Hey you, lady, sneaking all over town with your side piece. I see you!

Seriously, I don’t but I have heard of a few ladies in my circle who have stepped out of their relationships and went creeping with another guy, just like Madeline on Big Little Lies. At the Monterey Womens’ Wellness Retreat we are going to dive into the issue of the cheating wife – what really makes, otherwise perfectly nice, women cheat?

Are these women sad, loney, depressed, bored, vengeful, oversexed – what is it?

I guess we would like to imagine women cheat for more “noble” reasons than guys – you know, not the “I got drunk and fell into a different vagina” excuse. But are we really BETTER cheaters than the guys? Is there a REASON women cheat that we can fix before the cheating starts?

Let’s get down to numbers – Men cheat more often than women at about 20% of married men vs 13% of married women. The MAJORITY of men do their cheating in their 4th-5th decades (the ol’ midlife crisis) where women (this one SHOCKED me) do most of their cheating in their 6th decade.

Gramma’s on the PROWLLLLL!
I guess I know where the whole cougar thing originated.

Education levels were statistically insignificant but race seemed to show that Black men cheated most and Hispanic and Asian men the least. Religious affiliation put the kibosh on cheating ( I always feel like, somebody’s waaatchin’ meeeeee!!) and growing up in a 2 parent household also put the breaks on stepping out on a spouse. Because no matter WHAT age you are you do NOT want to disappoint mom and dad. (Infidelity in America)

Many studies show that the guys are opportunistic cheaters. If the opportunity arises with a low chance of being caught, think out of town business trip, a guy may jump on an opportunity. Men also like the adventure of cheating – some guys enjoy the chase but may take it one step further to full-on bumping and grinding. Women cheat for more emotional reasons. Not feeling satisfied with a partner or their life in general leads the majority of women to cheat. Women have also felt societal pressures to remain faithful more strongly than their male counterparts. Women that don’t feel connected to a social network ( no, we aren’t talking about Facebook) would be more likely to step-out on their spouse than a more well-connected woman.

So if the reason women cheat is emotional – we can fix it before it becomes a problem – right ?!?!?!

The answer is probably – but a lot would depend on the willingness of their husband to participate in fixing the causes of their wife’s emotional detachment from the marriage. Since most women cheat in their 6th decade – kids are out of the house, you are retiring from work, your husband’s playing golf all morning and napping all afternoon stage of life. It really hammers home the point of women cheating when they are feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied with life in general.

So, how do we fill the void that without the cheatin’?

1. Tell Your Spouse

Be brutally honest. Tell your spouse that you have been emotionally reaching out to other people because you don’t feel that connection with him. Don’t tell your husband that you have been fantasizing about the mailman in his cute knee-highs and tight butt or the trainer at the gym with his short shorts and tight butt ….. sigh, tight butts. But, tell him that you need time to reconnect with him or else you might step out to get that connection somewhere else. I think this is the biggest issue with our Big Little Lies friend, Madeline. She is unfullfilled in her married life and used extramarital sex to validate herself.

2. Remember Your Morals

Yes, our morality does, time and time again, stop us from doing some pretty shady things. Go to your place of worship, replenish your spiritual storehouse. Remember that integrity is between you and you alone. Even if your husband has been a self-centered jerk, YOUR integrity doesn’t permit cheating under any circumstances. Work on yourself. Regardless of your husband’s emotional inaccessibility you can STILL do you, honey! Seeing you change for the better is going to do one of two things – be a wake up call or check out notice. Especially for empty-nesterss – the rulebook is changing. You need time to reevaluate what the next chapter of your lives TOGETHER is going to look like.

3. Avoid Social Media

Have you noticed your marriage looks worse when you compare it to everyone else’s marriage. Stop that! Maybe you aren’t taking a real stock of your marriage but just comparing it to other people’s marriages – or the best social media image of their marriage. And definitely don’t fall victim to the catfishing schemes so many unhappy wives seem to be taking the bait on lately.

All in all, cheating is a very personal choice and no one cheats on accident. Even women. When you are feeling defeated or that your life is not going according to plan, cheating is not the solution. BADASS women don’t cheat – they don’t have to. They are their own source of personal fulfillment – their cup runneth over because they are the one pouring the wine!

I want you to become more badass and cheat-proof.

We can never control what other people do but we can ALWAYS control how we react. So stop looking outside of yourself (at those tight butts, sigh) and start looking inward to fix what’s less than BADASS inside of you. You can avoid becoming a “cheater” by doing the internal work it takes to examine your motivations and see how you can change you for the better, like Madeline should have.