Why women forgive cheaters (but men don’t)

Apparently most women tolerate their man straying and making relationship ‘errors’ once or even twice before dumping them, but only 1 in 10 men would stay with a woman who strayed. So just why are women so tolerant of cheating? And could it actually be a good thing?

 A quick poll around the office revealed three possible reasons...

  

We’re more realistic 

Yes, people cheat. And don’t get me wrong, it’s crap, wrong and horribly heart-wrenching when it happens. But maybe it’s us girls who know that it doesn’t always have to be a black and white ‘dumping’ issue and that hey, maybe, we can get over it and it’s not always the end of the world.If you take the view that  most of them blow over and a good marriage is still a good marriage we should be a bit more laid back about them like the French, Italians and Spanish. Controversial? Absolutely. Realistic? Maybe.

Men are territorial

Of course, the other explanation is that men’s egos simply can’t take the battering of being cheated on.  As one male friend put it, “It’s just not very masculine thing to let another guy get it on with your girlfriend and let them get away with it, is it? We’d look like a right walkover.” Could it be that men are prepared to throw away years of investment after one (probably stupid) mistake just for the sake of their pride? And that women are able to see past infidelity and see the bigger picture? Possibly.

It’s our low self-esteem

Of course, the other explanation isn’t quite as empowering. Could our readiness to accept affairs actually be down to a darker reason, like our low self-esteem? A recent survey showed that 3 out of 4 women say they lack confidence, compared with 57% of men. As a colleague reminded me earlier this week, once women hit 35, there’s just one single man to every seven women (seriously) so perhaps it’s this panic making us feel that we should hang on to our guy, no matter how tough it gets – because, hey, it’s better than being single!

Personally, I think all of us deserve to be in a happy, secure relationship and I know I’d much rather be single and happy than clinging on to a cheating guy for the rest of my life. But what do you guys think?