Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

Now filter that bit of information through the lens of, say, a
high-powered man who has a wife whose job is equally presti-
gious and demanding. I don’t profess to know what goes on
behind closed doors in that kind of household, but by all public
accounts, that couple could be perfectly happy, in love, support-
ive—down for each other. Still, her job could take her overseas,
leaving her man at home to run the household, take care of the
kids, and keep up his demanding work schedule for weeks on
end, without so much as a hot-and-heavy phone conversation to
help him make it through the enormous time period he’d have
to go without having sex. Trust me when I say this: under this
situation, plenty of men would easily justify their getting some
from somewhere else. Neither he, nor any other man, for that
matter, is going to go without sex too long. It’s not that he doesn’t
love his wife. But he’s there, coming home exhausted from a hard
day’s work, cooking dinner, shuttling the kids around to all their
after-school functions, and checking homework. He’s stressed
out, and plenty of us men can hear what he may have worked out
in his mind: I’m going to go over here and let this other woman
tighten me up, and then I’ll come back and cook, shuttle, and
work until the woman I love comes back to me.
This may seem like a cold piece of work to you, but to a
man, it’s reasonable. He’s got to try to feel better some kind of
way, and so he’s going to get sex from someone if he can’t get it
from you. You see it as betrayal. Men see it as just a way to get
tightened up, especially if...