Anacona:  Discussing male infidelity with [another reader] it seems that manosphere has this idea that men that choose not to get attached to occasional sexual flings are indeed incapable of betraying their vows and moving on from their wife because they unlike women are not hypergamous. I contested this position because I lived in cheating island and I lost count how many times a man with a wife will break a marriage against common sense, convenience and even their life for the chance of just have sex with the woman they developed a sort of sexual frenzy for.

There is even a culture of “benching” for sitting in the bench, in which a woman might have sex with a married man in the hopes of becoming a mistress and later on a second wife, she usually picks an older established man that can support both but that could had never picked her as primary wife due to societal pressures and with the advantage of being a decade or two younger than the wife and tries to do her best to be sexually enticing and nice enough for him to choose her as second wife once his relationship with the wife goes south.

I was thinking that if women are hunting for better genes, men are looking for better fertility and fecundity odds, so it would make sense that if a man is banging both an older woman and a younger one his body will act to bond him with the one with the best chances of giving him more offspring and if he does that during his marriage then surely the aging wife would be read as “not fertile” anymore while the younger extramarital liaisons being read as “fertile” and more potential offspring for him, so again it will make sense for him do ditch the older wife and try and secure the conquests. Which will explain how often this occurs in my country and really Athol I had seen men willing to lose their jobs, social circle and money because a teenager drove then insane with lust so there most be some powerful forces at work there.

Athol:  You’re both partly right, and basically just describing the two standard sexual strategies that everyone chooses to play from.

(1)  The “monogamy” / long term / raise kids together / high commitment strategy
(2)  The “cheating” / opportunistic / get better genes / cuckold / low commitment strategy

So yes, men can have a wife (1) and a girlfriend (2) at the same time. He can screw the girlfriend casually and not get to wildly emotionally attached to her – because he’s not committed to her. She’s a pump and dump.

However as the wife (1) ages, she becomes less appealing on a Body Agenda level to make children with. So when he starts up a (2) relationship with a younger woman on the side, there starts being increasing risk that his Body Agenda will decide that the girlfriend is the better option to pursue a (1) strategy with. When that happens, he will experience a massive mental shift, and because he’s now committed to her, he follows through with all kinds of risky behavior to ensure that he creates a relationship with her.

When the shift happens, the wife is no longer the (1) strategy, and she doesn’t even qualify as the (2) strategy anymore either. So the shift means she becomes a person of no importance sexually to the husband. Very quickly any feelings for her will vanish so he can more easily discard her.

This is the classic “mid-life crisis” thing where a completely normal husband suddenly turns into a “teenage boy” and does a great deal of “Incredibly stupid things that mess everything up for everyone else.”(TM)  But as far as his Body Agenda is concerned, if he gets an extra couple of kids from it, it’s all worth the drama he causes.

During this shift in allegiance from the wife to the girlfriend, the husband will have the full fledged Rationalization Hamster experience. Old wife bad. New wife good.

So for the girls “on the bench”, it’s a potentially winning strategy as a way of mate-poaching. However they would be more successful at this strategy if they don’t actually sleep with the husband too easily and simply engage him on an emotional level. They are auditioning for the role of “wife” and not “girlfriend”, and a woman that doesn’t just give it up easily makes a better option for committing to. The more they hold out sex as something they require commitment for before they give it out, or threaten to take it away without commitment, the stronger their hand is.

There is also the risk for the older man that despite all the drama they go through to get in a primary relationship with the younger woman, they are being cuckolded by her. What the younger woman most needs from him is resources, what she needs least from him is his semen. It would be logical to assume that a woman capable of cynically waiting in line to mate-poach, would also be capable of cynically cuckolding as well. You can give up everything to be with a young hottie and turn into a cuckolded diaper changing chump that ain’t gettin’ any.

The resultant drama of dumping the wife and splitting finances may also damage the reproductive chances of the husbands children he has had with his wife. Maybe there’s no longer enough money for his son to attend college for example. Maybe his daughters never get their teeth straightened. So his risk to jump ship must be carefully weighed against multiple factors.

But in general, the hotter, younger and more sexually virtuous the girl is, the more likely the husband will fall head over heels in love with her.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…because inquiring minds will want to know…

The best defense for the wife is to (1) stay as physically attractive as she can, (2) have brief periods of being out of her husbands routine observation, (3) suddenly display knowledge of new sexual techniques, (4) start wearing sexier underwear, and (5) attempt to engage in brief periods of hyper-sexuality with her husband – as in suddenly wanting it multiple times in a 24 hour period and being highly active and vocal during that time as well.  One notes that I did not say she should cheat on him, just…. well…  pull on his… attention.

Oh and also helpful is, (6) know some fabulous lawyers.