I've read a couple of new (to me) books:<P>From<I>"Affair-Proof" Your Marriage</I> by Lana Staheli, Ph.D.<P>*Extramarital sex is a consistent feature in the history of humankind.<BR>*Nearly 60% of middle and upper income married couples will be affected by an extramarital affair.<BR>*Women are becoming as likely as men to have an affair.<BR>*Religion is not a deterrent to affairs.<BR>*The "in-love" sensation is caused by the increased production of an amphetamine-like chemical known as PEA. It creates an intense but temporary feeling.<BR>*Psychological needs play a role in affairs<BR>*Love affairs are different from sex affairs.<BR>*Men and wome have love affairs for the same reasons but sex affairs for different reasons.<BR>*Arround 15% of women and 25% of men have more than four affairs during their married life.<BR>*Most love affairs last between two and three years but some last a lifetime.<BR>*Fewer than 10% of affairees divorce their spouse, then marry their lover.<BR>*Nearly 80% of those who do divorce because of an affair are sorry later.<BR>*Over 75% of affair-marriages end in divorce.<BR>*For those marriages that survive affairs, recover takes between one and three years.<BR>*Getting rid of the spouse does not get rid of the pain.<BR>*Healing from a divorce takes about three years, children pay a high price, and many spouses remain bitter for decades.<BR>*Most marriages can survive an affair. If you want to stay married, you can.<P>Cali<p>[ October 13, 2001: Message edited by: JustPlainCali ]

Thanks Cali, I really needed to read that tonight. Feeling pretty low and not wanting to post, but had to let you know.<P>THANKS!

Cali..<P>Although these facts may be true, they are very disturbing to the life of the children involved when a marriage ends up in divorce. This is reason enough for all of us adults to stand up and be real with each other! AFFAIRS ARE WRONG! Its as simple as that! Anyone who tries to compromise their reason for having an affair are only lying to themselves and their families! COME ON PEOPLE! Wake up and be good to yourself, your family and most importantly the CHILDREN!<P>Bryan

Hey positivebryan...I am on your side...<P>From the same book:<P><I>There is no correlation between how children react to divorce initially and the amount of damage found ten years later. Children often suffer long-term damage from the reduction of their parents' resources: time, energy and money.<BR>Divorced parents spend less time with children, provide fewer educational opportunities and often look to the children for emotional support rather than providing it. Children from divorced families are less likely to complete college, often because fathers and mothers are unable or unwilling to pay for their tuition and support.<BR>Wallerstein and Blakeslee found that "Only one child in eight saw both parents recover from divorce in happy remarriage." The only children who seemed to benefit from divorce, according to their study, were those whose home life involved continual conflict or abuse.</I><P>Cali

Thank JPC,
It helps us who are struggling to make sense and rationalize our action ... as our WS rationalize theirs.<p>[ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: redhat ]</p>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by redhat:<BR><STRONG>Thank JPC,<BR>It helps us who are struggling to make sense and rationalize our action ... as our WS rationalize theirs.<P>Hadi</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>EXCELLENT point, Hadi! BS's are often "accused" of being just as much in a fog as our WS's....here is proof as to why! WE believe the A and resultant "fog" are a bad thing, and know instinctively that div. would be a worse thing, so hold onto hope that the WS will come back around when the fog clears! <P>This is great. Thanks, Cali!<P>Lupo

Ok, for balance I must point out a couple things. Btw cali, I bought and read that book too, and it seems to be a good book, is a clinical approach to understanding this stuff, and does not preach about what one "should" do.<P><BR>*Extramarital sex is a consistent feature in the history of humankind.<P>snl..which in simple terms means it is normal, no reason to dwell on guilt or morality, but rather why and what to do about it, which is my point all along re the occurence of an affair. There are very specific reasons for every single thing human beings do, we are finely tuned to SURVIVE or we would be extinct. Affairs clearly are an important survival mechanism for our species, the conclusion is inescapable, and actually makes very good sense.<P>*Nearly 60% of middle and upper income married couples will be affected by an extramarital affair.<BR>*Women are becoming as likely as men to have an affair.<P>snl...which suggests people are married to the wrong people in large numbers. Or are not ready to make a marital committment in the first place. Or that marriage itself (as we practice it) is not possible for our species.<P>*Religion is not a deterrent to affairs.<P>snl...which suggests it is not a moral issue at all.<P>*The "in-love" sensation is caused by the increased production of an amphetamine-like chemical known as PEA. It creates an intense but temporary feeling.<P>snl...I will cautiously buy that part of in-love is chemical. In fact everything we do and experience is chemical, we are a biochemical lifeform. BUT why do we produce these chemicals, what triggers them, and are they signals to encourage us to pursue and cleave to someone we have more of these in-love feelings for (frequency and duration).<P>*Psychological needs play a role in affairs<P>snl...Hooray, independent verification of fit.<P>*Love affairs are different from sex affairs.<P>snl.absolutely, one is about bonding for life, the other is about scratching an itch.<P>*Men and wome have love affairs for the same reasons but sex affairs for different reasons.<P>snl....I agree, I think a desire for what we call love is genetically programmed into us. Whereas sexual affairs arise out of character disorders, and is quite possible reflects differently by gender.<P>*Arround 15% of women and 25% of men have more than four affairs during their married life.<P>snl...That is astounnding, but not surprising. I have come to believe marriage material is a lot more scarce than people would like to think. Making it even more important that we do a much better job of education in mate selection, and make marriage much harder to enter.<P>*Most love affairs last between two and three years but some last a lifetime.<P>snl...Yeah, I know. But the why is critical isn't it.<P>*Fewer than 10% of affairees divorce their spouse, then marry their lover.<P>snl...Makes sense, due to the many reasons people experience affairs, the motivation it gives the bs to change the status quo favorably for the ws, and the unwillingness of humans (in general) to take big risks. The marriage you have might not be too great, but it is a roof, a hot meal, and sex on demand. Lots of people when confronted with losing that will settle for it. Survival is a very strong drive too, and it is in direct conflict with love in an affair situation, cause you essentially have to give up everything you have for an unknow future if you choose the lover. That is a high price, and the more you have, the harder it is to pay. Ya know, all this stuff is becoming clearer and clearer. Bottom line is we are all very "selfish" as we must be. And the reason people do not leave marriages is fear, they are flat out afraid to take the risk, so they make the best of what they have. <P>And that is ok, life is about choices, not taking the risk to better your psychological life in favor of your general well-being is a very legitimate choice. It is functionally the same choice one made when choosing to marry or not, or choosing to break-up with someone or not. I am curious about the paradigms behind the choices, the constraints that lead us to the choices. I have them too, on some levels I am loathe to leave my marriage, but I needed to understand why, why would I still choose something that does not work. I know why now, and I am in the process of destroying those paradigms and replacing them with new ones that work better in my estimation. <P>It is very hard to do, but if one cannot reprogram themself, one is stuck with the programming life handed you BEFORE you understood how life works. I think this is part of how willing one is to take risk, cause in the transition period one is very vulnerable, and it is a scarey place. But the rewards are great, more control over yourself, and where your life takes you by way of how and why you make choices. I am not going to settle for my marriage, I am going to choose it passionately, or end it, cause I think that is how life should be lived (for many reasons not relevant to this, and not specific to marriage).<P>*Nearly 80% of those who do divorce because of an affair are sorry later.<P>snl...Would be very interesting to know why, and what the criteria are for sorry. I suspect it is cause they did not do the work first. That is why I support MB principles (though I complain some about the philosophy of marriage), it forces you to do the work, and discover what exactly is going on inside you, your spouse, and the marriage. I suspect the 80% is mostly settlers, who made a bad trade cause they did not do their homework.<P>*Over 75% of affair-marriages end in divorce.<P>snl..That is in inevitable consequence of the above 80% figure.<P>*For those marriages that survive affairs, recover takes between one and three years.<P>snl...an empirical fact that makes intuitive sense given the psychological make-up of human beings.<P>*Getting rid of the spouse does not get rid of the pain.<P>snl...Sure it does, gets rid of any interpersonal component that was unhealthy, and people talk all the time here about coming alive (both bs and ws), depends on the quality of the marriage. Surely no one would think someone who left an abusive marriage isn't gonna be in less pain? But it does not solve the problems "inside" you, but that is just commonsense in these days of pop psychology.<P>*Healing from a divorce takes about three years, children pay a high price, and many spouses remain bitter for decades.<P>snl...Children pay a high price for lots of things, it is call reality, and we are all equipped to survive a reasonable range of duress from the experience, and divorce is reasonable (normal) in the human condition. There is no particular reason to single out that stress as any better or worse than the stresses of peer pressure, unreasonable parental expectations, death of a parent, addictive parents, sibling rivalry, and a whole host of failures in meeting the unique special psychological needs of each of us as children, and what that means if we are not raised perfectly. As adults we are expected to understand the limits and parameters of our berhaviour, rewrite our internal paradigms in ways we choose for our adult lives, and move on. Those who cannot do that suffer accordingly, it is how survival of the fittest works. We should do the best we can obviously as parents and as a society to raise healthy children. But I do not think it is particularly healthy to stay in a marriage you do not want to be in, for the sake of the children. In any event that is a highly personal decision, although we all care about all the young of our species. No one really is going to sacrifice anything at all except for their own dna, and if they elect to divorce, they have allready decided their kids will survive the process. That spouses are often bitter bothers me, as does regular anger in a marriage. I am not able to be bitter never have been, or hold a grudge more than 5 minutes (and believe me I have really tried sometimes, just can't do it), so maybe I am missing something. But IMO a bitter spouse (long term) is proof positive they were not marriage material, and they considered their spouse property. I personally have zero interest in being married to anyone capable of that level of anger or bitterness, that is the antitheis of love, and makes a mockery of marriage.<P>*Most marriages can survive an affair. If you want to stay married, you can.<P>snl...And if you want to commit suicide you can? So? Agreed we all have the capacity to do stuff not in our best intersts, that is what makes us human. The ability to override feelings, instincts, whatever we want to call the inflexible programming all other lifeforms must follow. I approach this from a diametrically different viewpoint than many, I do not think marriage is important at all, I think people are. And to stay married simple cause one is married is insane, and violates every tenet of what being human is all about...CHOICES, to better yourself. An affair should be a time you reevaluate your life, BEFORE decideing to choose to remarry your spouse, and we need to teach people how to do that, so they don't make kneejerk choices to stay OR leave a marriage. Which once again is nothing more that who you chose to be an intimate partner, it is not the be all end all of life. There are others you can fit and fit well, afterall what happens if a spouse dies? Is life over? The most important outcome of an affair is all parties doing the work to fully understand who they are, and what they want, and acting on it. Life will go on, it always does, no matter what choices any of us make.<p>[ October 14, 2001: Message edited by: sad_n_lonely ]

Oh Lord [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img].....going to get the book today. Thanks for the info Cali [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Dear SNL: <P>Has anyone (preferably a therapist or counselor) every told you that you think too much? <P>I ask because I had fallen into the trap of trying to "over analyze" my H's affair and was given some wise advice (from a professional): to accept that some things are much more simplistic than what we try to make of them-- that some things simply don't have a good explanation.<P>Peace, ~Marie

yes marie, I keep that in mind, what are the simplistic things you have in mind? True, analysis without action is counter-productive, but I am taking action, significant action in concert with my thiniing. Here of course all one can do is talk, but I am aware that I will not be able to reach a definitive answer on all these things, and will have to make a leap of faith at some point. It might interest you though that what you see me going through here is exactly how I became a Christian and born again. I had grown up in methodist church, but rejected it as a nice fairy tale as a teenager, and became essentially an atheist, with agnostic leanings.... FENCE SITTER....but I did get off the fence, in my own way and my own time, after I proved to my satisfaction that God existed, and He was Christian. I will do the same (make a permanent choice) when I am ready re marriage....asssuming my w is still around, she has been issuing way too many ultimatums lately, even knowing such is counter-productive with me.... go figure.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>what are the simplistic things you have in mind? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Ok, I'll give you an example:<P>Here's a fact that Cali's post pointed out--<BR>*Religion is not a deterrent to affairs.<P>To which you replied: snl...which suggests it is not a moral issue at all.<P>WHOA! This is so "out there"-- so HUGE to comprehend-- would probably take months to analyze, debate, and defend this stance. BTW, I'm not saying I couldn't possibly entertain the idea or "see" your point-- just that this seems overly complicated.<P>The <B>simplistic </B>reason why religion is not a deterrent to affairs would be to acknowledge that a WS's religion didn't mesh with their "wants/needs" at the time, so therefore the WS "put aside" their beliefs. <P>Just an example. Thanks for your answer! ~Marie

Thanks Cali, I'm an engineer and hence a numbers guy. Now I'm going to see my member number too! [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img]

Cali,<P>I think I need to get the book...<P>Thanks for the stats.<BR>Artemis

Cali,<P>Thanks for the info.<P>snl, I agree you think to much. Don't try to analyze everything. Just take things as they come.

SNL - has it occurred to you that maybe your wife can no longer keep from giving you ultimatums? Maybe she is tired of waiting for you to get off the fence? As long as you are on the fence she is stuck up there with you. And it's damned uncomfortable!

to Cali - I think that was the first book I read, a day or so after DDay. Or maybe "After the Affair" they were both early. It helped me not feel like I had to make a decision right away, that it was ok to step back and make a good decision, not just react.<P>The thing about children really scares me. But my God is strong enough to help me parent them if I end up a single parent.<P>to snl: your posts are just too long... though you make good points. Just a few of your comments I want to respond to:<P>Cali/book: *Nearly 60% of middle and upper income married couples will be affected by an extramarital affair.<BR>*Women are becoming as likely as men to have an affair.<P>snl...which suggests people are married to the wrong people in large numbers. Or are not ready to make a marital committment in the first place. Or that marriage itself (as we practice it) is not possible for our species.<P>me: I don't agree that this is the case as much as you repeatedly claim, I think it is more that we don't know how to do it very well. We think infatuation is all we need and the rest will be instinctual. Just not the case. If we all had to be licensed to marry, there would be fewer divorces. <P>to Ohmymarie: Yeah, I find myself overanalyzing all the time too. A random comment and I wonder which of 58 meanings it might have!<P>from Marissa: "As long as you are on the fence she is stuck up there with you."<P>me: Wow that is a great way to describe it. I'm stuck on that fence too and it wasn't my choice. I am becoming a better person but it's still uncomfortable here on the fence. Sometimes tempting to push (even for neg result) just to get off this darned fence.<P>from Cali: Wallerstein and Blakeslee found that "Only one child in eight saw both parents recover from divorce in happy remarriage." <BR>Well, hope a divorce doesnt' happen to my marriage, but if so, my kids probably won't be in that 1/8. At this point I cannot imagine trusting that way again. My father divorced my mother and married his A partner and if my H divorces me, I can't see trusting another man that way again. On the other hand, I think that I can recover and be a strong whole person without being married, so I am not sure that marriage is a measure of being recovered!

bump for Resilient and others [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img]

I read from Oprah's web site, her expert on affairs said,<p> "Do not try to make sense out of nonsense!"<p>I have been guilty of doing just that....<p>signed,
Still Confused

Ok I'll bite...(oops debate...)
Book states...<p>*Extramarital sex is a consistent feature in the history of humankind.<p>SNL states.."which in simple terms means it is normal, no reason to dwell on guilt or morality, but rather why and what to do about it, which is my point all along re the occurence of an affair. There are very specific reasons for every single thing human beings do, we are finely tuned to SURVIVE or we would be extinct. Affairs clearly are an important survival mechanism for our species, the conclusion is inescapable, and actually makes very good sense."<p>
So you are saying that since sex outside of a marriage has existed in all of history..that makes it normal???????NORMAL?????<p>And also makes it a SURVIVAL MECHANISM???
And that people who have an affair do so to survive??????????<p>What is normal about extra marital affairs is not that it is a survival mechanism..but clearly human beings nature to sin/betray/ and or act soley on selfish desires...no matter where we are in time.<p>Murder has been around for all of history..is it normal then?..or is also a testimony to mans inability to treat one another as we should?<p>How infidelity leads to the survival of mankind is not clear to me..historically I would say that infidelity has lead to much murder...women stoned in the new testament...Ann Bolyn beheaded under false accusations..Thomas Jefferson impregnates slaves and yet does not give them freedom....women under taliban rule beaten to this day not to mention Hamlets thought on the whole mess.. ..and while I am sure that each section of history is full of infidelity I fail to see where it has played much of a positive role....<p>Lots of bad bad things have existed in all of time...they were issues of morality then and are so today...and not automatically survival techniques...
ARK

Great post.......I can't believe that I am in the 10% that the WS doesn't come home and moves in with the OW!!!! I hope like heck it doesn't last for them.<p>MAX