Infidelity: why men cheat

Ebony, Nov, 1998

It's been called everything from having an "improper relationship" to having an "undercover lover" to having a "freak on the side." But whatever name it's given, it means one thing -- cheating. And relationship experts say men are doing it now more than ever.

In fact, experts estimate that nearly 75 percent of married men, or men involved in serious relationships, cheat. That means three men out of every four practice infidelity, if the numbers are to be believed. And maybe even more disturbing is the simultaneous collapse of the seven-year itch, the once-disreputable length of time it was thought to normally take a man to give into sexual temptation. Today, studies show that most men who cheat are doing it within the first three years of a relationship. Newspaper classifieds now are even speckled with personals that read: "MBM (Married Black Male) in search of a NSA (No Strings-Attached) relationship.

What's going on here? Why the recent surge in male infidelity? Relationship counselors say it can be attributed to many factors, but perhaps the overriding reason men are cheating at an alarming rate is because it's easier than ever before.

Long gone are the days when a man and his mistress communicated by calling each other's home, letting the telephone ring once and hanging up. With technological advances such as pagers, cell phones, voice mail and e-mail, a Brother with a cheating heart can carry on a side relationship without much fear of getting caught, virtually staying in touch with the other woman 24/7 without his partner ever having a clue. Add to that, the increased daily contact between men and women, according to all available statistics, and even men who were onetime scaredy-cats have turned into bold and brazen cheaters.

In his book, Never Satisfied: How & Why Men Cheat, Michael Baisden says the emergence of workplace diversity has made the job site the rendezvous hot spot of the '90s. "Women are on the job in record numbers, occupying every position from secretary to CEO," Baisden says. "This reality puts men and women in direct contact with one another on a daily basis. In the morning, they board crowded buses and trains together, and for eight long hours they work in cramped office spaces, brushing up against one another by accident, and by choice ... A cordial invitation to have a quick lunch passionately erupts into an indecent proposal to have a quickie for lunch."

But even with '90s-style changes in technology and the workplace environment, relationship counselors stress that the bottom line is the same today as it was yesterday: A man two-times for one reason -- because he wants to and some lack the impulse-control to suppress his wants. Experts say that unlike women -- who undoubtedly fantasize about extracurricular romance but are able to separate it from reality -- men are unable to distinguish between mental longings and physical transgressions, many times until it's too late. "To be faithful, a man ultimately has to deprive himself of something that he knows will feel good," says Ronn Elmore, an L.A. relationship therapist and author of How to Love a Black Woman. "Deprivation in a society that says, `If it feels good, do it,' is tough for most men."

This doesn't mean, by any means, that all Brothers cheat. There are solid men all around, as evident by the number of couples celebrating their 50-year wedding anniversaries in Jet and other Black newspapers.

But for the ones who do cheat, the reasons vary. For some men, cheating feeds the ego. For others, it feeds their illusions that a man's role is to conquer as many women as possible, and a woman's sole purpose in life is to please men. And still others creep because of its intoxicating effects, providing an adrenaline rush. But whether a man considers cheating mental therapy, role playing or more thrilling than bungy-jumping, "nothing justifies it, nothing makes cheating okay," says Darlene Powell Hopson, a clinical psychologist in Hartford, Conn., who co-authored the book, Friends, Lovers and Soulmates: A Guide to Better Relationships Between Black Men and Women, with her husband, Derek S. Hopson, also a clinical psychologist. "A man needs to deal with the underlying reasons why he cheats."

While men many times have the false impression that they cheat simply to have uncommitted sex, experts say the reasons run much deeper. The following, according to experts, are the real reasons men cheat:

Women Stand For It:

Men wouldn't cheat if women didn't let them. Women marry men who have cheated on them during courtship, even though relationship experts warn that a man who cheats on his fiancee, or even his girlfriend, will probably cheat on his wife. But the reality is that the world is filled with scores of lonely women looking for love. Men are well aware that the loneliness some women feel is so strong that they are willing to settle for a cheater, and write off his scurrilous ways as a simple case of "boys will be boys." At day's end, these women would rather lie down next to a cheater than no man at all.