affection.
Over time, the trauma bond can become so strong that it feels almost impossible to leave the relationship, even when you know it's toxic. The emotional and sometimes physical entanglement makes the thought of departure unbearable, despite the consistent harm being endured. And it's this dynamic—the feeling of being emotionally tethered but not emotionally fulfilled—that can lead to seeking validation outside of the relationship.
Why Women Are Attracted to Unavailability
This can be a dangerous trap, because you're used to equating love with turmoil, stable relationships might even feel 'boring' or 'lacking spark,' leading you back into the cycle of abuse or emotional neglect. And when you're psychologically predisposed to find 'unattainable' appealing, a married man becomes the ultimate forbidden fruit.
Why Married Men Become the Target
I want to pause here for just a second… because I can vouch for the women I’ve worked with, and personally attest to this myself: it’s not like we consciously set out to destroy marriages, or went out of our way to pick someone who was unavailable.
When you’re in relationships with narcissistic or emotionally unavailable partners, you get used to their inconsistencies and broken promises. In relationships where emotional investment is scarce, even the slightest hint of affection can act like a magnet, pulling us into situations that mirror the emotional detachment we're used to.
The sneaky, illicit, and deceitful side of having an affair also mirrors the emotional games we’ve been conditioned to accept. When a person isn’t available, it takes the pressure off us to be vulnerable and emotionally open. Affairs are an invitation into a make-believe world, where we can pretend to be in love, we can pretend to have a relationship, we can pretend to be cared for… all while avoiding having to confront the reality of our actual life.
Why and How I Stopped Cheating
When I had my daughter, it became glaringly obvious that I needed to heal from my childhood. I wanted to end the cycle of dysfunction and started doing the intense inner work required for having happy and healthy relationships.
This simultaneously unveiled how toxic my marriage was, and I ultimately left. When I filed for divorce, it was like a switch flipped. Suddenly, the on and off again affair was absolutely uninteresting. The last thing I wanted was a married man. I had finally healed enough to start to take my own life seriously, and it became unthinkable to continue marginalizing myself.
And although it took years (like 10) to really rewire the trauma bonding and the weird attraction to emotional unavailability, I finally did get there.
Relationship Advice to Prevent Affairs
So, what's the actionable advice here? When clients ask me how to stop cheating, or how to protect their relationships from infidelity, I offer a concept from one of my favorite relationship books—The New Rules of Marriage by Terry Real. In it, he uses the term “misery stabilizers” for anything that helps you cope in an unhappy relationship. Whether it’s shopping, food, alcohol, drugs, or affairs… he says, “Misery stabilizers are the things people turn to instead of turning to each other, staying engaged, and facing their issues. Like steam valves, they bleed off your discontent, staving off a crisis but cementing your lack of fulfillment as well.”
Ask Yourself:
Being aware of your own misery stabilizers is the first step. Are these actions actually solving your problems, or are they simply masking deeper issues?
Next, you need to commit to your own healing. Do the intense inner work required to dismantle these habits and thought patterns. Hire a coach, find a therapist, or join a support group.
Oh, and if you’re wondering if you might be involved in a narcissistic relationship, or maybe even raised by one, start by watching this next—Is Your Mom a Narcissist? 5 Red Flags You Shouldn’t Ignore.