I was just sitting here reading through posts and thinking ... what a HUGE group this is! EAs, PAs, multiple As ... It seems as though the faithful couples are a only SMALL group -- unfortunately, none of us here are in that group.

Is it because so many people have 2 working in the family and hours spent working seem to be longer than the hours spent enjoying family? Or is it because of email/cellphones/texting/internet etc it is so much easier for a WS to sneak around?

I don't get it. I am devistated beyond belief and ashamed that this happened to me --- I know you all have been there and know how it feels. But it just seems like every time I turn around, I am hearing of another BS. Sad, very very sad.

I am sorry to hear you also had to experience the pain of an affair. I just found out 3 weeks ago and we are on round 2 of coming out of an EA with the same woman. I was thinking about your question and I do blame technology for making affairs easier to hide and get into territory that is destrutive.
I am a SAHM and it happened to me. I feel my part in the affair was paying more attention to my children but my WH had his part in letting a neighborhood friendship get out of control. I found out due to cell phone records. I may have not found out if it was not for checking our usage history online as well as my husband accientally calling me from a lunch date he was having with the OW.

I also cannot believe how common affairs are within friends and family in my own personal circle. It actually happened to my parents. My dad divorced my mother and then his 2nd wife also had an affair but they worked through it.

I have warned friends that I wish I would have paid more attention to my spouse and would not have missed the obvious signs. I did not force him to fall him love with another woman but I did not make my marriage affair proof and for that I am regrettful.

I think all this stuff has been going on since pretty much the beginning of time. The only difference now is that we are hearing so much more about it. Thanks to things like the Internet, the whole world can be informed in just a few seconds.

I am hoping that this will change attitudes as a whole regarding cheating in marriage. It used to be a dirty little secret that everybody was too embarrased and squeamish to talk about. The cheaters *counted* on this attitude and it let them enjoy what they were doing in peace.

No more. I hope it becomes the norm to expose the cheaters and no longer protect them. Thanks to cable TV and the Internet, a lot can change. Most of all, the cheaters will have to run the very real risk of having the whole world know what they're doing. Hope they're okay with that - and if they're not, they can either knock off the cheating and lies and put that energy into their marriage OR get a divorce and just hit on every halfway attractive person they meet.

FH and CC, it is true that affairs happen A LOT. I think DrH says that something like 80% of marriages deal with infidelity. That seems like a low number to me ALL of the marriages in my family and WH's family had infidelity in them.

I believe that EA's have been on the rise due to the internet. I KNOW that affairs have happened throughout time. Just read about anyone in history, you will find A LOT of affairs and OC.

I also hope that people will find it the norm to "out" affairs and NOT condone them. I like what some of the people in the media are saying about Tiger and Jesse. I think it is perfect timing.

We live in a culture where stinky barnyard movies like Bridges of Madison County are glorified and romanticized by a mindless culture. I was raised by amoral hippies and I remember thinking that was such a romantic movie. Since I figured out right from wrong, I see the movie for what it really is: 2 disgusting pigs rutting in the pig pen. How devastating it would be to find out your own mother was skankho just after her funeral. [her children found the evidence of her filthy adultery when they were cleaning out her bedroom after death]

I don't doubt that many people think that is a romantic movie because of degenerate moral conditioning.

Ya know.....I have never seen that movie.

I SO AGREE with this. So many folks think it is "mature" to aide and abet adultery by keeping it a secret. People say they don't want to tell the betrayed spouse because they "don't want to hurt them." Only a wayward mind could have ever come up with that loony logic.

Can you imagine using that logic as an excuse to not tell your neighbor his bookkeeper was embezzzling money frm him? That would be a LAUGHABLE excuse to not warn someone they were being harmed behind their backs. But for some reason we accept that when it comes to a much greater crime, adultery.

Much of how we handle the discovery of affairs SERVES ADULTERY rather than harms it. If more folks would use their thinking caps and start exposing it everywhere, there would be much less adultery in the world.

I, for one, will never be an adultery enabler. My middle name is HELL.

Hi Feeling,

I may be totally wrong, but No I do not think affairs are anywhere near the norm. My wife and I have been married for now almost 41 and 1/2 years. I never had an affair and she did last fall and this past early winter, but after all our years that was under unusual circumstances. We have been separated, not legally, but physically, as she has been in a nursing home for quite awhile now.

I have a lot of relatives, friends, and co-workers, and I'd really be surprised if even 20% at the most of those people I know have Ever had an affair.


I think it may seem like that is the norm. I do not believe it is. IF someone engages in an affair it is because they simply are so reckless, cheap and irresponsible so as to seel out their vows. I do not think that most people could even get close to subscribing to that, and if most people did we would not at all have a society. I honestly think that God would really intervene in that scenario.

Ya know what, I would not care if 98% of couples did engage in an affair. Only thing that is important to me is my own morals and that my wife is faithful to me now.

And further ya know what, I cannot imagine being an intruder into another marriage, and years later when my time comes, to be still unrepentent and gambling on the odds that on my deathbed that my God would at all forgive me.

If you are feeling down please do not. I honestly feel most marrieds are faithful.

Thanks for the topoic,

Tom

No, affairs are not the norm. It's just that, since we've offshored our textile industry, underware quality has gone to hell and it keeps falling off!

It will make you puke! IT is about this worn out old ho who gets it on with this photographer whenever her husband and sons go to the annual fair. And she ruts with the OM right in her own husband's bed. Sounds real romantic, huh?

2 pigs going at it in the pig pen.

I don't know if they are the norm, but they are rancid. I think we have al become "so open minded that our brains leak out." We are so morally hip and PC and you're-okay-I'm-okay....who cares what we do with our hearts, minds, and bodies?? I mean if there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong, then why not? Feels good? I'm in. Until we start calling a spade a spade, I don't know that it will change. It's time to start standing up and saying, "this is crappy and wrong and inexcusable, and it shouldn't be happening!"

Okay, sorry about that, but I am sick of people who are DOING RIGHT being intimidated by people who are DOING WRONG.

Well, if you say I should watch it, I will. I have some more weight to lose and all of the will help with that. HEHEHEHEHEHE /sarcasm

Hi scot,

I do not believe 80% at all. In that back of my mind is the possibilty that I am a fool. I have never had an affair, so I guess then I would have to assume I am the nice guy or fool.

Scot, simply God would not allow that! Period. If I can't trust Him thru the new testament, then I am a fool, but I do not care.

When i was age 20 and in the seminary and at that time I wanted to be a priest, I heard this stupid speech before summer vacation about guys 'keep it in your pants'. I had a gf and I didn't. Simply that, and I realized more than anything else at that time that I wanted a wife and a family. Yea, I loved the sex but I did not meet my wife until a few years later, and by then I was wondering if God had sort of given up on me for Not being his priest and wantign earthly love. I have honestly felt guilt about that for quite awhile, but not such that I do not love and apprecaite that He has given me what I needed...that is Char!

This is the last thing I will say on this. We can all control our emotions and our desires - we truely can. Yah Mai Mai you can get cute and be sort of obtuse, and yes guys like sex but most guys including me want true love.

Tom

I think Luroosi2 post is right on....A lot of people these days believe that they DESERVE to be happy...Whatever "happy" is...Contentment is not enough.

And having an Affair is the easy way out. Sacrificing for your family, well thats out the window. Very few people even know what that word means anymore. WORKING on your marriage to make it happy...Well that is just too hard, why bother when you can find someone else and start over. If I dont like your job, well quit...so what if you are supporting a family, you DESERVE to be happy.

Your wife and son love and miss you at home...So what, you deserve to be "happy"...Whatever the expense is, even if its your families. If being home with a loving family doesnt make you happy, because your spouse isnt meeting your needs, its not worth the work of even just TELLING them....Just find someone new, and dont get a divorce until you have done everything in your power to Force your spouse to do it.

Lie, cheat, whatever means it takes to find that "happiness". Sorry, rant over.

MelodyHellLane?

I also thought that very same question many times. My entire family is filled with affairs and wife swaps .. and tons of resentment towards one another. My wife and I are the only couple that have been together for as long as we have (in either of our families) and not had any affairs except possibly on the verge of EA but it was thwarted and nullified once it was identified. We were determined NOT to be a statistic. I dont think i can mention one couple in my family that didnt PA at one point or another. Its sad. Large family gatherings are none existant because of build up resentment towards one another. *sighs*

edit for spelling ... i suck at spelling lol

I couldn't find the other parts I am remembering and they may have been from other posters about stats on other sites. This shows that it is MORE rather than LESS. Like I also said, every marriage in my family and my WH's family have had infidelity in them. I believe it is due to poor boundaries and IB. That is the MAIN reason for affairs, POOR BOUNDARIES. NOT anything that a BS did. The status of a marriage pre-A was that way for BOTH spouses in MOST cases and usually one ONE of the spouses has an affair. I wasn't ECSTATIC in my marriage, but my EP's and PB led me to NOT have an affair. Could I have? Sure. But I didn't.

All of the above and no one is ever taught boundaries anymore. No boundaries and there is no reason not to cheat, after all, we all deserve complete and total happiness without the encumbrances of real life, no?

Melody Hell Lane, gotta ring to it and I live with someone who might have at one time agreed that it was a perfect name for you.