When I was young and had struggles with my "yetzer hara" - sexual impulse, I was fascinated by the Jewish attitude towards that impulse. God created this impulse for a purpose. It is meant to push people to get married and have children, and later to strengthen the love-bonds between husband and wife. This impulse is a very strong and important tool; we should keep safe and use it at the right time and place. This idea greatly helped me live through the hormonal years of the youth.
Now, thank God, I am married. I love my wife and I use the physical impulse for the purpose it was created for. But... I still have impulse towards other women. I do not understand why this impulse is needed? Why did God create it? Apparently it does not serve any good purpose. I ask because I want to cope with it better, and the best way to cope with something is to know what it is really there for.
EDIT: Although hillel's answer is good, it is too general. Our sages explicitly say that the physical attraction is there, not only to give us a spiritual challenge to overcome, but also to push us to build the world (they say that, when the sages of "knesset hagdola" canceled this attraction, they could not find a fresh egg... so they had to bring it back, see Yoma 69b). I would very much appreciate an answer in this spirit.
Answer
UPDATE
The question was edited to add the reference to the fact that when the Yetzer Hara was totaly eliminated, chickens stopped laying eggs. This means that the general concept of "lust" means that there is a desire to actually do or accomplish. This means that without the drive that we have, people cannot accomplish anything in this world. If we never felt hungry, we would starve to death. Thus, without the "lust" that we feel, we would never get married in the first place. An example can be see in the writings of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as shown in the example that I linked.
Original This is discussed in many areas for example, Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler in Michtav Me'Eliyahu in Kuntras Habechirah, (Michtav MaEliyahu, Vol. 1, page 111-119) explains that everybody is given free will in order to be able to raise himself to whatever level that he is capable of reaching. If a person was only attracted to one person, they would not be able to resist behaving inappropriately nor would it be a matter of free will. Similarly, if one "mated for life" and never felt any attraction to another, we would be no more than animals in this respect and would not deserve reward or punishment.
While this is one of the greatest tests, it is still no different (in essence) than feeling a desire for non-kosher food.
See also Michtav Me'Eliyahu as well as
One well known idea of his, expounded on in Michtav me-Eliyahu, is the Nekudas Habechira (point of free will). He states that a man has one point in his service to G-d where he has to fight his evil inclination, while at other points there will be no struggle, for the levels below his Nekudas Habechira have already been conquered,and he will easily win those battles of will; whereas levels higher than his Nekudas Habechira are not yet within his grasp. (For example, someone who adheres to Orthodox Judaism will have no problem keeping kosher, but may sometimes be tempted to rely on unreliable kosher supervision, while somebody farther away from religious practice will have to struggle with whether to eat a ham sandwich (which is non-kosher regardless of supervision).) Each time one defeats the evil inclination by choosing to do good over evil, his Nekudas Habechira is raised a bit higher, and that choice will be easier for him to make in the future. Consequently, Man's task in life is to consistently raise his Nekudas Habechira, thus growing ever greater in his service of God.[1]
[1]Michtav me-Eliyahu vol. 1 pp. 113
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