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Extramarital affairs can devastate marriages, families, careers and political ambitions. Popular media are full of instances of celebrity and elite couples breaking up after adultery is discovered. In the United States, estimates suggest that one-third of marriages survive extramarital affairs.
Extramarital affairs can impose serious emotional effects on spouses, children and other family members. File photo of a ring being placed on a finger. In particular, an extramarital affairs can result in psychological difficulties for the non-involved spouse along with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder including damaged self-esteem, confusion, depression, nightmares, disassociation from reality and a compromised sense of confidence.
Throughout history, especially in traditional and religious communities, marriage and the sexual behavior of men and women were proscribed within culturally acceptable norms and rules of behaviour. Modern lifestyles are eroding those customs. In particular, technology — the internet, mobile phone messaging and cameras, social networking and pornographic websites — allows people to observe one another and interact, often clandestinely, more than ever before. One study reported on how social networks encourage users to connect with new people and reconnect with old partners, which in turn facilitates adultery.
Extramarital dating and adultery websites have proliferated worldwide. One website reports more than 30 million users in more than 15 countries. Such websites permit individuals to meet online, browse profile photos, list interests, specify desired characteristics and check potential partners in advance before identifying discreet locations for a meeting. Social-networking technology also permits individuals in conservative societies to directly and privately observe new patterns of marital and sexual behavior.
Some men and women, especially younger adults, consider trying out the lifestyles of other countries, including sex before marriage, cohabitation and even adultery. In the United States, for example, infidelity reported among presidents during the 20th century, including Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, emerged after the men had died.
Both genders cheated at similar levels, the survey revealed: People who had cheated were about half as likely to be religious than non-cheaters, and slightly more likely to be employed. Unsurprisingly, cheating was also associated with unhappy relationships. But most important of all were the participants' sexual personalities.
Men who reported that they easily became sexually excited were more likely to cheat. For every unit increase in sexual excitability , propensity to stray went up 4 percent. Women's sexual excitability wasn't related to cheating, though their relationship satisfaction was. Being unhappy in a relationship or feeling incompatible with a partner increased the likelihood that a woman would cheat by between 2. For both men and women, fear of sexual consequences and anxiety about sexual performance influenced infidelity.
When people had little concern about the consequences of sex — including pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and being caught Tweeting pictures of your crotch to strangers — they were more likely to step out on their partner. One unit of increase in concern on this scale made women 13 percent less likely to cheat and men 7 percent less likely to cheat. A Newsweek article notes, "Nearly 60 percent of American women work outside the home, up from about 40 percent in Quite simply, women intersect with more people during the day than they used to. They go to more meetings, take more business trips and, presumably, participate more in flirtatious water-cooler chatter.
According to Debra Laino in an article for Shave , some of the reasons women cheat at the workplace are because "women are disproportionately exposed to men in the workplace, and, as a direct consequence, many have more options and chances to cheat. Some studies suggest that only a small percentage of couples that experience infidelity actually improve their relationship, whereas others report couples having surprisingly positive relationship outcomes.
The negative impact of infidelity on a relationship depends on how involved partners are in their infidelity relationship, and researchers maintain that infidelity itself does not cause divorce but the overall level of relationship satisfaction, motives for infidelity, level of conflict, and attitudes held about infidelity do.
If divorce results from infidelity, research suggest that the "faithful" spouse may experience feelings of low life satisfaction and self-esteem; they may also engage in future relationships fearful of the same incidence occurring. Those who are cheated on experience a great amount of anxiety, stress and depression. People experiencing those emotions because of an infidelity are more likely to engage in activities that are a health risk, such as depriving themselves of food, consuming alcohol or using drugs more often, increased sexual activity, having sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or over-exercising.
Women felt more emotional distress than men and were more likely to blame themselves than men were. Marriage counseling is generally provided by licensed therapists or clinical psychologists known as couple, marriage, or family therapists see family therapy and emotionally focused therapy. These therapists provide the same mental health services as other therapists, but with a specific focus — a couple's relationship.
Relationship counseling typically brings partners together for joint sessions. The counselor or therapist helps couples pinpoint and understand the sources of their conflicts and try to resolve them.
Partners evaluate both the good and bad parts of their relationship. Integrative behavioral couples therapy has shown success in increasing intimacy after an affair. Swinging is a form of extradyadic sex where married couples exchange partners with each other. Swinging was originally called "wife-swapping", but due to the sexist connotations and the fact that many wives were willing to swap partners, "mate swapping" and or "swinging" was substituted.
Swinging can be closed or open, where couples meet and each pair goes off to a separate room or they have sex in the same room. According to Henshel , the initiation into the world of swinging usually is done by the husband. Reasons for getting involved in swinging are the variety of sexual partners and experiences, pleasure or excitement, meeting new people, and voyeurism.
Another form of extradyadic sex is polyamory , a "non-possessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously". One type of group relationship can be a triad involving a married couple and an additional person who all share sexual intimacy, however it is usually an addition of a female. Polyamorous relationships are distinguished from extramarital affairs by the full disclosure and consent of all involved. Because both men and women can have multiple partners, these individuals do not consider themselves to be either uncommitted or unfaithful.
Evolutionary researchers have suggested that men and women have innate mechanisms that contribute to why they become sexually jealous, especially for certain types of infidelity. It has been hypothesized that heterosexual men have developed an innate psychological mechanism that responds to the threat of sexual infidelity more than emotional infidelity, and vice versa for heterosexual women.
For one researcher, Symons , sexual jealously is the major cause that homosexual men are supposedly unsuccessful in maintaining monogamous relationships. Peplau and Cochran found that sexual exclusivity was much more important to heterosexual men and women compared to homosexual men and women. This theory suggests that it is not sexuality that may lead to differences but that people are prone to jealousy in domains that are especially important to them. A study done by Harris tested these hypotheses among individuals, 48 homosexual women, 50 homosexual men, 40 heterosexual women, and 49 heterosexual men.
Heterosexuals rated emotional and sexual infidelity as more emotionally distressing than lesbian and gay individuals did. Sex and sexual orientation differences emerged regarding the degree to which specific emotions were reported in response to sexual and emotional infidelity. Few researchers have explored the influence of sexual orientation on which type of infidelity is viewed as more distressing. Summarizing the findings from these studies, heterosexual men seem to be more distressed by sexual infidelity than heterosexual women, lesbian women, and gay men.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about marital infidelity. For religious infidelity, see infidel. Therapeutic Dilemmas and Effective Strategies.
In general, men are more likely than women to cheat, but the gender gap spouse, and men born in the s and s have a higher rate. 35% of men and women admit to cheating while on a business trip. 9% of men admit they might have an affair to get back at a spouse. 14% of.
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