Do you think you are one of those people who are immune to infidelity? Do you tell your friends and family, “that would never happen to me and my partner, we have a great relationship?”
Even the best relationships can fall prey to the lure of infidelity these days. The internet can feel like a gateway to a world of anonymous or casual sex. Everything from pornography to webcam sex to meeting an old flame through Facebook, the internet allows for a false sense of safety that increases the opportunity for cheating. In fact, one popular site hooks up married men and women for affairs. Their marketing slogan is “Life is short, have an affair.”
With these constant temptations to stray, even the most faithful partners sometimes fall into situations that they regret the moment it begins. Janis Abrahms Spring, author of After the Affair, says that infidelity in fact now affects one out of every 2.7 couples.
Americans never think of themselves as being the “type” of person to have an affair. In 2004, 82 percent of respondents to a survey about infidelity said affairs were always wrong, and the rest said affairs were almost always wrong. In 2006, Americans said that adultery was worse than polygamy and human cloning. And yet there are some estimates that claim 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair at some point in their marriage.
Monogamy is hard. Let’s not pretend that it isn’t. You may tell yourself and your partner that your relationship is special — that you are soul mates — and so it could never happen to you. And yet it does happen to a large enough population that you should be concerned, not just with what your partner might do, but with your own potential temptation.
Some road signs to watch for:
Go to my article in the Huff Post to read the THREE SIGNS YOU ARE ABOUT TO CHEAT:
Dr Tammy Nelson
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