Your husband cheated on you because he wanted to, not because you could do anything differently.

It seems like every day, women are advised to do “better” to prevent cheating. Women are told to dress in certain ways, to do certain exercises, to do hair and makeup for your partner, to be more open to new sexual experiences, to be more adventurous, to be more submissive, and a million other things. We are told that if we could just “do better”, we could prevent infidelity.<br><br>I have an extremely common experience that is also very rare online, and I want to share it. In my first marriage, I was everything my husband asked for. I had long, curly red hair, a fully made up face every single day, I cooked and cleaned as much as I could. I kept myself “healthy” by starving myself to be as thin as possible. I was always up for trying new sexual things, and eagerly took on the label of “kinky girl” in a world where being a woman who enjoys sex was still a rare and desirable thing.<br><br>In other words- I did everything I was told, and my husband cheated on me anyway. He cheated on me because he wanted to. Not because I was lacking, but because he was. <br><br>When I married my second husband, I stopped listening to what other people told me I should do. I started listening to myself. I cut my hair short, I stopped wearing a lot of makeup, and I stopped cooking and cleaning for other people. I focused on my hobbies and my career, and I gained some weight in the process. I took time for myself, and I stopped being so sexually available. I stopped letting men define what I wanted. <br><br>And you know what? I’m still with my second husband, and he hasn’t cheated on me. I know other women who share my story, and many other women who took care of their partners and were still cheated on, for NO REASON.<br><br>I think people are so quick to blame the woman in a relationship when cheating happens, because women know deep down that the way men are raised to view women is fundamentally flawed. When women hear about a man cheating on his wife, they immediately ask themselves “what could she have done differently?” Because if they can find ONE THING the wife could have done, then that means that THEY will be safe from cheating, as long as they “do better”. But they can’t, and they aren’t. <br><br>So stop blaming the women. Stop telling us that if we can just “do better” we will be safe, we will be loved for who we are, we will be treated fairly. Stop telling us that if we can just change X, Y, and Z, we will stop being targeted, harassed, and beaten by men. It is not us. We are not broken. It is you. You are broken, and it is your fault.