Why do men cheat? Why do we have side chicks?
The women, God bless ’em, they think it’s about them. They think it’s because we found someone younger, someone prettier, someone with tighter skin or fewer opinions. They think it’s because we stopped loving them.
That’s the easy answer. That’s the answer that lets them be the victim and us be the villain. But it’s bullshit.
A man doesn’t get a side chick because he stopped loving his wife. He does it because he stopped loving the man he became with his wife.
See, a man chooses a wife to show the world he’s made it. He picks stability. He picks respectability. He becomes the “Good Husband,” the “Provider,” the “Stable Force.” He builds the house, he pays the mortgage, he fixes the sink, he carries the heavy shit. Marriage, fatherhood, life… they turn a man into a machine. A quiet, efficient, problem-solving beast of burden who carries the whole goddamn world on his back every single day.
And somewhere in that grind, somewhere between the PTA meetings and the electric bill, the other guy dies.
The Hunter. The man who chased. The man who felt desired, not just needed. The man who felt dangerous. The man who felt free.
He looks in the mirror at home, and he sees a tired, responsible, gray-haired man who is valued only for what he can provide. He sees a utility.
But the side chick?
She’s not the upgrade. She’s not the competition. She’s the goddamn Time Machine.
She’s the mirror where he sees the ghost of the man he used to be. Or maybe the man he thinks he could be if he wasn’t so weighed down by all the “right” choices he made.
When he’s with her, he’s not the guy who forgot to take out the trash. He’s not the guy worrying about the 401k. He’s the Hunter again. He’s the lover. He’s the guy who walks into a room and owns it. She doesn’t give him love; she gives him oxygen. She gives him validation. She gives him the feeling of being wanted without the crushing weight of expectation.
It’s an ego trip. It’s a desperate, pathetic, and completely human attempt to feel alive again.
It’s a delusion of freedom.
And here’s the dark, ugly truth that nobody wants to say out loud: A man wants the stability of the wife and the thrill of the mistress because he is too weak to choose who he really is. He wants the safety of the harbor and the excitement of the storm, and he doesn’t have the balls to admit that you can’t have both without drowning.
The side chick isn’t special. She’s symbolic. She doesn’t replace the wife. She replaces the man. She replaces the boring, responsible, dead-inside man with the fantasy of the young, potent stud.
So, why do men cheat?
Not because they are running toward another woman. They are running away from the man they became.
Instead of fixing what broke inside them, instead of looking at their lives and saying, “I am unhappy with who I am,” they look for a drug. They look for a person who makes them forget.
They cheat because they want to feel powerful again. Desired again. Young again. Unburdened again.
They cheat because they miss the man they lost, and they don’t know how the hell to get him back without burning the whole house down.
And that, my friends, is the sad, simple, and completely honest truth.
