Great Article on Straying Spouses....
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| Thu, 12-02-2004 - 4:45pm |
Why Spouses Stray
Quick, answer this question with the first thing that comes to mind: If you were worried that your spouse might stray, what would you do to prevent it? Maybe your knee-jerk response is: "I'd lose 20 pounds and upgrade my wardrobe." Or, "I would shower my spouse with expensive gifts." Or, "I would be extra attentive to my spouse so she would realize how good she has it." If your answer resembled any of those above, bad news: you're on the wrong track. According to Los Angeles-based psychotherapist Morrie Shechtman, you've bought into a common misconception about what causes affairs in the first place.
"Most people assume that people have affairs with someone more attractive, sexier, or richer than their spouse," says Shechtman, coauthor along with his wife and business partner, Arleah, of Love in the Present Tense: How to Have a High Intimacy, Low Maintenance Marriage (Bull Publishing Company, 2004). "Despite the cliches -- the midlife crisis situation where the husband runs off with his much younger secretary, for instance -- that's not what infidelity is about. People who cheat generally choose someone busier and more goal-oriented than their current partner. Someone more interesting, in other words."
"You have to keep reminding him how lucky he is to have you," says Sherry Argov, author of Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl: A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship (Adams Media Corporation, 2002). "All the propaganda in the world tells us 'keep your man,' 'hold on to your man,' 'jump through hoops for your man,' but your attitude should be 'If you want to go, I'll help you pack'...Healthy mutual respect is the best immune system in a relationship."
"That's right," adds Shechtman. He says that the harsh truth is that when one spouse strays, it's probably because the other spouse has become, well...boring. So, focusing on your appearance or attempting to please your partner completely misses the point.
5 Warning Signs
Shechtman offers the following warning signs that your marriage may be ripe for an affair:
1. You don't challenge each other. Unconditional acceptance is a myth. Healthy marriages require a mutual willingness to challenge and be challenged. An "Oh, I'll let the little woman do whatever makes her happy" attitude can be condescending and harmful. If your partner lounges around in her bathrobe watching TV every day and you say nothing, then you're not invested in her well-being. Maybe she's depressed. Maybe she's sick. Maybe she's succumbing to laziness. Regardless, the message that she gets loud and clear from your silence is that you don't care. Not only do you have the right to make reasonable demands on your partner, you have the obligation to do so.
2. You and your partner have become an amoeba. Getting married does not mean morphing into a single person with the same interests, hobbies, and friends. If you and your spouse do everything together, something's wrong. "If your partner is not allowed to have a life of her own, she will eventually become resentful," says Shechtman. "Similarly, if you're over-interested in her life, wanting to know or be involved in every detail, she will feel intruded upon and smothered. True intimacy requires two people having independent lives, not two people living through each other. The best marriages are low-maintenance marriages."
3. One person selflessly lives for the other. Shechtman likes to tell the story of Bernard, a heart surgeon, and Stacy, the wife who selflessly devoted herself to him. She supported him through medical school. She stayed home and raised his kids. She prepared gourmet meals for him, often complete with heart-shaped ice cubes. And one day Bernard left Stacy for a disheveled photojournalist, two years his senior, who chastised him for stealing a cab she'd just hailed. Why? Because the photojournalist was interesting. "Selfless devotion is boring," says Shechtman. "Bernard could have hired a housekeeper and a caterer. Gratitude for services rendered is no replacement for a stimulating partner. And by failing to cultivate a life of her own, Stacy deprived Bernard of that."
"Having a life of your own is important," says Argov. "When you have your own sense of income and independence, and feel that you can be with or without him, he will smell it and he'll treat you differently."
4. Everything centers on your children. It's easy to succumb to the temptation to make your kids the center of the universe. Don't. For too many parents, running kids to and from soccer practice, dance lessons, and weekend parties becomes an insidious dance of intimacy avoidance.
"Even with young kids, a couple must take private time for themselves," says Pepper Schwartz, PhD, author of five books on love and relationships, and professor of sociology at the University of Washington. "Make a rule that you don't talk about the kids until you download your adult issues and experiences for the day together. Keep kid talk out of the bedroom."
5. You don't have meaningful conversations with your spouse. Does the question, "How was your day?" unleash a monologue, a laundry list of activities, or a cacophony of complaints from you or your partner? If so, you're missing the point of communication.
"Talk to him in a playful way," says Argov. "Banter with him. Be a little sassy and keep it short and sweet. Save the emotional talk for things that are very important to you, and let the rest go -- because when you do raise hell, he has to believe there's merit to it."
Quality communication is the heart of intimacy. (And you thought it was sex!) If you're confused about what constitutes a high-intimacy dialogue, here's a clue: it centers on feelings, not information. "Instead of merely reporting to your partner what happened to you that day, tell her how it made you feel," says Shechtman. "Even if you have only 10 minutes a day to talk to her, make those 10 minutes count."
Affair-Proof Your Marriage
Most of these warning signs are variations on a common theme: abandonment. If you don't care enough to become an interesting partner, if you don't challenge your spouse to be all he or she can be, if you fail to connect with your partner emotionally, you might as well be an uninterested roommate. Abandoning your spouse is the first step to checking out of the relationship.
So what can you do to affair-proof your marriage? The answer can be summed up in three little words, says Shechtman: Get a life.
"Have your own friends," says Dr. Schwartz. "Have a job and hobbies you really care about. Don't cancel everything on the spot just because your partner wants you for something -- show that you have boundaries, commitments, and don't just exist for him. Read, read, read! And then talk about books, articles, movies, and news together. Develop an adventurous relationship based on trips, projects, and hobbies."
"Set goals and work toward them," Shechtman urges. "Immerse yourself in a career or activity that interests you. Don't just hop from one random activity to another. Have a vision of what you want your life to be and do something every day in pursuit of that vision. Take some risks. And challenge your spouse to do the same. Even if it causes some temporary discomfort, remember that a healthy marriage isn't about comfort zones and status quos. If you settle for comfort, your marriage will die."
"This is not the '50s anymore," says Argov. "Men tend to view women who don't have goals and objectives as being deadbeat. When they're going to work everyday and pulling all the weight in the relationship, they really begin to resent it when you don't make a contribution."
"There's one other point I would make," Shechtman adds. "Create a rich, rewarding life for yourself and if your spouse did have an affair and ultimately leave you, you would be well-equipped to cope. Interesting people just have more resources, be they money, social connections, or potential new romantic partners. There are no guarantees in marriage. The only person you can count on to always be there is you. Being abandoned by a spouse is far preferable to abandoning yourself."
--Additional reporting by Chandni Jhunjhunwala

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I LOVED this statement Candi. I couldn't agree more.
I have no concerns with Jason and I. I know that we'll stick through it, get help if/when needed and we'll make it (incidentally things have been much much better. Not holding my breath, but we've been communicating well and working together with our marriage and our parenting style. I feel very encouraged!)
This article irritated me because it suggested that if your spouse strays, you might have had something to do with it.
Holding up my BS CARD here!!!!
IF my spouse is bored with me, IF he feels unsatisfied, IF he feels unstimulated he should....TALK TO ME. Yes, I have a responsibility to be a great wife, as he does a great husband. But I don't appreciate the suggestion that infiedelity MIGHT be understandable. If your marriage is THAT bad and that unworkable, be a grown up and get a divorce. That's not the route for me. But if your marriage isn't what you need/want it to be, don't be a slime and cheat. And don't expect anyone to feel sorry for you and be understanding of your indescretion.
Ok, enough ranting from me. I am starting to get a little riled up and I am, after all, at work. ;)
I'm a scorpion, I have to have sex, because my drive is very high and I am not ashamed to say, that I have my little black book with the same person the last 4yrs in the times of a very DRY spell.
We never had intimacy/closeness in our marriage, and we had infrequent sex from the beginning. I was wrong to think I could live without those things, simply because he was the first 'nice' guy I had been with. I put getting my college degree first, and then having a baby, and then one day the good job and the wonderful child were not enough to cover up the fact that my marriage was awful. From the beginning I had to ask for sex, but it didn't matter, if he wasn't ready it wasn't going to happen. And then when he was ready I had to 'dress up' in something silky or lacy. No cotton allowed. All that jumping through hoops for bad sex. Ugh. I don't know what I was ever thinking.
Edited to add: And the affair did nothing to help my situation, it only made things worse.
Edited 12/3/2004 11:48 am ET ET by firstamendment
Realistically? Does having an affair or your partner having an affair ever solve anything or make it better? No, either way, we as women feel dirty no matter on what end of the stick.
I can relate to the lace and silk crap. Though I like to wear it, I am not the type of person to run around in it all day. And all the straps and buttons are just getting torn off anyway. What's the use? I just wear it under my work clothes because it makes me feel sexy. Not for some guy.
I really appreciate that while you give reasons the marriage wasn't workable, you don't excuse your affair. And you say upfront that it was NOT the way to handle things. That's a very healthy attitude. Lots of people excuse their own behavior away while telling what their spouse did wrong.
That shows a lot of insight.
I agree with you and I posted this article for the soul purpose of getting the real reactions of people and I knew I'd get real one's here. I think it was interesting to read what this person thought of why people stray. It did indeed seem to display a lot of fault towards the woman and it being her responsibilty to keep her man intersted. Sure we need to keep him interested and he also has that responsibility to us. If Shane became boring and it got to the point where I was ready to leave over it, I'd talk to him first and see how committed he was to fixing the problem. THAT is my responsibility...to communicate with him what I'm feeling.
As for the "meaningful" conversations the author said we should have after work, well trash that. Shane and I are doing fine with, "How was your day?" and letting each other elaborate as much as we wish on that. He may not want to rehash his day to me and I may not want to hear about it. If they sold a bunch of cars, I want to hear that because I know he had a successful day and is tired for a good reason. If he's stressed and NEEDS to talk, I'm here. But otherwise, I leave him alone to relax and be quiet for a while until he feels up to talking. And trying to talk about how our day made us "feel". How lame is that? I'm a girl and think that's stupid! Imagine how a man would feel!!
Mel
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Are pisces normally sexually driven? I'm a pisces and I certainly want it ALL THE TIME!
I was starved too in my first marriage. Of course, part of it was that I wanted it to be good and he wanted to be boring in bed and never change a thing.
Hey, you go girl with the dry spell buddy. Sometimes, that's all we need.
Mel
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