Dear Dr. K,
My husband is attractive and likes attention from other women. All non verbal attention. Nothing physical occurs that I’m aware of. Its feels to me that he builds relationships with them by meeting them at the same time as they are walking or driving by. He times it perfectly looking at the clock and stalls until when he knows they will pass by. He goes outside to take out the garbage or get in his car to run errands. He doesn’t work due to a disability. Is this considered cheating? I feel betrayed and am not imagining it as he suggests. He has said “no one’s doing anything” one time when I mentioned it.
Troubled by Timely Encounters
Dear Troubled by Timely Encounters,
Here’s what I can say to you: “ If you want to lose weight, stay out of the bakery”, If you are trying to avoid drinking, don’t go into bars.”
In your husband’s case, if he is not interested in having an affair, he should stop indicating to other women that this is what he wants to do.
It sort of isn’t the point that he is not doing anything physical. The point is that he is placing him himself, strategically in order to engage with attractive others.
Are you having a great sex life? Does his disability in any way interfere with his sexual functioning? It may be likely that his efforts are to arouse himself if only through his own version of fantasy play.
However, real live women are an inappropriate target for his self arousing games.
While I don’t recommend it, I can’t help but wonder how he would feel If you got all dressed up one weekend night and when asked where you were going, you replied “I’m going to hang out at a dating bar in order to attract men’s attention.”
If he objects, you might reassure him that you have no intention of “doing anything.”
Perhaps such a clear example might bring home the point that attempting to gain the sexual interest of the opposite sex is not a sport for a married man.
It is quite possible that at some point it will be the other woman and not your husband who responds to this courting behavior and if there’s mutual attraction, he must exercise the very self-control that he has failed to exercise in the first place.
I would have a serious conversation with him about why it is that he wants to engage in flirtatious behavior, and tell him sincerely how it impacts you. Ask him directly to stop.
If he denies it, that is called “gaslighting” and you might want to read the several articles that I have on that subject. If he agrees to stop and doesn’t he’s breaking his word and has demonstrated to you that you cannot and should not trust him.
As you aptly point out, betrayal is more than a person having physical intimacy with another. Betrayal happens when one spouse chooses to direct their time and emotional energy to pursuing people outside of the marriage. A single word doesn’t have to be spoken for betrayal to be happening.
Thank you for your story, and I wish you well and your effort to helping your husband too identify and change his ways.
Dr. K
