Men’s Experiences

Men’s experiences with infidelity are uncomfortable and almost invisible topics. Men need support and must pursue individual recovery, regardless of relationship outcome.

Intimate betrayal induces visceral reactions, floods the subconscious, overwhelms the cognition, and creates long-term damage. Infidelity savages the betrayed’s humanity. Men speak and write of intrinsic, subconscious, and cognitive experiences unique to their personalities and beliefs.

Betrayed men speak of knowing the primal nature of men. They speak of knowing that male affair partners engage with married women for sex. They speak of knowing that men who engage with married women perceive them as objects for sexual use. 

Men speak of sex as the currency of female infidelity. They talk about their own protective instincts and of the damage to these instincts in the aftermath of infidelity. Men speak of: ‘How my wife allowed herself to be treated’. ‘What my wife submitted to’. ‘What my wife allowed to be done to herself’.

Men state that most material about infidelity does not resonate with them. They speak of frustrations based on reading how they feel, or how they should feel, when neither is what they feel. Men state that some material suggests that they adopt high-minded approaches to reconciliation.

Many men state that their children are the main reason they are willing to consider the possibility of reconciliation. They speak of the meaning of maintaining security for their children. They also speak of concerns for their children’s well-being if they leave the marriage.