Why Infidelity Happens
By Drs. Evelyn and Paul Moschetta
Nothing shakes a marriage to its core like an extra marital affair. Nothing. Not money problems, not interfering in-laws, not poor communication, not kid burnout and not colliding careers. None of these come even close. An outside affair blows through a marriage like a tornado. It turns everything upside down and inside out. Most of all it leaves trust, sacred to any marriage, in shreds. Rekindling that trust is essential but it’s difficult, tricky business.
Why are extra marital affairs so common and are they really insurmountable? Are so many marriages that bad that its inevitable that one or both partners stray? Probably not. Really bad marriages are the minority. But so are the really good ones. That leaves an awful lot of marriages in the middle, just idling along on automatic pilot. It’s these relationships that are most vulnerable.
For the typical American marriage being on overload is the norm. Career hassles, kids, extended family pressures, money worries, throw in a house and pets and the recipe is complete for a husband and wife to be so busy they can completely take each other for granted and not even realize it. When your marriage, the quality of your closeness or intimacy with each other, falls to the bottom of your “to do” list you’re in big trouble. If you feel like “ships passing in the night” its time to sound the alarm.
More and more couples are unhappily finding out that marriage needs their focused attention. Falling in love may appear to happen naturally and spontaneously; maintaining that love so it grows stronger with time takes a conscious effort. Without this effort marriage just drift aimlessly along as everything else grabs our attention.
Cheating in marriage is a unisex phenomenon. Its much more common among husbands but wives also stray. Julie, 31, began a brief affair because her workaholic husband was almost never around. “And its not like he has no choice in the matter, its his business he can come and go as he pleases. I begged for more time, for me and for our son, but it fell on deaf ears.” While her husband worked, Julie simmered with an anger that turned into bitter resentment.
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