I’m a Dave Letterman fan. My husband and I TiVo his show and watch it a few nights a week. I happened to be watching last Thursday night when Dave announced that he had done some “very, very bad things.”
By now, most of you have heard the story. If not, the gist is that a CBS news producer, Robert Joel Halderman, asked Dave to pay him $2 million. The hush money was intended to keep Dave’s “very, very bad things” a secret. The secret involved Dave having sexual relationships with female members of his staff. If Dave did not pay up, Halderman was threatening to expose Dave’s forays in a screenplay. In other words, according to police reports, this was an extortion attempt.
Over the weekend, The New York Times followed up on Dave’s announcement with an article on blackmail, and there have been subsequent articles covering Dave’s apology and the possible aftermath. What I would like to follow up on is the topic of single women having affairs with married men. I don’t know all the details of David Letterman’s story, but his announcement awakened my curiosity about why women are dissing other women by having affairs with their husbands.
A search on Google for “why do single women have affairs with married men” results in 1.7 million hits. Guess it’s a hot topic.
Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, Rielle Hunter and John Edwards, the Argentine woman and Mark Sanford. The story of the single woman having an affair with the married man. These are the stories of public figures, and the private stories are even greater in number.
In a discussion group on Oprah’s website, many women shared their experience of their husband having an affair with a single woman. One woman said that her husband had an affair with a co-worker and that woman knew he was married and had kids. Even though she had this information, she would text and call him at all times of the night wanting him to come over and be with her. “How can a woman do that to another woman?” she asked.
My question exactly. Why are women hurting other women? Why are they willfully stepping into a situation that can damage lives (their own included)?
One explanation might come from Susan Sheppard, founder of Getting What You Want, a life and relationship coaching organization with a mission of promoting sacred intimacy. She says: “ The woman who gets involved with a married man is … looking for attention and affection.”
I did some more research and other reasons I found are: Enhanced self-esteem, self-image and power; excitement, risk, and challenge; and sex.
Probably most important is what showed up in the online discussion groups revealing that there are lots of women who feel they are gaining some kind of power from “taking a man away" from another woman.
It’s ironic to me that some women list “enhanced self-esteem and power” as their reason for having an affair, when it seems the exact opposite is true. By deceiving another woman, she is actually depleting her power. In other words, by deceiving another woman, she is causing more pain and damage to the feminine psyche and is perpetuating a pattern of mistrust among women.
“Many women cannot be trusted … they are gossipy, catty, and will 
stab you in the back,” wrote one woman in the discussion group on Oprah’s site.
“Women compete with each other … we live to tear each other apart,” said another.
Wow. Do we really need to continue this pattern? Is it possible to support each other as women? What would it be like if there was a sisterhood among women where if you knew a man was married, you would leave him alone? Hmmm….
In my opinion, the more we deceive each other, the more we will lose trust in our gender – and this REALLY ISN’T good for our self-esteem. If we want to be powerful, how about saying, “no”?
What do you think?
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Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder ofLotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.
Fierce article, Tabby! In an ideal world, women would get self-esteem from themselves and not depend upon men to give it to them to make them feel attractive and desirable. This issue is somewhat correlated to the sad but true phenomenon of women in positions of power who are more likely to hire men than women, or act nicer to men subordinates than female subordinates in the office. What a twisted worldview and lack of trust that can come from gender imbalance.
Men and women have had affairs since the beginning of our time. I truly doubt this situation will ever be a thing of the past. There are men and women who have no need for it, there are men and women who do have a need for it. Dave Lettermen had a need for it and acted it out, the women who acted it out with him had a need for it and wasn't necessarily thinking about the wife or her new boyfriend and it seems it is more or less about one's emotional maturity and emotional needs coupled with using sex as the expression to fulfill that need.
I wasn't a fan of David Letterman, liked his opening monologue but the rest of his show, before his guests appeared, I found pretty adolescent and tiring, and thought he was paid much more than his talent was actually worth, I found this to be true for Jay Leno also. I felt both these grown men spend a good 30 minutes of their show on adolesent comedy and get millions for it along with a hefty dose of busines clout. Much of show business is run by the male gender and it is okay for a Dave Letterman personality to have all the cake and eat it too, while women have been left out of the late nigth party.
I do not feel a need to trust my gender or mistrust the male gender as much as I feel a need to be aware of the world around me, and where these people are in terms of their emotional, intellectual or spititual growth. This is not an ideal world and I do not feel the need to live in one.
It is sad that women still view each other as competition. As a single woman I wouldn't consider having an affair with a married man. If a man is married he is off limits. I value and respect myself to much to ever sink that low. If a women feels she can get a man this way, she will only find in the end that a cheater will always cheat it's the nature of the beast. A woman with low self- worth and esteem who doesn't value herself is probably open to any attention she can get, at the expense of hurting others.She is looking for a shallow self-esteem booster. The power she gains is only temporary and not real. A MARRIED man who would seduce a woman is just as bad, he has to be willing player or the game doesn't get played.
Why do single women mess around with married men? Because they are sluts…wait a miinute…that's not exactly right…because single men don't try hard enuff to get laid for free…whoahahahahahahahhaaaa
Nice post Tabby. I like Rann's insight on the matter. Though I almost wonder what difference it makes if a single woman has affair with married man or a married woman has affair with a married or single man. The end result is infidelity for one or both with their spouses or themselves. Having said that, I would also add that sex, attraction and affairs are totally different from marriage and love. Marriage can never assure love. It is just a social arrangement where most of the people feel pressed and tied down from time to time. Marriage is an arrangement to build your own small society in the name of a family. In current times people have less and less respect and commitment towards each other which results in occasional flings, however, this perhaps is not the only reason, there can be many issues. Now a days everyone has grown independent not only financially, intellectually but also mentally and emotionally. They do not have a reason or fear per se to abide by any particular morality or values. Redefining things is an in-thing now. These things kept happening since long. In olden times, sometimes women were forced to have a relationship with a married man just because he liked to have many women. Now at least women have this freedom to choose to do it.
Personally though, I am against this attitude of women harming other woman's interests and life. But they also know, that if they won't, some other woman would. The jealousy between human beings and competition can never fade. It is everywhere. Except that some people choose to act on it and some don't.
Why Do Single Men Have Affairs With Married Women?
Because they estime the relationship will never reach a certain point. An easy way to quickly satisfy physical-needs and a security against inner, emotional-works. 6 senses seduction only.
A new vagina is always tempting for men.
I remember attending my friend's bachelorette party at a bar, and she was attracting single men in unprecedented numbers just by wearing her wedding veil. We joked that if a single woman ever wanted to attract more eligible bachelors, she just needed to go out and buy a wedding veil! Maybe there's something particularly attractive about a committed person when you have your own fear of commitment (or your own self-limiting belief that someone wouldn't commit to you?)
Great post and lots to ponder here as I have wondered the same. I have many times felt sorry for women in these relationships – there must be a sense that they will never be truly valued or committed to? And perhaps they think that is what they deserve?
I think this is a very complicated topic.
And the humorous comment that the "women are sluts" seems odd; obviously, it's the men who have problems.
That written, I think dissatisfied married men seeking a fantasy escape feed by hormones can be very persuasive at laying it on thick, and making even a very strong woman feel wonderful.
I find the framing of this question interesting and the historic norm: "why do single women have affairs with married men." Question should be:
Why do men stray from their marriages, what are they looking for, and what are they so relentlessly pursuing: are they just as besotted by the presumed "self-esteem issues" as these women.
Maybe marriage and it's correlative expectations are the problem . . .
maybe relationships are more complex and dynamic than fit into our tidy moralistic boxes, and maybe it has nothing to do with morality . . .
The author's question seems to me entirely misguided: "Why are women hurting other women? Why are they willfully stepping into a situation that can damage lives (their own included)?"
I thought it was the man who was stepping out on his wife.
You've relied on the oldest form of sexism in your analysis: women are the harbingers of morality and goodness, and boys will be boys.
That does seem to be the presumption, one that puts all the blame on these poor women who lack self-esteem. Why? Isn't it more fair to take the man's self-esteem to task. He presumably has a greater onus than the single female; what self-esteem issues are driving him? If you've ever been pursued by a married man (and it seems perhaps you haven't), you haven't a wit at how it becomes a Shakespearean stereotype of the lying scondrel beset with love, love, love, passion, passion, passion. Really amazing at how enslaved they are to the notion of romance and sexuality in their pursuit.
But you've made it all about the woman's self-esteem. Perhaps even more insidious, you've made a man's bad behavior an issue of a woman's care taking shortcomings. How stereotypical is that? Obviously, women are still women's worst enemies, even while feigning to be their support network.
The people to be questioned are the ones in the marriage: a woman who is completely oblivious to her partners apparent emptiness, and a man who cannot find fulfillment except through a self defeating duplicity.
With all due respect, the more I think about this post, the more galling and stereotypical I find it.
While all points are valid there is another. For many women who engage in these types of affairs the fact that, in most cases, there is no prospect of a permanent commitment makes this type of relationship
Hi Garima.
You make an interesting point when you say: "Now a days everyone has grown independent not only financially, intellectually but also mentally and emotionally. They do not have a reason or fear per se to abide by any particular morality or values." I wonder if we can still be independent in all of these ways, and also remain respectful and not deceive and harm others. I agree with you that jealousy is strong and is everywhere – and that the difference in character is demonstrated by someone who chooses to act on it and someone who doesn't. All in all I wish that as women we could recognize the damage that we may cause another woman by sleeping with her husband. I guess it all comes down to compassion.
Thanks for writing in.
Tabby
oh well. what goes around, comes around. what you give is what you get. its morally and totally wrong to cheat from both parties.
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