My T said that men have a harder time taking back a cheating wife than a wife taking back a cheating H.

I used to communicate online with a guy whose W cheated. I found his feelings mirrored mine. Frankly, I was surprised. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was pretty clear he was experiencing things the same as me.

BTW a marriage does not have to be "neglected" for someone to cheat.

I hear that happy people cheat, yes. It's just not the typical story.

My experience has been that both men and women look outside the marriage for the spark or passion that gets lost after a few years, babies, and life. The men I've met consistently complained about infrequent or entirely missing physical intimacy. I think the physical intimacy isn't as important for women as the feeling of being desired. I also agree that in general, wives tend to be able to overlook infidelity more easily than men do. Perhaps this is because we are in general more dependent on our husbands for financial support? Or maybe for some wives, the physical infidelity can be overlooked as long as the emotional connection remains. I think it is far easier for men to be able to have an affair that is strictly physical with little emotional entanglement. Speaking for myself, it is very difficult to detach emotions from the equation.

Even with my flawed thought process at the time, I would not have risked it for sex alone. I was not unhappy with that part of my marriage. I was very attracted to the wooing of it all. Of course, I probably let myself give more emotional significance to AP anyway as sort of a justification after the fact.

I was in my A just for the physical part. My emotional needs where being met at home but never my physical needs. I made it clear to OM that it was strictly physical.

Well a lot of people take things too seriously. In many cases it is just something to do, something to see, communicate, see something intetesting, spend time with someone intetesting. Defenetely emotional part is important. Independent from whether marriage good or bad it is something to do to ocupy oneself.

I think there are a lot of reasons people cheat, but probably what it boils down to is unhappiness with the status quo. In my case it had a lot to do with the extreme stress I was going through at the time. It wasn't necessarily my marriage, although you could say that was a part of it but definitely not the main reason. Really it was confiding in someone other than my wife (who was under her own stresses at the time and whom I didn't want to overburden with mine). That opened the door.

But in general I think men are more likely to cheat purely for physical reasons. Not all men do, and some women do, but in general I think that holds true.

I think in my years here......I actually don't think I can pinpoint gender differences in why or how affairs start to identify enough of a pattern. If anything, I have learned that all CS's are NOT alike and all A's are not alike.

I will say, I definitely see a pattern that 1) Women are wayyyy more likely to forgive and take back the CS. Men seem to have a harder time letting go of the anger.
I do sometimes wonder if the women that forgive and want to hope are women that have a lower self esteem or are not a main financial support of the family. It saddens me when women don't feel empowered and feel stuck or their self confidence level is so low that they feel they have no choices.
2) I also have noticed that BOTH sexes have an extremely if not impossible time forgiving the CS if the A is with a friend or family member or someone the BS knew on a personal or family level.