Don’t Cheat, Change
I cannot tell you the number of times married guys have tried to get me to sleep with them. In earnest it’s like, 40 percent of the guys that hit on me. I think they have some kind of mental block with the reality of their proposition: it’s not going to happen for you, buddy.
In songs, TV and movies cheating can look really sexy and hot. It’s fueled by passion, so of course it looks like a fun time, passion is an intoxicating substance. But how can you feel passionate about someone who seems like they’re being a baby about their unhappiness? Unhappiness in general is unattractive, but add on the kind of lethargy that goes with passively accepting undesirable circumstances and you just crushed a thousand lady boners.
Married men who want to cheat are the biggest victims I’ve ever met. “My wife doesn’t pay attention to me.” “We are basically just roommates.” “She won’t do anything but missionary.” I need you to reflect on what I am about to say very sincerely: you get to be alive one time. If you don’t like something, change it.
“But we have kids.”
“The rest of the marriage is good.”
“blah blah blah.”
What escapes the men that I’m talking to is that they each think they have special circumstances that prevent them from improving their situation. You don’t have a mysterious, unsolvable problem. You have a concrete solution ahead of you—you just don’t like what it is.
The solution to one person wanting to have sex significantly more than the other person isn’t that the first person is just unsatisfied for life. No one deserves that bleak ass existence. That’s not permission to sneak around behind your loved one’s back and have an affair, that is permission to do something about it.
I’m not saying pull the D-word out the first time your SO isn’t in the mood. I am saying don’t be in relationships where you can’t talk about stuff. Not being able to talk about stuff is a cancer to your relationship. Empower yourself to do something you feel good about. Bring your issues into the light of day. Once the words are outside of your body, you are free from the weight of them. It is now a shared responsibility to come up with a solution. It’s extremely likely there are improvable reasons she’s not feelin’ it.
If you can fix your relationship, your happiness is going to be better than the best affair sex. Affair sex is (probably) intense and fun but it also weighs you down with guilt and the karma of having to lie all the time. It seems infinitely better to just make your relationship better. It’s not easy to have uncomfortable conversations and make changes. However, imagine being stuck in an unhappy situation for most of your life because you won’t acknowledge the hard work you need to do. Give it 20 years of hindsight, that prospect is much more terrifying.