According to Osho, fascination with married women isn’t love but a common ego-disease: imitation seeks social proof (“someone already desired her”), competition craves the triangular struggle, and scarcity makes the inaccessible more alluring. The married woman allows fantasy and waiting to replace real intimacy; you chase victory over her husband, not her. Once the contest ends, interest fades—exposing unconscious jealousy, aggression, and fear of the real.
You like married women because your ego wants what others want, the challenge feels exciting, and dreaming about someone hard to get feels safer than real love.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why am I always interested in married women?
The same is the case with a married man: he is far away. There is not much possibility that he will really enter into a love-relationship with you. I have heard... A young man went to a very wise old man, and the young man said 'I am lovesick, sir. Can you help me?' The wise man thought, and he said 'There is only one cure for love, and that is marriage. And if marriage cannot cure it, nothing can cure it! If you get married, you will be cured. Never again will you think about love!' Yes, marriage cures it so certainly, so absolutely, that if marriage cannot cure love, then nothing can cure it. Then you are incurable. It is good to fall in love with a married woman because then there is no possibility of cure; you remain lovesick. There are people who enjoy their lovesickness tremendously:…
Osho, I feel attracted to women other than my wife. But when my wife shows interest in another man, I am seized with great jealousy; I burn in a fierce fire.
Men have always arranged privileges for themselves and blocked women. They locked women within the four walls of the house and kept themselves free. Those days are gone. Now, to the extent you are free, the woman is equally free. And if you don’t want to burn in jealousy, there are only two ways. First, become free of lust yourself. Where there is no lust, jealousy does not remain. And second, if you do not wish to become free of lust, then at least grant the other the same right you claim for yourself. Gather that much courage. I would like you to become free of lust. If you have truly known one woman, you have known all women. If you have truly known one man, you have known all men. The differences that remain are only surface lines. And if, having known one woman, you have not known Woman,…
I become interested in other women besides my wife. But when my wife shows interest in some other man I become very jealous, I burn in frightful flames.
There is a scientific reason for this. The life sciences say that the personality of woman is balanced, the personality of man is not balanced. The genes of the woman are equal. A person is born out of the meeting of two cells -- out of the meeting of the two sex cells of man and woman. In a man there are sex cells of twenty-four genes and there are cells of twenty-three genes: there are two kinds of sex cells. In a woman there are only sex cells of twenty-four genes. When a man's twenty-four gene cell unites with a woman's twenty-four gene cell a girl is born. There are forty-eight genes. The weight is equal. The two pans of the balance are the same. And when a man's twenty-three gene cell unites with the twenty-four gene cell of the woman a man is born. One pan is lower,…
Why am I so afraid of women? And why am I so bored with my wife?
That interest is a pathological interest that has been created by repression. Once repression is taken away that interest will disappear. And then there is a natural feel -- which is not obsessive, which is not pathological. And whatsoever is natural is good. This interest in sex is unnatural. And the problem is: this is being created by the priest and by the politician, by the so-called MAHATMAS. They are the culprits. And they go on creating it, and they think they are helping humanity to go beyond sex. They are not! They are throwing humanity into this whole mess. If you understand me rightly, then you will be surprised by the experience that you will go through in this commune. Soon you will find sex has become a natural phenomenon. And finally, as your meditations will deepen, as you will start meeting with each other's souls more and more,…
Osho! If a man does not find sexual fulfillment with his wife, he goes to other women. In doing so he feels guilty, because he receives all other comforts from his wife and wants her for all those things. When he feels guilty his mind becomes tense. What should he do so that his mind is not tense, or should he stop going elsewhere for his sexual satisfaction?
Notice this: a naked woman will not arouse you as much as a woman undressing will. Even if she is crude and awkward, her undressing will be more exciting than seeing the most beautiful woman already naked. When she is already naked, your imagination has no work to do. But when a woman slowly removes her clothes, one by one—this is the method of striptease and cabaret everywhere—your curiosity deepens: just one more, one more, one more... Nasruddin’s beloved bought a miniskirt. Modern, but a little shy. She said, “Look, Nasruddin, this skirt is so short, what if my underwear shows? Please check—can you see my underwear? Otherwise, if people see it, it will be vulgar.” Nasruddin looked. “No, it doesn’t show.” She bent a little more. “Now look. Now it doesn’t show?” “It doesn’t show.” She bent more. Nasruddin said, “Nothing shows.” She bent even more. Nasruddin said, “Absolutely…