Our 18th anniversary is in a couple of weeks. <P>Never. Her or me. <P>If something is wrong, it is wrong even if everyone does it.<P>If something is right, it is right even if nobody does it.<P>Tell your husband that.

Faithful here too. 20 years+<P>------------------<BR>Prayers & God Bless!<BR>Chris<BR>For relationship info check out <A HREF="http://www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html" TARGET=_blank>Marriage & Relationship Resources</A>

Count me in. I have been faithful, to my W for our 24 years of Marriage.<P>JL

Count me too. Married 13 years. I have always followed the practice of staying away from situations (i.e. lunch alone with co-worker, giving advice to friends, etc.) that could potentially allow feelings to grow. I agree with the others that your husband is trying to get your focus off of him.

100% Faithful for 14 years...and counting.<P>Arrow

I am not a preacher or anything other than just a plain old average everyday ordinary kind of guy and I have NEVER (repeat) NEVER been unfaithful to any of the women I have had relationships with. It's just plain wrong to be unfaithful to a person that you have committed yourself too, even if you have'nt "officially" taken vows. Cheating is wrong, it's selfish and it hurts.<BR>...........Semper Fi........(ALWAYS FAITHFUL)

Could you please tell me what EA/PA stands for and any other abbreviatons similar? <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TomH:<BR><B>While I have to admit there have been times when I've "lusted in my heart" ala Jimmy Carter, I can honestly say that I've never had an EA/PA in twenty years of marriage.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>

EA= emotional affair<BR>PA=physical affair<P>Hey, it took me awhile to figure it out, too

Ahhh thenewbie... if only I had the e-mails to prove your undying faithfulness. Can we say EA?

16 years and never unfaithful (9 years together and 7 years married). I like to think that I have some sort of in-built reflex that triggers immediately when I'm in danger of doing something I shouldn't. I have never been to close either though.<P>Sorry to say that my wife doesn't seem to have the same reflex. Or maybe the trigger has stopped working?<P>scandinavian

For jarvislee...<P>Check out ===> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum29/HTML/000008.html" TARGET=_blank>Acronyms, Smilies, UBB Codes</A><P> <P>Jim

Count me in as never having ventured outside the marrital bed. I will admitt to lusting after a few women but I was never willing to pay the tab of infidelity. I have been chaste now for 7 months and will also admitt to needing/wanting to get "my ashes hauled." <P>Bill<P>------------------<BR>BB<BR>

I don't think we could generalize <I>all</I> men being unfaithful anymore than we could generalize <I>all</I> women being unfaithful, but I will say that infidelity is very, very common. I don't know if this says something about the overall <I>moral decay</I> of our society, but I do feel that it speaks volumes about how most people are completely ill-prepared to maintain a successful marriage.<P>Think about it, natuarally on this site there's going to be a large number of faithful <I>betrayed</I> married men and women. People here are trying to rebuild marriages. But, the result might be very different if we issued an anonymous survey say in a <I>Hooters</I>, a strip club, a golf course, or even just any sports bar at happy hour on a friday night.

MrsRabull,<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>i was the *bad* one, it hurt him, promised not to do it again and i'm trying my hardest not to do it again, but he's not making it easy either.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>How is he going to influence you into having an affair or not?<P>------------------<BR>Prayers & God Bless!<BR>Chris<BR>For relationship info check out <A HREF="http://www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html" TARGET=_blank>Marriage & Relationship Resources</A>

No, all men are not unfaithful. <P>I have been tempted daily, had many opportunities, had explicit offers, yet have remained faithful. We will have been married 24 years in June 2000.

I'm back in town and have finally settled down to read your postings. I'll talk to my husband tonight. Oddly enough, it gave me a lot of encouragement to see so many men wanting to be true to their commitments. Thanks for all of your posts. Peace lover.

We have been married 15 years and I have been 100% faithful the whole time. Yes, I have flirted and I have been tempted, but I have never seriously considered going outside my marriage.<P>The statistics for North America are 60% of men cheat at least once duing their marriage and 45% of women cheat at least once. The percentage for women is rising. In some cultures some men are pressured to feel they have to cheat to be a "real" man. In such countries the percentage of male cheaters may be higher, or men simply boast of it to feel like one of the guys. All these statistics should be taken with a grain of salt as they rely upon self-reporting and are therefore subject to exageration or denial.<P>Kenneth

<BR>Kenneth,<P>That 60% of men, 45% of women statistic is widely cited, and some (e.g., Peggy Vaughn) suggest that its too conservative. But there are problems with it, too, as you note. One of the biggest is self-reporting bias.<P>That said, the General Social Survey is IMO a very good instrument for studying extramarital sexual conduct. And here the data paint a far different picture: while infidelity rates are rising, especially among women, they are nowhere near the 50% mark. Take a look here:<BR> <A HREF="http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/GSS99/codebook/evstray.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/GSS99/codebook/evstray.htm</A> <P>Which puts the rate of an individual (not broken down by gender, I admit) *ever* having had extramarital sex at about 18.6% for 1996 (i.e., 369/[369+1618]).<P>This lower statistic seems to dovetail with another argument I've had against that "60% men, 40% women" thing. Elsewhere, self reports in the General Social Survey indicate an annual infidelity rate of about 2%. If that's correct, then we'd expect the mean length of marriage to be be log((1.6+1.4)/2)/log(1.02) or about 21 years. If the 18% or so is more accurate, we'd expect the mean length of marriage to be log(1.18)/log(1.02) or about 7 years. With divorce rates as high as they are, I'm having trouble believing that the mean length of marriage is 21 years. As a result, I'm having trouble buying into that 60% of men, 40% of women thing.<P>Bystander

I'm with Peggy Vaughan. I think if anything the 60/40% numbers are <I>conservative</I>. No, I don't have any concrete methods for my deduction, but I base this on several observations. 1) The vast majority of people are totally unprepared about how to maintain a successful marriage. Several years ago when I found this site I was knocked for a loop at all the things H and I did wrong! So, if more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, then I bet a good many of those marriages that end have encountered infidelity. Very few people have the insight (or guts) to leave a troubled marriage until they have someone else to run to (or at least the prospect of someone else). I think it's just human nature. People often rebound from one relationship to the next. And 2) I <I>see</I> infidelity almost everywhere I go and amongst so many friends, acquaintances and co-workers. I see countless overt flirting, spouses hiding and outright lying to each other, etc. It's literally <B>everywhere</B>.<P>Unless I'm living within a bubble, this has to be a reflection of society at large.

new woman,<BR><BR>Maybe you're in a bubble, or I'm in a cave. Of all my friends, relatives, and acquaintances, I can count only a handful of marriages that have been affected by infidelity. Its absolutely devastating when it happens, but I don't see anywhere near the 60% mark.<BR><BR>I agree that a lot of people don't know the first thing about being in a relationship, though. That's fixable, fortunately!<BR><BR>Bystander