Why does a woman get a secret lover?

Why Women Have Secret Lovers

A secret lover is a desparate plea for help and a catalyst for change.

Published on July 6, 2009 by Frances Cohen Praver, Ph.D. in Love Doc

Sarah Palin quits her job. Why? The pundits are stumped. Gail Collins, in the NY Times OP-ED on 7-4-09, muses on her possible reasons including that of a ‘soul mate’ a la Mark Sanford. The National Enquirer in Sept 2008 ─who accurately exposed John Edwards’s affair─ tells us that Sarah had a secret lover. Her husband Todd’s business partner, Brad Hanson was the lucky guy. When Todd found out about the affair he dissolved the partnership. Alas, her secret lover did not fare so well after all.

On the heels of so many scandals, is the shoe of yet another secret lover to drop? Is infidelity more outrageous for a ‘family values’ political female figure than for an adulterous male politician?  Is the double standard still alive and well? Let’s look at the statistics.

Estimates of infidelity range from 30-60 percent of women compared to 50-70 percent of men. The gap is closing. Why then do so many women take secret lovers? Why do they cheat?

 Women’s choice to cheat is both daring and desperate. A desperate plea for help and a daring catalyst for change in their marriage or their own selves, the affair is serious stuff. Not just fun. Let’s take a peek at a few of the wives that I write about in the book, Daring Wives: Insight into Women’s Desires for Extramarital Affairs (Praeger, 2006)

Not that she doesn’t have a handsome, successful husband. Not that she doesn’t have two adorable children. Not that she doesn’t have a beautiful home with two acres of land. Debra, a stay-at- home mom seems to have it all. But does she? Actually home sweet home is not so sweet. Humdrum days – food shopping, cooking, cleaning and carting her kids around – go on and on. She feels trapped, bored, powerless, and lonely. Her brain chemicals are on strike. Serotonin is in short supply as is dopamine, vasopressin and oxytocin─brain chemicals that ensure good moods, bonding, and passion. To top it off Debra’s husband doesn’t get it. He’s too busy trying to get ahead to get into her. Along comes an attentive, sexy admirer and bingo!

A devoted loving mother and wife, Ruth─ like Sarah Palin─ has carved out a successful and glamorous career. In a perfect world, she would have the best of both worlds – a career and motherhood. In our less than perfect world, she does not. She lets me know “I’m stressed out and ready to explode.” Her neurotransmitters and love inducing chemicals have crashed. To top it off, our effective firecracker at work can’t get a charge out of her husband. He does not help nor does he understand her desires or needs. Her co-worker Larry does.

Scrappy, sexy generation X, Mary is determined not to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her martyr mom settled for a secure, dependent and devoted dull husband, but Mary won’t. Mary desires committed love in marriage, security, children and comfort, all that good stuff. A little like her mom, but not exactly. Mary desires more from her marriage. Along with love, she longs for lust, romance, excitement, and passionate hot sex in her marriage. Sociopolitical history, pop culture, dampened down brain chemicals, and family history entwine and strangle her strivings. Unshackling from her corseted past, Mary breathes freely. Air borne of desire carries the wings of surprise. To her surprise, she sees clearly that her husband is not doing it for her. So what’s a restless young wife to do? She finds a sensitive, sexy secret lover who promises all.

As you can see from the above vignettes, women have secret lovers because they’re not getting their needs and desires met in their marriages. Try as they may, wives are often unable to reach their husbands.

Feeling stifled, unfulfilled, frustrated, and helpless in their marriages, they step outside of their marriages. Taking the step is in itself empowering. The affair is a daring active choice, not a more-of- the-same passive response. It screams out loudly “Enough! Something’s got to give, either the marriage or me.” That’s only the first step to autonomy and power. It takes a daring wife to have an affair but an even more daring wife to go into therapy to repair her self and/or the marriage.

What about the children? People often stay in unsatisfactory marriages for the sake of the children. It is a fallacy. Parents in miserable marriages only make for miserable children. The legacies for these children are blighted models of marital relationships, and unfulfilled, powerless mothers. The affair, while not necessarily the most prudent choice, is nevertheless an act of empowerment. Instead of a weak, dependent or embittered mother, the children now have a stronger, more independent, and fulfilled female role model.

A common myth is that the affair is about sex. It is not. For the most part, sex was better at home before romance eroded. Screaming fights or silent simmering hostility erodes romance and distinguishes the flames of passion. Chances are that problems in your sex life are not about the quality, but the quantity. Fighting to the death or suffering in silence snuffs kills sexual desire for most wives. And there’s less and less sex in the marriage.

If insufficient sex is the result of unsatisfactory marriages and affairs the result of unhappy marriages, what are the causes? What do wives want? It isn’t only that they desire emotional engagement. It isn’t only that they desire sexual passion. It isn’t only that they desire safety and protection along with autonomy and independence. I have found that wives want mutuality, equal power relationships, and recognition from their husbands. Devotion, love, and commitment without passionate sex, fun, and excitement is the steak without the sizzle. For wives to feel sexy they need the sizzle.

Fear Of Intimacy: No, You Can’t Spend The Night

A friend shared this article with me and I wanted to pass it on...


You’d be surprised at how many men expect to spend the night after you’ve slept with them for the first time.

Now, to be fair, I guess they generally have some reason to expect that. I’m far too awkward for one night stands, so we’ve probably been dating for some time. And we’ve expressed some sort of affection for each other. I have probably even told him that I like him and find him attractive – I’m sappy that way, like a Hallmark card. Which may be why, approximately one minute and thirty seconds after we’ve finished (I watch the clock), they look surprised when I say one of the following:

1) Gosh! That was lovely. There’s an all-night diner up my street, why don’t we get dressed and go there? (And then you should go back to your apartment).

2) Well, I’d love for you to stay the night, but I just have so much work to do. At 3:00 in the morning. Which is when I like to work. (I’ll just be sitting at my computer playing Civilization III which is all I ever do at 3:00 in the morning. Empire building is my job).

3) I’m sorry, I just have to get up really early for a thing. A breakfast thing. So, it’ll be best if I sleep alone. (Please don’t quiz me on the “breakfast thing.” I’ll make up something super insane if I’m put on the spot like “It’s with the Dalai Llama!”)

4) It’s such a shame that you have to start work so early. Though it’s great! I really admire how hard you work. You know, the northeast corner across from my building is usually the quickest spot to get a cab.    (I would offer to drive him, but, New York).

Or simply:

Such a pity you can’t spend the night. (Because presumably we live in a nightmare world where no one ever spends the night anywhere, ever).

There are some people who know me well – hi, Mom! - who assume I don’t let gentleman callers sleep over because I’m just being considerate. I’m a terrible sleeper. While I’ve finally conquered my early childhood sleepwalking, and no longer awaken to find myself under my bathroom sink, I still have night terrors and periodically wake up screaming. On occasion I’ve been told I also emit a low keening wail that reviewers have called “freaky,”  ”scared the shit out of me” and “you realize you sound like a zombie?”  These tendencies are good, completely understandable reasons why someone wouldn’t want to spend the night with me. But they have nothing to do with why I don’t want to spend the night with them.

They do make for a good excuse about why I hate sleepovers, though. Even with warnings about my zombie wail, screaming, and general awfulness to sleep with, I am eventually talked into spending the night. Sometimes I do this because I feel like I’ve run out of excuses. Sometimes I do it because my gentleman friend’s apartment is located next to my favorite bakery. Either/or. When I do, I lie on a separate level of sheets from the other person and sleep fitfully, waking myself up every few hours, wandering around the apartment, usually resigning myself to sleeping on the sofa which I can excuse by saying I was “twitchy.”

Ultimately, this behavior leads to a conversation about how I’m “just like a guy!” because of the way I “hate to cuddle.” I guess they think it’s quirky, or cute, as though I really loved watching football games or drinking beer or hunting elk. Because hunting elk is the most adorable thing you can do as a girl.

Now here is a secret: I love cuddling.

It’s pretty much my favorite thing.

Do you remember  in When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal turns to Meg Ryan to discuss how women like to cuddle all night and men cuddle thirty seconds? When he says, “How long do you like to be held? All night right? See, that’s the problem. Somewhere between thirty seconds and all night is your problem”.

No, screw you, Billy Crystal, you are wrong. I do not want to be held all night – I want the cuddling to go into the next morning. I just want us to spoon and then when we get hungry I want us to rise to our feet, still spooning, and scuttle like Siamese twins into the kitchen where we’ll get – nothing, there’s no food in my refrigerator – and then scuttle back to the bed. And then nap. Still spooning. And I want it to go on like that forever. And ever. Until we starve. Or order take-out.

Do I like cuddling more than sex? In the post Sex-and-the-City era suggesting that you likeanything more than sex makes you a little unwomanly, doesn’t it? And I do like sex. I like it a lot. But I don’t find it makes me feel vulnerable - I find it, ideally, a fun activity, sort of like a more pleasurable version of tennis. But since I spend a lot of the time flipping through a mental rolodex of Cosmo tips, sex isn’t something that makes me feel exposed. But when I’m sleeping in someone’s arms? I’m completely, totally vulnerable. And I will say that after relationships end what I miss most isn’t the sex. What I miss most is feeling so safe and warm napping with someone on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Cuddling, when it happens, makes me feel like a jerk a lot of the time. Because unless I steel myself and rise every few hours and eventually sleep on the sofa, I cuddle, literally, unconsciously. Periodically I wake up and find myself lying on top of someone, like a cat. Mostly, though, I just grip the man through the night like a spider-monkey. And then I wake up and see some perfectly nice guy staring at me as though I’ve let him in emotionally and, no, I haven’t. And I feel like my body has just told him a massive lie.

But mostly I just don’t want to be my most vulnerable self with someone who I don’t completely trust to see me that way.

I’ve never regretted having sex with anyone. But I’ve regretted sleeping with plenty of people.

So, in the end, when I point men to the taxi stand all I’m really saying is, “I can have sex with you if I like you a whole lot. But if I’m going to spend the night curled up in your arms, clutching you like a marmoset, subjecting you to my sweet, sweet zombie love call – well, we had better be in love.”

By Jennifer Wright

Military Sexual Trauma Related to PTSD

 By Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S


Many military veterans suffer from PTSD related to experiences of sexual trauma. An even greater concern is the alarming amount of stigma surrounding the discussion and treatment of PTSD and addiction within the military community.

In recent decades, these addictions and coping mechanisms have become more sexualized, manifesting in many cases as porn addiction. By addressing this dynamic, we can help veterans who are dealing with addiction by demystifying the stigma surrounding their methods of coping, i.e. addiction.
While it has been reported that a number of men and women have sued the Department of Defense for “allowing a military culture that fails to prevent rape,” a Pentagon spokesman said that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was working to ensure that the military was “doing all it can to prevent and respond to it,” reported The New York Times. But the problems persist and more and more vets and their loved ones are seeking solutions.
It is important to note that trauma and addiction affect men and women; and it is equally difficult for both to speak out against it. One female vet recounted this story: “You fear for life a lot of times. I constantly reevaluated everything as to whether I should suck it up or take the risk of saying something. I sucked it up for a while; I just thought, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’” The result of bottling up trauma leads many to deal with their psychological pain with addictive behaviors.

More Clinical Help Is Needed
Vets that speak out about the widespread issue have remarked that “more clinical help is needed,” especially for female vets whose “programs [too often] attempt to mirror men’s programs” that are typically “geared toward drug and alcohol abuse and addiction.”
The statistics on military sexual trauma (MST) among women are staggering, with 42% reportedly experiencing it. Additionally, studies have found that MST was more likely to lead to PTSD than other military or civilian traumatic events, which would include witnessing engagement related deaths.

Porn Addiction in Veterans

Given the proactive nature of military life, some veterans have started blogs sharing stories about their struggles with porn addiction, shedding light on the broader military addiction epidemic. Sites like Feed The Right Wolf have seen upwards of 200,000 visitors. Feed’s owner contended while he’s “not an expert…it is important to share the message about the dangers of porn addiction,” mainly because “there aren’t many other sites talking about [it].”
Experts have also weighed in on the gravity of this problem. In the article, Addicted to Online Porn: X-rated Internet Explosion Wreaks Havoc with Troops’ Careers & Lives, author Jon R. Anderson stated that “the seamy side of Porn 2.0 is picking off military marriages and killing promising careers like a shadow army of well-placed snipers.”
Reflecting on these issues, Capt. Diana Colon, a therapist who heads an Army mental health clinic in Schweinfurt, Germany, said recent engagements like Afghanistan and Iraq “have created a new generation of dysfunctional pornography abusers.” The tragic reality of porn abuse has been that many retired veterans and their spouses divorce as a result of the addiction. According to a 2002 survey of 1,600 top divorce lawyers, more than half of all divorces involved a spouse hooked on porn sites.

*BrainPaint an EEG Biofeedback system for PTSD has proven to be an easy solution for treatment.