From the correspondence I receive, I discover that there is a perception that a man who cheats on his wife will stop having sex with her. Sometimes I get letters from “the other woman” asking me if he should believe a husband who claims that he is no longer intimate with his wife. I’m not sure why, but this is usually very important to her. She might say, “The guy I’ve been dating has told me he didn’t sleep with his wife for six months before he met me and hasn’t slept with her since we got together. They have kids, which is the only reason he’s staying. However, I have a friend who’s also friends with his wife. And she says she wouldn’t be surprised if they still have sex because they both act normal and somewhat loving when they’re together. She said she just saw them holding hands walking around the neighborhood. Me?”

Along the same lines of thought, a wife may suspect that her husband is cheating on her, but eventually decide that he probably isn’t because their sex life is still active and pretty good. She might assume that since the husband has good, frequent sex at home, then she has nothing to worry about in the infidelity department. She might say, “My husband has been away from home a lot more than usual lately. He works late. He goes out. He answers more phone calls than usual and takes them places where I can’t hear what he’s saying. I would suspect him of cheating, except for the fact that we’re still having great sex.”

From my observation and experience, these assumptions are not always correct. Many men who have affairs continue to have sex with their wives without anything changing or appearing to be friends. In fact, sometimes the sex is more frequent or even better while he’s having the affair. He may do this to avoid suspicion or he may do it because he is still involved in his marriage and still very attracted to his wife.

In fact, it is my opinion that most men never intended to leave their wife and still do not while the affair is active. So for them, nothing is going to change. And because of that, there is no reason to stop having sex. Sure, very convincingly they tell the other woman that they want to or they are going to leave. They will tell you that they are married in name only and have not been intimate in years. They tell you these things even when they are not true because they want to make it easier for you to cheat. They don’t want her to identify with her wife or for her to realize that she is in a relationship with no real future.

Frankly, it’s not fair to the other woman. They are lies that they are telling you. But this scenario is very common and many “other women” eventually put two and two together and realize they are being lied to. And many wives eventually find evidence of cheating and have to face reality even when their sex life still seems active and wonderful.

So the answer to the question is yes, men very often continue to have good, meaningful sex with their spouses while they are having an active affair. That’s wrong. And he mixed things up. And often the wife and the other woman don’t understand this because women are less likely to understand how you can have sex with two people.

I don’t really have a definitive answer on this because I couldn’t pull this off either. When I love someone, I could never be unfaithful. But obviously, as a woman, I don’t think or act like a man. From the correspondence I receive, it seems pretty clear, at least to me, that men are much better at separating the two relationships and compartmentalizing their feelings and thoughts. If I were the one having an affair, I’d be so paralyzed with conflict and guilt, but some men can juggle quite convincingly.

Again, this is just my opinion, but if I was dating a married man and he told me he wasn’t having sex with his wife, I would have serious doubts about it. From my observation, most of the time, this is simply not true. Most likely, two people under one roof and in one bed with a shared commitment have sex. Many men tell the other woman that they sleep on the couch or in the spare bedroom. This is often not true either.

And many wives want to believe that as long as she’s having sex with him, he doesn’t need to look elsewhere. The truth is, she’s getting a different payoff from this than just the sex. He often uses adventure as a way to feel better about himself. Sex often has a lot less to do with it than people think.