by Melissa Knight

Created on: October 21, 2008

It's always a little funny to hear a woman tell someone else, "Well, it's not like he didn't force me to cheat on him" Because her husband was obviously telling her that she had to cheat on him or else he would cause her bodily harm, of course. Not likely. The thing is, we misuse the term "forced" in a situation such as cheating on a spouse.

While it's true that most likely the spouse being cheated on isn't intentionally causing the cheating, there are usually behaviors that cause a woman to want to stray from her husband. Since each woman is different, as are their expectations of a husband, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what a man can do that would cause his wife to have an affair. It could be that a woman's husband has horrible body odor that just turns her off and he refuses to use deodorant.

All lightness aside, though, this is a serious subject. Especially because when a woman who otherwise loves her husband begins an affair, it's usually not just for the physical attention. So, it's likely that some part of her is just hurting and begging for her husband to offer her whatever it is she feels she is lacking.

A lot of the time, it's not being around enough. If a man works a lot, even though his motivations may be as pure as the driven snow, it leaves the burden of the household and family on his wife. When he starts missing important events such as birthday parties and the mid-summer party - when the wife has to start making excuses for why her husband works so much is about the time that a husband is treading on dangerous territory. To explain a woman's perspective: it wasn't like this when the two of you were dating, why did things change? What is wrong with me that I am so horrible that he has to stay away at work all the time. Is he having an affair?

Another thing that can cause an otherwise happy woman to stray is the fact that she is aging. Yes, men have midlife crises, but women also have issues with aging. Ask any woman who is feeling a little too momish what really bothers her and she's likely to say when she sees her husband looking at a twenty-something for any extended period of time. See, the thing is that women have babies, so for most of us with children, we will never really be as thin as we were before we had them. Not only do we begin to feel unattractive, but we also start to feel like we have more of a utilitarian purpose in the household. Rather than being able to fill the roll of seductress to the king of the castle, we're feeling relegated

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