by Milton Mauldin

Created on: March 08, 2007   Last Updated: April 23, 2007

I really got some insight into this question when I worked at a tiny McDonald's in the back of a Wal-Mart with all women for about a year. There were only about ten total employees in the store, and I learned basically every detail about their lives. I can remember at least two incidents of "cheating", and much to my surprise, I could really see where the women were coming from.

The first was a girl named Shanna, about 25 years old. She got a real reputation for being "loose" - they said she'd been "all over town". She was constantly flirting with me and flirting with half the male customers there for a while. And then as time went on, her flirtiness tapered off and I heard she'd gotten back together with her husband. So one day she talked to me about it - turned out her husband had been "cheating" on her for a long time - in her words, "doin' whatever and whoever he wanted to". So she had decided to do the same, to let herself go totally wild, to teach him a lesson. And it sort of worked. It was a rude awakening for him. He came back to her and promised he would love her and only her. But the victory was short-lived. Before too long, he informed her that he was leaving her as soon as his old galpal got out of prison. She started starving herself and taking diet pills to try to look better for him (she really didn't have a weight problem AT ALL) . . . but that's another story. The point is, it's not hard to figure out what made her want to cheat.

It wasn't too hard to figure out with the other girl I knew, either - Jessie. For weeks she had been complaining about never having time off work to spend with her husband. If they did have some free time, they had to spend it taking care of their little girl. They could never get a babysitter and just be alone together. So finally she pulled it off - got someone to keep the kid and was all excited about the romantic weekend they were going to have - and her husband . . . decides to go with a bunch of his buddies to watch a ball game. (I remember thinking he must have been nuts - she was rather attractive.) And within about a week, she had started an affair with some guy from Wal-Mart. It was quite a scandal. But, gee . . . I wonder why.

I'm sure there are other reasons women cheat. They can be vicious and betray their partners just as well as men can. But I'd always heard of infidelity being more of the vicious type, just pure betrayal. That isn't what I witnessed. What I saw just looked like "love frustrated".

Learn more about this author, Milton Mauldin.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.