We get a lot of advice questions coming in at EMandLO.com, but sadly, we just can’t answer them all. Which is why, once a week, we turn to you to decide how best to advise a reader. Make your call by leaving your response in the comments section below.
Why do guys cheat down? Meaning, picking a woman less attractive. My husband cheated on me with a woman twice my size. He said he found her unattractive but couldn’t help himself. Another friend of mine (she is a model) had her husband cheat on her. It was while he was out of town and all the women were less attractive. Of course these are just two examples. I was always under the impression that if you are going to cheat, at least make it worth it.
What do you think? Do you agree that men “cheat down”? Why or why not?
I’m sorry.
I’m a guy and when the hormones are raging, I will f@ck a puddle of mud if it looks easy enough.
I apologize for my mind set and stereo typical behavior before the flaming I’m about to receive.
Those that speak out about that it’s not the looks, but the other someone can be brilliant and great and fun abet with not impressive presentation, etc etc are (I believe) missing the point. That’s not cheating down. You have to give relationships credit for a emotional intellectual portion that may over shadow the physical.
Hi
I am also puzzled by this i am full figured and a few months back i was propositioned by a friend of mine who is quite good looking. We are both married and i said no but a few weeks back i met his wife was quite taken a back by how pretty and slim she was.If i had to guess though she wasn’t very interested in what he had to say and i went to college with him and have always been very impressed by his intelligence. All men need attention and sometimes very beautiful woman aren’t great at giving it. As for calling these women judgmental if my husband cheated i’d call her ugly too!!
Been There:
Except for the age difference between yourself and the wife, I think you just described my affair of several years back.
Are you by the way a nurse in the South?
Women just can’t get over the fact that men cheat for a lot of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with their partner not being attractive enough. They’re stunned when they find out who their S/O has been sleeping with. “She’s twice my size.” “She’s not attractive at all.” “She’s an ugly bitch.”
Yeah, but he’s doing her when he could be doing you. She’s got SOMETHING he wants, that you don’t have, or if you have it, you’re not sharing it. Usually, she’s just more willing to listen to his s h i t than you, and not be judgmental or condescending.
And, who is to say what constitutes cheating “down”? A woman not as pretty, not as educated, not as polished, may still be a terrific woman. It’s not YOUR place to make that call.
Personally it’s not about size and up until recently I was a uk size 20 in now a uk 14 and I’ve just started sleeping with my first love from when I was 16 and his girlfriend is double my largest size when I asked him why he wants to keep on shagging me he said I was a treat (And that’s all I actually want I love him but I’m too in the know to expect him to leave her) and a treat should be something occasional or it’s no longer a treat but we also have fun doing nothing having pillow fights etc etc and I feel young again in reliving my youth and personally I think women judge who cares what he’s cheating with? Find out why I haven’t asked mine I’m guessing it’s all the attention I give him as his missus is always away you can’t leave anything alone for too long or it will find something to amuse itself with and this applies to men if your not giving anything to each other why are you really there? And before anyone says no I don’t believe in cheating and if I have a relationship that becomes exclusive this will end as I’m single it’s not me who promised anything!
But if I don’t please my man (and yes life gets in the way I don’t have she does) how can I expect to keep him happy if I’m never there?
Doug, you’re wrong. My husband is a sex addict and although he has never gone through with actually sleeping with someone, he has a problem habitually sexting women from escort pages. I have looked up several and was shocked because they are all women he would never be attracted too. He has always dated really pretty girls, but some women were 15 years older and had wrinkles and scars all over their face, some looked like they were on drugs, some had acne all over their faces, some just were not attractive at all. I showed him some photos and asked him why he thought they were attractive and he said, they were very ugly, but he liked the words they said :P. I have always thought I had a higher sex drive than him because I am always the one wanting sex and he never wants it. Well, it was because he was getting his satisfaction from sexting and porn and became numb to real sex. He said he loves me and would never leave me, I haven’t done anything wrong and he has always had this problem since his youth. He said he doesn’t know why he does it, but he hates himself when he does it and wants to die because he feels disgusting after he’s done. 🙁
Cheating is cheating and it sucks but what if not only only do you get cheated on with a much lesser woman, but you get left for that skank…..My boyfriend is still with this nasty ho and it’s been about 2 years. She’s fat, obnoxious, bitchy and demanding. His brother, friends and family hate her. I’ve been wondering off and on what the hell he sees in her?! It may be that she is desperate and pretty much threw herself at him, but eeww really! She is the exact opposite of me, I guess I’m just not supposed to understand it.
some people on here are retarded. it doesn’t take a genius to see who is more attractive than another when the other is clearly, plain and unattractive. my friend has been cheated on 30times in 3-4yrs, and i have just been recently cheated on. all have been downgrades. her boyfriend told her its because, in his case anyway, he does it for an ego-boost. and because uglier girls are easier to get, that works. he wouldn’t try and go for a hottie because that’ll take work and possible rejection will defeat the purpose of having an ego boost. as for my boyfriend, he’s full of lies so i don’t know which of his explanations are the real one.. in any case he cheated, period.
It seems that the ‘purpose’ of the cheating may decide..? I mean, is the guy hooking up for one night for whatever reason, or does he have other intentions, feelings for this person he is sleeping with. I have been cheated on twice, in both cases the guy ended up dumping me for the other women and they are still together. Both of them were my ‘equals’ in terms of looks (god sounds so crude). One of them pretty much my doppelganger.
What exactly are you saying, tto say the girl was ugly or that your man cheated down. What makes us as the reader think your husband is hot or even desirable? Maybe that ugly girl is sexing down compared to who she normally has sex with. Seems to me most people NEED to believe the other woman is ugly, fat, illiterate, otherwise they might have to look in the mirror and see the REAL reason why your man went out straying.
It maybe cliche, but when your mate goes out on you, it’s because things are not right at home. Look in the mirror, figure out what’s wrong.
What do you mean, he was unable to help himself, what does that mean? Sounds to me like he found her very desirable, enough to cheat on you! You didn’t matter at the time he had his go with her. It’s your ego that is damaged. Are you still with him? I bet you are. Look in the mirror and feel good enough about yourself so that a man can see a confident woman. Then you won’t have to worry about your man looking or straying because he will be so mesmerized by your mystery.
I think people are reacting a little touchy here about the original writer implicitly confessing that there is such a thing as a ‘not so good looking woman’. Sure of course, beauty is in the beholder’s eyes, but let that cliche not pull the original writer’s piece out of context. I think she just means to point out that in a lot of cases where men cheat, it is remarkable that the cheated-on-with woman is a lot less physically (physically, ok, so chill) beautiful. I think she has a point there, although I have not been cheated on myself thank God. am sure that most of you would, at least to yourself, admit the difference between a physically gorgeous and a less beautiful looking woman. There are some parameters, though not 100% universal, that make a woman beautiful to a large share of people. My take is that there’s some primal hate element in sex for men especially, which makes ‘ugly’ women attractive to them purely sexually. Because they need to satisfy this urge but at the same time, do not want to be seen bound to an ‘ugly’ women to society or perhaps cannot respect them enough, they cheat with them instead.
^ That’s what I’m sayin’… the lady who wrote the original letter, in her indignation, is taking what meager solace she can in a little bit of thin-woman schadenfreude. She’s only human. Belittling the other woman makes her feel better. Any of us would find a way to do the same.
But thin/fat is only one potential, subjective cheat-down scenario. There are many ways a guy can cheat down, and I for one would like to confirm the trend: we cheat down.
Ladies, on the other hand, cheat up. Try being on the wronged end of THAT. What do you think is worse – for a classy woman to catch her guy with a gross skank? Or for a regular guy to catch his girl with a hot player?
Plus, adding insult to injury, women typically leave their guys for the men they “cheat up” with. So in their heads it’s all neat and squarely justified – “I fell in love with someone else, I’m entering a new relationship, it was meant to be this way!” Sometimes that’s true, but most of the time that relationship ends also, meaning her poor bastard original boyfriend got treated reeeeaaaal shitty for nothing.
I read an article awhile back (that for the life of me I cannot locate now) that explored this idea. Yes, the writer decided that ‘cheating down’ meant the girl is overweight or less attractive (by her standards), but cheating down does exist in many forms. I believe the article cited the two most topical examples at the time: Tiger Woods (who had a lovely, sophisticated wife and cheated with a fame-whoring porn star), and Jesse James (who had a lovely, sophisticated wife and cheated with a fame-whoring.. well, I don’t know what she was. Tattoo model?)
Obviously we can none of us deduce with any accuracy what the wives in these situations were like behind closed doors, but judging by the collective cringe of the American public upon seeing the ‘other women’ for whom these men jeopardized their seemingly enviable marriages, there is at least some credence lent to a theory: hero worship.
In both cases, the men seemed to be addicted to women who didn’t have a lot going on in their personal lives, weren’t terribly charismatic, weren’t glowing with natural beauty, and just seemed to be seeking a powerful man to lavish with praise. (Sorry to those of you who deconstructed the beauty ideal in this post– I respect your opinions but don’t think it’s applicable here.. and regardless of whether the other woman should be chastised for being ‘twice’ the writer’s size, I consider the woman in question ugly in the first place for fooling around with an involved man.)
And any man to subscribe to this type of unfathomably cheap ego-boost.. well, they’re just as ugly as the ‘ugly’ women they’re banging on the side.
Well I was just cheated on (2 years ago) for 9 months with my husband of 10 years (at the time ) and she was a crass, ugly older married woman with very little redeeming qualities and an single man would run away. However my weak husband confided in this “friend from work” who was only out to help him cheat. She primed his ego called him endearing pet names and offered him a life away from a nagging wife with 2 small children, financial agony and too much stress. Thus his pretty trusting wife not secure in her post baby body was never made to feel sexy and backed away to focus in kids. I cooked him amazing meals did his laundry and put up with years of financial abuse from his ex wife. The long and short is …men are weak and if they are not feeling special instead of communicating and working on romance and family they justify screwing around with a total ugly slut to make himself feel better. But he didn’t just cheat on me he cheated on his 3 kids and morally lost all respect for himself. How would this other woman feel if she was raiding his kids dealing with his ex wife doing his laundry and trying to support his job all to be smacked in the fave the first response I got was ” well I thought you were cheating too” whatever makes you feel better babe. It’s sll weakness and a lack of self worth and most of all the most selfish act you can commit against another person. And other woman….there are no nice words to describe your actions. All the scenarios he has told you are one sided and yes. He will never choose you unless the eife chosen to leave him. You all need to grow up.
hells, you guys make it sound like there is a universal benchmark for beauty. its pretty clear to me that men arent attracted to one type of hot woman, but to variety. not sure, why is there even a debate here? good luck getting stats on the cheating down phenomenon..its RANDOM!
BCofUIMH: Figleaf has a blog. You should read it!:D
Figleaf — you should have an advice column. Nicely put! 🙂
First question: They’re “uglier” according to who? “Society?” You? Or him?
Second question: What makes anyone think that conventional/consensus beauty is the only reliable metric for male attraction?
Third question: What makes you think beauty for men is an apex rather than a threshold?
Fourth question: Where did you get the idea that beauty is like some kind of points system such that if you’ve got more you automatically win? Or else that it’s an entitlement such that if you’ve got more you should automatically win?
Next question: Would you feel somehow better if he instead cheated “up?” (If so… if you really would feel better… then stop right there and think about that! Because really?)
Final question: I’m… pretty sure you’d feel insulted if someone accused you of being attracted to men based only on the gendered masculine quality of income or worth. So why think that men, including your partner, are attracted only on the gendered feminine quality of “beauty?”
I’m sorry your partner broke the agreement(s) you and he made earlier. I’m not excusing his behavior, nor do my disagreements make me less sensitive to your pain or anger. But I think you won’t get to the heart of why he or anyone else (male or female) cheats by using the assumptions you put in your questions.
Good luck and I hope it all works out for you.
figleaf