One of the major shifts is that more married women are having
affairs than in the past. There are several reasons. Today's woman has
usually had more experience with premarital sex, so she's not as
inhibited about getting involved sexually with another man. She has more
financial independence, so she's not taking as great a risk. And she is
working with men on a more equal level, so the men are very attractive to
her.
HM: What do people seek in an affair partner?
SG: Either we choose somebody very different from our partner, or
we choose somebody like our partner used to be, but a younger version. A
woman married to a really sweet guy who helps with the dishes, who is
very nurturing and very secure, may at some point see him as boring and
get interested in the high-achieving, high-energy man who may even be a
bit chauvinistic. But if she's married to the man with the power and the
status, then she's interested in the guy who is sensitive and
touchyfeely, who may not be as ambitious.
HM: Is this just the nature of attraction?
SG: It has to do with the fact that people really want it all.
Probably the only way to get it all is to be in more than one
relationship at the same time. We have different parts of
ourselves.
The other flip-flop in choice of affair partner reflects the fact
that the marriage often represents a healing of our family wounds.
Somebody who lacked a secure attachment figure in their family of origin
chooses a mate who provides security and stability. It's healthy to seek
that balancing.
But after we've mastered that, we often want to go back and find
somebody like that difficult parent and make that person love us. There
is a correlation between the nature of the attachment figure and the
affair partner; the person is trying to master incomplete business from
childhood. As a result, some people will choose an affair partner who is
difficult, temperamental, or unpredictable. Under those circumstances,
the unfaithful partner is often caught in a triangle.
HM: What do you mean?
SG: The person maintains the marriage, and can't leave it, and
maintains the affair, and can't leave that either. Tension arises when
either the affair partner or spouse applies pressure on them to get off
the fence. The spouse provides security and a sense of family, the affair
partner excitement and passion. When the involved spouse says, "I don't
know which person to be with," what they really want is to keep
both.
HM: The challenge is, how do people satisfy all of their needs
within the marriage?
SG: It is a false belief that if I'm incomplete, I have to be
completed by another person. You have to do it through your own life,
your own work, for your own pleasure, through individual growth. The more
fulfilled you are, in terms of things that you do separately that please
you, the more individuated and more whole you are -- and the more intimate
you can be. Then you're not expecting the other person to make you happy.
You're expecting the other person to join you in your happiness.
HM: Are more couples trying to survive affairs these days?
SG: People are more willing to work through them. People are
saying, I'm willing to work this through, but we have to solve whatever
problems we have; we have to get something out of this; our marriage has
to be even better than it was before.
More men are calling to come in for therapy. That's a very positive
sign. The downside is, it's often too late. By the time men are alarmed,
the woman is too distanced from the marriage.
HM: What other changes do you see in affairs these days?
SG: Cyber affairs are new. For some people the computer is very
addictive. They get very caught up in it. It's hiding out, escaping. And
an affair is an escape from the realities of everyday life. These two
escapes are now paired.
The other danger on-line is that people can disguise who they are.
Think of the roles you can take on if you hide behind a screen. More so
than in workplace affairs, you can project anything onto the other
person.
You can act out any fantasy you want. You can make this other
person become anybody you want them to be. There's a loosening up,
because you're not face-to-face with the person.
HM: This attracts only a certain kind of person, doesn't it?
SG: We don't know yet. I always get e-mail questions from people
who are concerned because their partner is having an on-line relationship
with somebody Or their partner had an affair with somebody they met
on-line. It's very prevalent, and it's very dangerous.
If you're talking to somebody on the computer, and you begin to
talk about your sexual fantasies, and you're not talking to your partner
about your sexual fantasies, which relationship now has more sexual
chemistry? Which has more emotional intimacy? Then your partner walks in
the room, and you switch screens. Now you've got a wall of secrecy. It
has all the components of an affair. And it's easy.
Technology has impacted affairs in another way, too. Many people
have discovered a partner's affair by getting the cellular phone bill, or
by getting in the car and pushing redial on the car phone, or by taking
their partner's beeper and seeing who's been calling. We're leaving a
whole new electronic trail.
HM: Has that changed the dynamics or the psychology of affairs in
any way?
Tags:
absentee father,
affair,
being a woman,
challenges,
dismay,
explosive subject,
extramarital intercourse,
extramarital sex,
good sex,
hara estroff marano,
horror,
infidelity,
many men,
marriage,
relationships,
sex at home,
shirley glass,
trust,
wedding ring,
young women
