Going inside infidelity.

                               Types of Infidelity and Much More

 

I attended a workshop on infidelity at the Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia at their annual Social Work Conference a few years ago. 

Dr. Frank Pittman, M.D. and a Psychiatrist spoke on this topic.  His focus left me with a lot of thoughts about this area.  Some of these are included in this brief article today. 

Infidelity happens, he stated for many reasons.  A huge percentage of divorces have seen infidelity by one or more partners.  One report stated that 90 % of all marriages that end in divorce involves infidelity. 

According to Dr. Pittman, there are seven myths of infidelity.  They are:

1)  Having an affair will improve my marriage

2)  If there is an affair, this means that one doesn't love his wife

3)  The affair partner must be sexier and more beaufiful

4)  Everybody does it, it is normal and natural to be unfaithful

5)  The cuckhold causes it to happen

6)  The belief that there is safety in keeping a secret

7)  If infidelity is revealed a divorce is inevitable

Everyone does not cheat on their wives or vice versa.  There is a big percentage of marriages that this does not happen in.  Fifty percent of all marriages are fidelic.

This is an example of overgeneralization in order to justify  cheating.  There is no solid evidence that having an affair will improve the marriage. 

Actually the secret of the affair is what seems to destroy the marriage not the crisis that is created by the affair itself. 

What the affair is about seems to be an attempt to keep oneself from getting close to one's spouse. I read somewhere a long time ago that many of us are afraid if we give up to much in a relationship, we will simply disappear. There is a fear of intimacy and what a person might loose by it.  There is little evidence also to support the claim that you have to have an affair because you do not love your wife. 

Infidelity has little to do with whether one loves their mate or not.  Many times the affairee is not sexier or better looking than the spouse.  It is the secret of adventure that is the big item here.  Affairs are not just about sex.  Most of the time people spend in affairs is not with each other.  It is spent arranging to meet each other.

The spouse does not cause the affair to happen. Many times the husband may say the wife made him do it or drove him to it.  Actually these people convince themselves that it is the other partner's fault.  This is not true . 

The best way to save the marriage is to come clean and by that I mean a complete disclosure of what is going on.  However, I do feel that are are times when this is not advisable.  If a person's life is in danger then by no means should the secret be let out.  And yes in this case, this will make things difficult in a marriage if you decide to save it. There is considerable evidence to suggest that once the affair is revealed, the marriage can survive if the couples are committed. 

There are four kinds of infidelity.  They are those that occur at random, those that are caused by philandering, those that happen when people are stuck and are afraid to stay in or get out, and the accidental ones.  To clarify the accidental ones, I will simple say this.  Sometimes people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They are weak for whatever reason and might be away from home, at a party and might have had to much to drink.  They find themselves in a compromising position with a member of the opposite sex and wind up in bed. These are what we usually call one nighters.  These people many times awake the next morning and feel horrible for what they have done.

Society has seduced males into thinking that it is okay and normal to cheat.  We are bombarded night after night on television that this is acceptable.The 60s revolution taught us that sex is good and to get all you can of it.  It is certainly no different today.  We are taught that biological needs should be met and just don't worry about the consequences. I feel that rape, incest, and other types of sexual perversions are sometimes the result of this mind set. 

I have been made keenly aware of what the media particularly television has done to reinforce some of these notions.  You can not even turn on the tv on any night anymore that you don't see countless reality shows trumphing the causes.  For example many of the shows use their entire plot for males or females to entice each other into sexual acts.  These have an effect on the singles as well as the marrieds. And the worse of these shows appears to still be the Jerry Springer Show.

So for this brief article, we have explored some of the myths of this social problem.  I would challenge anyone that is inquisitive about this topic to become challenged and read more about this area.  If anyone reading this today is thinking of crossing this line, a good question for you might be why am I trying to distance myself from intimacy with my wife or husband.