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Why We Stray
What compels a partner to stray? The reasons can be as different as the sexes themselves. While women are usually prompted by emotional factors such as loneliness, boredom, or unfulfilled expectations, men often follow the lead of their libido.
"There are many men who do love their partners, who enjoy good sex at home, who nevertheless never turn down an opportunity for extramarital sex," Dr. Glass told "Psychology Today." "When women have affairs, it's much more often a result of long-term marital dissatisfaction. Surveys show that for women, the highest justification is for love; emotional intimacy is next. Sex is last on their list of justifications. It's the opposite for men; sex scores the highest."
Sydney Biddle Barrows, the author of Mayflower Madam (Ivy Books, 1997) and Just Between Us Girls (St. Martin's Press, 1997) agrees. "Women stray more for emotional reasons," she says. "They don't feel emotionally close to their partner, or they're looking for somebody to pay attention to them, to see them, to recognize them, to validate them. There are a lot of men who stray for relationship reasons too, but women tend to stray more to form a bond."
Unfortunately, these differences in motivation often make it hard for a faithful partner to understand and work through a mate's infidelity after it occurs. "Men feel more betrayed by their wives having sex with someone else," Glass says. "Women feel more betrayed by their husbands being emotionally involved with someone else."
Watching for the Signs 
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