Malaysian women were revealed to be the third most adulterous in the world in a recent survey. Amanda Suriya Ariffin
gets to the heart
of the matter
THE findings of a 2012 Durex survey of 29,000 women in 36 countries, which revealed that Malaysian women came third (after Ghana and Thailand) in a ranking of countries with the highest numbers of adulterous women, left me reeling.
While the survey results didn’t specify further details such as frequency of adulterous behaviour, the topic brought forth heated views as diverse as the biological and psychological make-up of women themselves.
THE ADULTERESS
Anita (not her real name) blends in with the other mothers picking up their kids from the suburban-enclave international school. Freshly showered and powdered after yoga class and dressed in the ubiquitous uniform of smart casual slacks and blouse, you’d never guess her secret.
Her exuberant, dimpled smile is very disarming as she openly shares the whys of her year-long affair. “I was very unhappy for a long time, especially after my mother passed away,” the slim 44-year-old begins. Sipping her coffee, she states matter-of-factly: “I never thought I’d meet F (her lover) ever again, but fate decided otherwise.”
F is married; he has been so for 18 years while Anita has been a wife for 16 years. He has four children and she is blessed with three. He used to have a gigantic crush on her when they were teens, according to Anita, and they only reconnected after he helped with her mother’s funeral arrangements.
And how did it begin? “Well,” she waves breezily, “from meetings over financial and property matters (he is a lawyer) to lunches, and then,” she trails off, a faraway look in her eyes, then a sudden megawatt grin.
“He reminded me that his feelings for me had not subsided all these years. He was, and still is, very good at making me feel beautiful in the way my husband doesn’t anymore.”
But you want for nothing, I remind her. Her husband is hardworking, a generous provider, devoted. (She lives in the kind of privileged comfort many have to work several lifetimes to achieve.)
“Yes, but he’s dull,” she retorts, “and he’s gotten fat and let himself go, and frankly, I was tired of him always taking his mother’s side and undermining my position in family matters.”
And therein lies the nub. “I feel like a new woman now,” she gushes.
Dinners and dancing (horizontal tangoing, too) are par for the course this past year, as are hurried, clandestine breakfasts and lunches. “We’re thinking of going away to Thailand together for a weekend soon,” she chuckles delightedly.
Anita is not manipulative, malicious nor calculated. Impeccably mannered, she’s also an attentive, adoring mother. But she lights up visibly when she talks of F. She giggles uninhibitedly when his call interrupts our meeting, but her face darkens with dourness when The Husband is mentioned.
“I did ask him (the husband) for a divorce three months into my affair,” she adds casually.
And? “Well, he said he’d think about it, but I think he’s gotten himself a new girlfriend — not that I care, he can do what he wants — but F said his children will kill him if he leaves their mother.”
She’s alarmingly — and also refreshingly — cavalier and open about her private affairs. So her reaction, when I tell her about the survey results, isn’t unexpected. “Sweetie,” she says conspiratorially, leaning across the table and laying a soft hand on my arm, “plenty of women are doing it: They’re just not saying it, and they just don’t want to admit it.”
UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR
For 39-year-old editorial consultant Karen-Michaela Tan, however, adultery by either spouse isn’t something she condones nor believes should become acceptable but, she understands that “there are always mitigating circumstances.”
The married mother-of-one chews over her answer when asked what would tempt or compel a woman to commit adultery.
“Dissatisfaction,” she states emphatically. “I think if you’re satisfied in your marriage or relationship, even though temptation is put in your path, the chances of you succumbing to temptation are very, very low.”
This insight becomes all the more pronounced when taken in the context of the fact that Tan volunteers at her Christian church group as a counsellor; she has counselled her fair share of fractured marriages in the years she has served.
“Women are driven by the words, ‘I feel’, and when you look at Asian relationships where men are not as ‘evolved’ — the stiff Asian upper lip and all that — the emotional needs of the woman can be downplayed.”
Add to this fermenting mix the lack of communication and the chance that the woman is flattered by another (“she hears words she wants to hear,” adds Tan) and adultery, while mildly contemptible, isn’t altogether surprising.
Tan stays firm in her view that adultery, in Malaysia at least, is unacceptable. When the cheating spouse puts her needs, wants and desires ahead of the marriage pact, she says, “then you need to look at yourself, not your marriage.”
It doesn’t have to be ONLY marital dissatisfaction that causes women to go astray, she believes. She says: “Women, for the most part, can withstand the advances of an attractive male more so than men can with an attractive female.”
So what’s the trigger button?
“It’s the emotional connection,” she offers, “because these connections are difficult to find, and women are emotional creatures.” But, she adds quickly: “I still think that it has to be traced back to the cheating spouse — in this case, the woman — that there’s some deep-seated lacking in her personal make-up, life and capacity that’d allow her to think she can fill that void in extramarital affairs.
“When you go down that path that is Me-centric, why would a cheating spouse care about what anyone else feels?,” she murmurs, before concluding sarcastically: “I mean, there’s only sexually-transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies to think about.”
THE BETRAYED
It’s hard to suspend judgement in an emotionally complex area with such murky depths as female adultery as it is to maintain objectivity.
I approached several men who have been on the receiving end to tell me of their experience. While one was happy to share his story, he was ultimately worried about shaming his wife. But he eventually confided that her adultery was the sole reason he sought a divorce after 30 years together. Many men, I later discover, actually see spousal adultery as the final axe in severing a marriage.
Reuben Kay, a 37-year-old manager at a financial institution, remarks caustically: “I don’t eat from the same plate that somebody else has eaten from.” The proverbial plate, in this instance, would be the woman with whom he’d been in a committed relationship, in the event of a sexual betrayal.
Once married, the now single Reuben has exacting views on female adultery — he just won’t tolerate it. “It’s not about ego,” he clarifies, before adding, “It’s just painful.”
So, what can the man do to stop his beloved from straying? “From the woman’s point of view, I can understand, if she says, ‘well, my husband doesn’t pay attention to any of this’,” he gestures sweepingly, outlining the female form. “I understand why she’d go further with someone who makes her comfortable, someone who makes her laugh.”
Even when you’re married, he advises: You have to look at your wife like she’s still your girlfriend. If I love her and want her to stay mine, I’m going to remind her every time.”
NOURISH THE LOVE
Jaime Shun, founder and Chief HeartSmith of Heartworks in Sri Hartamas, believes that you can’t do anything to prevent adultery, a sentiment she shares with Tan. However, she adds, there are many things that one can do to have a deep connection and sustainable relationship in one’s life.
“A relationship needs attention,” states Shun. Sometimes, she explains, couples come together and they get comfortable with each other and in the long run, passion may sizzle, or they take each other for granted. “Loves needs nourishment,” she says, “as well as connection and bonding.”
But can a marriage survive adultery, female or otherwise?
“Regardless of the circumstances of the betrayal, which differ for each couple, whether the marriage survives is down to the persons involved,” says Hafsa Hasan, holistic therapist at Elements The Natural Oasis in Sri Hartamas.
Some marriages do weather the storm somehow, she reassures. However, she adds: “There’s a big difference between a marriage that survives and a marriage that thrives.”
When in survival mode, says the 39-year-old mother of five, the least trigger can set off all sorts of issues.
Shun chips in: “Once trust is broken, to many that is the point of no return. I’d strongly encourage both individuals to look at themselves first as well and ask how they are contributing to the setback in the relationship.”
Hafsa gently makes her observation that people can bring a lot of baggage — family issues, previous relationships, unresolved inner issues — to a relationship. “Rather than face some of that ‘stuff’ going on inside, people turn to outside stimulation, including extra-marital affairs.”
But she adds a reassuring, almost maternal note: “Life can be messy, and so are relationships.”
Which brings to mind the adage about people in glass houses casting the first stone; who is to say they have never once succumbed to temptation of any kind? If our ancestors hadn’t succumbed to corporeal desires, some of us wouldn’t exist today. Does the binding structure of marriage simply make our existence all the more legitimate?
And then there’s the view that if men have been doing it, then why can’t women? But that’s another story for another time.