By Paolo Cabrini
I am a 39-year-old man and the two passions (dare I say constants) in my life are drinking and women. Luckily for me, the two often go hand in hand.
One of the vows at my wedding ceremony was forsaking all others. In the 11 years since, I have slept (you could say I have failed miserably) with more than 100 women. I remember every single one and some I even savour. I regret very few. Sex for me is like a drug and, like a drug addict, it is very difficult for me to 'just say no'.
Why do I do it? To be brutally honest, I do it because I can, because I enjoy it and because I have learned to damn the consequences. However, I haven't always behaved like this.
Why men cheat: how it started
It all started just after I got married. Until then, I had been in four serious relationships and had never cheated. However, I should never have married my wife, as she was more best-friend material and, if I'm honest, sex for us was neither frequent nor mind-blowing.
While I always felt my wife's best friend was an attractive woman, I never thought I'd have a full-blown relationship with her - or anyone else apart from my wife. However, one thing led to another and over a period of four years, I met my mistress two or three times a month.
For me, it started with flirting and innuendo. Then came the chase, the buzz of someone new wanting me. The first kiss, foreplay and, ultimately, the act of sex could only be matched by the negative feeling of guilt and fear of being caught. These feelings soon subsided with every seedy encounter. This was the best sex ever.
With every new encounter, we took more risks and cared less about being caught. All that mattered to me was that I satisfied my craving, my need to be wanted, my need to be satisfying someone.
You can only be an adulterer if you don't get caught; I say this because, if you do (get caught), you won't have a wife or husband for long! It sounds arrogant, but I made sure I picked the right kind of woman to have sex with - the sort that would be happy to keep the relationship/one-night-stand on a sex-only basis and not get emotionally involved.
There are some women I would never have sex with and that's a personal preference, which has nothing to do with anything as shallow as looks. Instead it depends on how they approach the idea of sleeping with me. I have found over the years that the predatory women who chase you or those that find you more attractive because you're married take the fun and the thrill out of the whole mating ritual. Yes - it's a ritual for me.
Some men boast about their conquests and, while I share details with a select few, I don't feel the need to brag. Bragging for some, however, is as important as the sex itself: the need for their peers to know that they're players, or one of the lads. For me, the conquest is enough in itself.
* Paolo (not his real name) and his wife have been separated for a year and plan to divorce soon.
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