Article Two

Sex Differences: Women’s and Men’s Experiences with Sexual Infidelity

Women’s betrayal experiences, individual recovery processes, reconciliation options, and new connection possibilities are focuses of considerable popular material. These topics are often expressed in basic, moralistic, idealized, and romantic-idyllic themes. They are also intuitive.

Science has established that women and men have different sexual psychologies (Galperin et al., 2013; Jonason & Buss, 2012; Poeppl et al., 2016). Women and men also have different motivations for engaging in sexual infidelity (Freyth & Jonason, 2023; Murphy et al., 2024; Selterman et al., 2019). Men’s betrayal experiences, recovery processes, reconciliation options, and new connection possibilities are different from women’s. The contrasts are striking.

Women’s most basic (Al-Shawaf et al., 2016; Buss, 2018; Solms & Panksepp, 2012) betrayal experience, fear of abandonment, is widely recognized. Wives, particularly mothers of dependent children, who discover infidelity fear for their own and their children’s support and wellbeing. Insecurity represents the cognitive expression of basic fear of abandonment (Buunk et al., 2018; Rokach & Chan, 2023; Salmon, 2017).

Women’s individual recovery processes center primarily on having been deceived, which is commonly expressed from moralistic perspectives. Specifically, infidelity entails deception, which can create psychological and physiological trauma. Put differently, infidelity and lying are widely regarded immoral (Bagarozzi, 2008; Curtis et al., 2021; Lonergan et al., 2021).

Women’s marital reconciliation options can be perceived from idealizations. Specifically, a wife can hold her husband accountable for his infidelity and deception in many ways. She can also exact measures of justice, by setting boundaries on a variety of matters, including sexual willingness (Abrahamson et al., 2012; Butler et al., 2008; Fife et al., 2013).

Conceptions that relationships damaged by men’s infidelity can be renewed flow from romantic-idyllic principles (Heintzelman et al., 2014). Creating a new connection is, indeed, a topic in infidelity reconciliation material. This material suggests that marital purity can be restored.

Betrayed wives might struggle with negative self-comparison to the other woman (Berman & Frazier, 2005; Curtis et al., 2021; Nelson et al., 2008; Rokach & Chan, 2023; Sabini & Green, 2004). They must also learn to grieve and be willing to forgive (Abrahamson et al., 2012; Fife et al., 2013; Rokach & Chan, 2023). The processes, options, and possibilities discussed to this point are not easy. They are, however, achievable if both spouses work diligently.

Men’s basic mate value facilitates these processes, options, and possibilities. Specifically, husbands’ mate value has four pillars, resource provision, protection, parental investment, and fidelity (Buunk et al., 2018; Salmon, 2017; Sherlock et al., 2016). If an unfaithful husband does not abandon his wife, he can increase his resource provision and parental investment efforts, as offerings of security building and restitution, while continuing to provide protection (Apostolou et al., 2022; Phillips, 2010; Tybur et al., 2012).

Many betrayed men identify basic sexual disgust as their utmost psychological and physiological damage (Al-Shawaf et al., 2016; Asao et al., 2023; Burtăverde et al., 2021; Davis & Arnocky, 2022; Tybur et al., 2015). Their cognitive expressions of sexual disgust center on the awareness of sex as the currency of their wife’s infidelity, and the other man’s sexual use and dominance (DePompo & Butsuhara, 2016; Hughes & Harrison, 2019; Schmitt & Jonason, 2015). Men cannot bargain with basic disgust, nor with its cognitive expressions. They can, however, bargain with the question: What did my wife gain? They speak of not finding meaningful answers.

Many men identify their wife’s resentfulness as their greatest obstacle to individual recovery. Some men speak of their wife’s resentfulness before discovering her infidelity. Many speak of her resentfulness, which she expresses as blame attribution for infidelity, once they discover it (Allen & Walter, 2018; Brewer et al., 2020; Gewirtz-Meydan et al., 2023; Hughes et al., 2020; Jirjahn & Ottenbacher, 2023). Men state that their individual recovery remains ambiguous so long as their wife remains resentful. Many men identify their wife’s deception as their second-greatest obstacle to individual recovery.

What idealizations support betrayed men’s options for marital reconciliation? Can men hold their wife accountable for her infidelity, resentfulness, and deception? Can they exact a measure of justice? Men speak of the impracticability of these, particularly without being judged as controlling. Given this state-of-affairs, how can a new connection be forged? Recovery processes, reconciliation options, and connection possibilities seem to fall away here.

Women’s basic mate value, which has two pillars, fidelity and mothering, lies at the core of men’s difficulties (Bode & Kushnick, 2021; Josephs & Shimberg, 2010; Selterman et al., 2019; Wade, 2010; Weisfeld et al., 2024). Men state that their wife’s sexual infidelity activates their disgust emotions regarding her mothering. Specifically, women become mothers only by sexual intercourse. Men also state that their disgust emotions are amplified when the other man is married, which they discover is often the case.

Science has shown that sexual infidelity devastates women’s mate value (Allen et al., 2005; Asao et al., 2023; De Stefano & Oala, 2008; Millar & Baker, 2017; Walsh et al., 2019). Men experience damages to their wife’s mate value at the basic level. Forgiveness, a cognitive process, does not override basic experiences (Bendixen et al., 2018; Grøntvedt et al., 2020; Thompson et al., 2020).

With sexual infidelity having fragmented their wife’s mate value, what pathways exist for men? They state that staying requires continuous self-sacrifice and grit. Men express this in terms of conscientiousness regarding their family’s wellbeing, along with meaning and legacy (Allen & Walter, 2018; Jirjahn & Ottenbacher, 2023; Wilkinson & Dunlop, 2021).

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