All Comments on 'What Men Want Ch. 03'

Can you say bitter and self-loathing with probably a decade's worth of issues to be professionally addressed?

Can you say "Spot on", insightful and open-minded without being judgemental? This person doesn't have issues, this person has chosen to share their point of view, and I for one am damned thankful for it. It's given me some very valuable insight into my personal decision as to whether or not I will do something along these lines (not if I can at all help it), and it makes me feel good that someone understands what I am dealing with! I think the comment below (or is it above?) about the author needing help is authored by someone who needs help more than the author does! Thanks for writing this piece. Your wisdom and insight are much appreciated.

a great way of looking at problem.

Great look on things, she types like she talks, and hits everything perfectly, she addresses every part of both sides, and why each side reasons how they do, she just did a great job writing this, and it taught me a lot about why people do it. Thanks for being a part of Lit and contributing a great and informative piece!

i love the way it talks about how and why people do the things they do. it gave me great insite on the subject since i am being cheated on, i am looking at it in a different way now and makes me wonder who was really the one who did wrong. thank you so much for writing this! i love it!

Thank you so much for showing me it was all my fault that he cheated! It's so true, there's so much I could have given him that I didn't. I could have quit my job, maybe he wanted to spend more time with me. I'm sure that even though I was the only one working at the time he would have prefferred that. Or maybe, I should have worked harder, so I could fix the things about my body that workouts can't. I could have gotten a loan to make my body look like the ones in his porn. Maybe I should have stopped cooking his meals, he may have felt that was a way for me to assert power over him Maybe I should have turned down his sexual requests instead of going along with every single one. An open mind just lets in the flies, after all. Maybe I should have stopped trying to turn him on, I was probably just making a fool of myself. Maybe I should have made him leave when he didn't want to. Maybe I should have forced a split when he didn't tell me that he needed something else. Maybe I should have stopped loving him. Maybe I should have done something different. I don't know. I should have known obviously, that it would happen. I should have known better than to get into a relationship in the first place.

You did a wonderful job convincing me that it's my fault. I only wish you could have told me what I did wrong. It seems I'll never know. Instead this guilt will haunt me. Thank you, for completely ruining my desire to ever have a relationship again, because obviously I can't handle one and am too stupid to figure out why.

What a convenient way to shift the blame of cheating onto the partner who is NOT cheating! Brilliant, really. Here's a fucking suggestion: if you're not happy in your relationship, GET OUT OF IT. It is not a good idea for you or for ANYONE involved to remain falsely in a relationship where you are not happy. It is also impossible to make someone else take responsibility for something you physically did, no matter how much you want to blame someone else.

Hey anonymous on 9/19/07...it sounds like you completely missed the point of the essay. Perhaps it's because you and your spouse are perfect and deny each other nothing. --- In the real world, however, spouses tend to deny each other the things they need for various reasons. This essay looks at the side that people like you refuse to consider. === Anonymous on 7/23/07...either you are an amazing person and your man would cheat on you regardless of what you did or you are in denial about what you really did or didn't do. I'm somewhat biased because after I admit to many of the things I do wrong and even supply a few my wife didn't think about, I ask her what she does wrong in the relationship to which she replies, "apparently everything" yet she refuses or cannot name anything specifically.

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You can give a person EVERYTHING but one or two things and if those things are what he or she needs, the rest of what you give are nearly meaningless. I guess that's what its so important to find out what is truly important to your partner.

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Almost, I enjoyed the fresh perspective you brought to the table. Sometimes your use of pronouns made it a little unclear as to which party you were referring but rereading a time or two usually cleared that up.

These are great tips and I believe incorporating a little bit of them into our relationships can go a long way. However, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR CHEATING.

The reasons you listed for cheating are understandable but cheating is UNACCEPTABLE. If the issues in a couple's sex life (or lack thereof) is so bad, they should either try to solve this issue via counseling or LEAVE.

I believe marriage is till death. However, I think leaving is better than pulling the rug from under your spouse/partner by cheating.

This makes me cry. I have been with my husband for 13 yrs if it wasn't for my son i would have left. He had affairs with 2 of my close friends and yet everyone considers him to be a good old boy. i have always described him as the love of my life but i am struggling to see it at present. there is somenone else who wants me but i can't give in. i wish it was all simple

Some men cheat, but hide it well. He was not bad looking, she was drop-dead gorgeous. He worked, she worked. He cheated, she didn't. He always had an excuse for cheating, but the bottom line was he just liked to fuck other women, preferably married. He liked to breakup other marriages, for his kicks.

Eventually, I saw him cheating, in public, and let his wife know with: who, when and where. She collected evidence, and filed for divorce. He claimed it was her, that she went out every night. She worked with my wife, and we knew where she was and with who. Some guys are players and like to hurt others to feel powerful, not caring how their actions hurt others.

Since then, I've met many other men that do that, and a few women, too. They like to prey on folks that are already hurt, and can't read a guy, or gal, like that.

When you love, you trust. That is part of love. It hurts when you find out that they don't care about anyone but themselves, but hide it with claims of "I love you, don't you trust me?"

Fix your paper, please.

An exceedingly simplistic view, bordering on naive. It's built on stereotypes, and treats sex with another person as a biological necessity. The only astute observations were the ones regarding the effects on children. But otherwise, ignorant. The issue has its origin in brain chemistry and the balance between testosterone and oxytocin, which -tends- to favour women as more affectionate and dedicated, and men only that dedicated when it comes to their children. This has led to many women (about 80%) throughout human history having children from just one man, and 40% of men having children by more than one woman (with the remaining 60% not haveing bloodlines that continue today at all). The bottleneck of 40% in men has likely led to personality characteristics being passed along genetically throughout the generations, and it might be reasonable to say that the need to have a "side order" or a "backup" is well preserved. Read Roy F. Baumeister for more details, although the 80%-40% discrepancy is a fact proven by geneticists and interpretable via theory. Though how the equivalent of two women and one man can successfully reproduce is easy to deduce. It certainly didn't happen with monogamy on the menu.

My first wife was a serial cheater. It took me five years to catch on, and another five years before I gave up on her. She fucked almost every man we knew and a lot I didn't know. She even fucked my oldest and best friend. During the last five years, years of no sex, at least for me, I had several very tempting offers, came very, very close with one, but in the end turned them all down. Some people cheat, and some don't. I finally divorced her. Since then I have had two long-term girlfriends, both commitment-phobic, adverse to marriage. At least neither of them cheated on me. I want commitment, true love, even, and I married again. Since I left my ex, my life hasn't been a picnic, but at least my problems have been of my own making, and since they don't include lying to anyone, I sleep well at night. Like I said, some people cheat, and some don't.

I think that if you male or female are not getting your needs met sexually or anyway YOU NEED TO COMMUNICATE THE PROBLEM AND GIVE THEM THE CHANCE TO FIX IT. OR LET THEM TELL U ITS NOT HAPPENING MOVE THE FUCK ON