Posted on 03/18/2003 12:17:19 PM PST by freepatriot32
Women are more likely to cheat on their men to gain sexual satisfaction because of their growing assertiveness and their equality in the workplace, say marriage counselors. Cheating husbands, in contrast, are increasingly looking for emotional fulfillment and may actually mean it when they tell their secretaries that their wives don't understand them.
This reversal of traditional roles is detailed by the American author Shirley Glass in a new book, Not Just Friends. She blames the growing trend of illicit sexual adventures among married women for America's 50% divorce rate. "When a woman has an affair, she is more likely to leave her husband because she is already detached from him," she says.
Hollywood sweetheart Meg Ryan, who left husband Dennis Quaid after a fling with Russell Crowe, followed this pattern. After years of supporting Quaid in his battle against alcohol and drugs, Ryan insisted, "My marriage was broken. Nobody else broke it up."
Christine Northam, a counselor with the marriage advice charity Relate, said of the trend, "When you get people in front of you today and you ask why, they will say, 'It was the amazing sex.' That is as it has ever been, but women are now more able to say it was the sex. Previously they would say something like, 'I needed support.'"
Richard Scase, a professor at Kent University in England and a social trends expert, said he was not surprised at Glass' findings. "Women are taking on the traditional male psychology, and men are finding they are not getting the emotional attention from female partners which they used to get," he said. "Men are therefore looking outside the relationship for someone in whom they can confide, be honest with, and be authentic to."
America's divorce rate has quadrupled since 1970, yet Americans remain faithful to the spirit if not the letter of their wedding vows. For 30 years, 96% of Americans have said they want to be married, and 81% of separated or divorced partners say they believe marriage should be for life.
Despite this, Glass notes, "There's a whole generation of women with premarital experience who are much less inhibited about being with somebody other than their husband." She concluded that 25% of wives and 44% of husbands have had affairs.
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, a New York marriage counselor, said, "We're seeing the pendulum swing. Men used to behave like jocks -- macho men who were only interested in sex -- but now women are behaving the same way."
Anne Wilson (not her real name), 39, a New Yorker, is receiving help to rescue her marriage after a two-month fling. "I really have nothing to complain about. I've been married for 15 years to a lovely Englishman who cares for me, and I have a wonderful apartment and a beautiful car," Wilson said. After the novelty of marriage and motherhood wore off, she felt her home life had become humdrum: "I wanted to have a sparkle in my eyes again. Sex was a high, a rush. It was fantastic while it lasted. He was charismatic and made me laugh. I didn't have to do his laundry or put his toilet seat down."
Weil believes men are not as forgiving as women. "A woman knows that if she has an affair, it's often the end of a marriage. However, the trend for men to look for love and intimacy outside the home is just as dangerous," she said. "When men reach their 30s and 40s, they feel they've had enough stress and work in their lives. They know life is short and if they don't feel happy or 'in love', they want to reach for an emotional link."
That bond is most easily attainable at work, where colleagues often have more in common with each other than with their spouses. Glass' survey revealed that 62% of unfaithful husbands and 46% of unfaithful wives had affairs at work. "The traditional affair involved a man in a position of power who was attracted to a subordinate. Sometimes these relations became love affairs, but frequently, men were just looking for a bit of variety," she said. "Now that women and men are working as equals, the relationship begins with respect, and friendship can cross the line into emotional intimacy."
Arguably the most appreciated show of emotion undertaken by humans in my view. Bar none.
LOL
Ha! I'm married to someone who could be from DU. I'm the capitalist, she's the hippy-chick. Kind of like that Darma and Greg show :)
That being said, I would never ever cheat on her. Our love is too passionate for that.
Re-read the first sentence. It merely says that women are more likely to cheat than they used to be.
This explains your confusion.
Unfortunately have to part company on this one. I admire and respect your position on this, but it just isn't the reality, at least in my experience. I have spent 17 years being a loving, successful provider and husband, father of two sons, and I carry 90% of the household duties. In return I am treated like dirt, disrespected, screamed at, with sexual relations exclusively controlled by this mean b_tch.
I cheat when I please and as often as I please, which is still very rare. But I carry no sense of shame or guilt, given how I am treated, and I will not ever throw a stone at any other person similarly treated.
We've always known that, haven't we.......LOLOL
It's not MY confusion, it's the author's and it was a deliberate deception. Kind of ruins her credibility. Also the author hasn't convinced me that women cheat more than they used to and her initial credibility gap only widens with each paragraph.
In any case, who would all these women (whatever the number) be cheating with? The author herself says 25% of women cheat compared with 44% of men. How does that compute? She doesn't bother to tell us who is "cheating" with who. Are married people cheating with single people? If so, more married women must be cheating with married men than with single men, to keep their percentages so disparate.
Whatever, the author is bad at math.
Sometimes, God Understands Human Life!
Doc
As a matter of fact, when I read the title, I knew immediately that it was wrong--before I even read the first sentence of the article. (Everything I know about men and women screams out to me that the title is false.) When I subsequently read the first sentence of the article, I immediately saw that the person who hung the title on the article was badly mistaken about what the author was saying.
The author of the article was NOT trying to deceive the likes of you. On the contrary, she actually stipulates that men cheat more often than men--by a pretty wide margin. Even a casual reader should notice that.
Why am I letting the author off the hook of responsibility for the false title? It's very simple. It's because the author of the article obviously didn't dream up the title of the article. It was written by a sloppy page editor who didn't read the article carefully enough.
This kind of thing happens pretty often in journalism. The problem is, news copy is written by different people from those who write headlines. And they sometimes get sloppy.
So, it was just a boneheaded mistake. I saw what was going on immediately. I didn't even get mad (grin).
Who are they?
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