Sanford Infidelity Expanding Our Understanding?

Governor Sanford's infidelity has certainly gotten a lot of attention, but what is all the outrage, shock, and finger pointing about really? If we're not Mrs. Sanford or one of their children, what's it to us?

As Byron Katie has pointed out, there are only three kinds of problems - - my problems, your problems, and God's problems; and two of those categories are not our business. If we are staying with our own business, it seems odd that on a personal level infidelity, cheating spouses, and adultery elicit anything other than sadness, discouragement, or confusion. People are human after all.

And yet people are angry. What is different about how react to it in people in leadership positions? Why are we angry when we hear about their cheating on their spouses? Why do we act as if they have done something to us similar to what they have done to those accepted their commitment?

A way of looking at it that struck a chord with me was expressed in the Daily Tar Heel newspaper at the University of North Carolina today that asserted that the core issue in infidelity is one of whether this person is able to place keeping a commitment above self interest or not. In the case of a public official we are concerned that they are able to manage their desires well enough to fulfill their commitments to all of us.

I like that. We put this person in a position of trust that does affect us and they have shown us that they aren't up to keeping that kind of promise.

Of course it doesn't even start to address how one is most likely to be successful at meeting that high, admirable, and ( I think ) appropriate standard given that we are (as previously mentioned just in case you had forgotten) . . . . human.

Apparently faith wasn't enough for Governor Sanford, though without questioning his sincerity, demonstrably he still fell short.

Of course no one knows, but at this point my suspicion is that our efforts to be good people and to try to deny and suppress those parts of ourselves that are capable of doing bad things is at the heart of the problem.

You can find more consideration of this and related topics with particular focus on those of us old enough to know better but alive enough to still do dumb things at my website, www.better-reationships-over-50.com.

Coping With Infidelity

Infidelity happens . . . a lot (if published statistics can be trusted.)

Even if you cut the estimates that are thrown about in half, it's still a lot. Too much for something that is so corrosive to everyone involved.

So, once you know it has happened, how do you cope? You do have to cope whether--

• it is still going on right now
• it has just ended
• it was 23 years ago and it never quite goes away.

There is quite good information on the things you have to accomplish to cope with infidelity.

The problem that I see is that even when you have determined what you need to do, you still are left with how to do it.

And, the "how to" part is the sticking point. Each of us steps into these emotionally charged situations with our own baggage (our own history, our own beliefs, and our own type of social support.) That means that while knowing that we have to accomplish "a", "b", and "c" to come out the other side back on our feet, reasonably sane, the actual path that we walk in doing it has to be fit to us.

One size does not fit all.

Infidelity Becoming NormalDoes that make it not cheating?

Infidelity is becoming so prevalent that it may be considered the norm, if not now, soon, some researchers say.

In a thought provoking blog post on infidelity, Genevieve Beaulieu-Pelletier, a PhD candidate at the Universite de Montreal’s Department of Psychology and author of a new study, is quoted as saying that

• studies suggest that the chances of a relationship suffering from infidelity are now somewhere between 40% and 76%
• such high numbers have implications for what is considered normal
• infidelity correlates strongly with an avoidant relationship personality style
• avoidant relationship style is most often a result of poor parenting

Whoa! If you care about committed relationship, sounds like you've got one foot on an impending betrayal mess and the other on a banana peel.

Of course, this is a researcher talking and all the caveats about research apply--

• we don't know how strong the observed correlations were (statistically significant and real are often two different things)
• we don't know if the respondents were telling the truth (we do know that males often exaggerate reports of sexual behavior of all sorts to researchers)
• we don't know who the respondents were
• if you've ever taken an abnormal psychology class, you know that defining normal is very difficult (just because "everyone" is doing it doesn't make it right)

It is, however, as noted earlier, food for thought. Is infidelity really cheating if we know going into a relationship that 40 - 76% of people undertaking this venture are going to experience infidelity to that relationship? Or, is it the norm, an expected part of a relationship? That seems to be the gist of the post.

I don't know.

If you bought a toaster that you knew delivered electric shocks to 40 - 76% of people who used it, would you have grounds for a lawsuit if you bought it figuring you would be one of the 24-60% who didn't get shocked? I mean, those other people who got shocked were probably careless, right? And it is a beautiful toaster for a very good price.

Well, that example didn't clear anything up for me. Afterall, when you're in love when have rules, probabilities, or anything else ever mattered? That's just part of the romance stage of relationship development.

For me, I think that our mothers had it right when they told us that just because "everyone" was jumping off a cliff, that didn't make it a good idea. However you frame it, whether you call it cheating or not, infidelity is very painful, destructive behavior.

GPS LingerieInfidelity/Cheat Buster?

Infidelity of cheating spouses may be facing a serious challenge. (Or, maybe not. It has stood up to a lot of heat over the centuries and come out stronger than ever.)

Just when you thought that relationship craziness had gone about as far as it could go, brace yourself - - GPS lingerie!

No, it's not designed to facilitate the finding of a misplaced brassiere.

The embedded chip is designed to make it possible to keep track of the location of a beloved wearer of said lingerie at all times, from anywhere with computer access. Not surprisingly, people are already calling it the new chastity belt.

Wow! And I thought cell phones were amazing. How about this one? Heard about it on the NPR show "Wait, Wait. Don't Tell Me" today. They swore it was for real. Hmm.

Does the wearer know the thing is in there? If so, why not just drop your bra off at the library, go where you want to go and pick it up on the way home? How long before some eager entrepeneur comes up with just such a service? (Well, it's no crazier than the product itself.)

Stand by. It is only a matter of time until someone will be surgically embedding these things inside people's bodies . . . . "You say you'll never cheat on me again? You'll do anything to come back? . . . well, there is something you can do."

James Thurber's "war between men and women" marches on!

Isn't there anything else we can do?

When Your Man Is Cheating

When your husband is cheating, there is the question of whether you should confront the other woman or not. It certainly can be a scary possibility, but apparently it can be worth doing . . . if you do it right.

Given that being the partner who finds out that they are being cheated on often results in emotions very similar to those experienced in PTSD, getting out of a passive role has the possibility of being very therapeutic . . . again, if you do it right.

Dr. Robert Huizenga discusses confronting the other woman and gets specific about what to do and why in a recent post on one of his sites on the topic of infidelity.

Looking at the questions that the coach asked in this article we can get some ideas about why and how one might go about this.

• What is the purpose for doing it? What do you hope to accomplish? to learn? to understand? to make happen?
• What do you plan to do with what you find out? Are you really looking for new information, or are you seeking to make a case for what you have already decided?
  
• Are you ready for how you will deal with the possible strong emotions that you are likely to encounter from the other person and within yourself? Playing out as many possible scenarios as you can think of in your head in advance of a stressful situation has been shown to result in a better performance in the actual situation, even if what actually happens is different from anything you had prepared for. (For more on this see Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, MD. It's an old book, but extremely useful and a pleasant read.)
  
• What support do you have in place to process what you find out?

Should you talk to the woman who has been with your cheating husband? I don't think that anyone can really answer that for you. Certainly doing it impulsively, without a plan and a reason, lowers your chances of having it turn out to be a long term positive.

Getting an overview of infidelity before you move into your own specifics and the actual decision making about whether to confront or not and how you will do it is probably well worth the effort.

Financial Infidelity?

Financial infidelity is an idea that I had never heard before, but it made perfect sense after I thought about it a while. It also really brought home just how high the bar is when it comes to really being true to a relationship.

The concept of financial of infidelity was spelled out recently in a book by the same title which was reviewed well in the Huffington Post blog. This doesn't involve another person as in the case of a man having a secret bank account to pay for prostitutes or hotel rooms, it is less clear cut.

Basically, the idea is that when one partner spends money and hides the fact that they have in one way or another, they are being untrue to the relationship. They aren't really working as a team at that point and it is corrosive. In this case I think cheating describes what's going on better than infidelity.

In an example in the Huffington article, a woman considers buying a new bicycle and keeping it in the nighbor's garage so her husband won't find out. Sounds kind of goofy at first, but think about it in terms of the relationship. They apparently don't respectfully confer and agree on expenditures, which is a red flag whether she buys the bike or not. She is also thinking about keeping a secret and enlisting the aid of her friend in doing it, which is a sure fire way of drifting further apart.

The end result, at best, is likely to be that they increasingly run on parallel tracks, a sad but apparently stable situation that many couples view as relationship success. The problem is that it doesn't take much to de-stabilize one of these. It can be something as simple as getting to know a couple whose relationship is closer, more respectful, and . . . . well, happier, and then it is only a matter of time before it falls apart.

Actually, it might be looked upon as a material manifestation of emotional infidelity, the tricky little relationship time bomb that I discussed before here.

The Infidelity Story Just Rolls On

When an infidelity story makes the front page, I can't help but wonder if it isn't there not just for the prurient interest factor, but also as another one of those little bells that ring every now and then to remind all of us that we are a lot closer to bad things ourselves than we'd like to think.

That old 'ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee' probably is a good thing to remember on all kinds of issues.

Oh, I know, those are bad people who do those things, not people like me. And, maybe they are. I really don't know. I'm not trying to get them off the hook.

I do suspect that like every story in the newspaper, there's a lot more to it than is written there and there are as many stories about what really happened as there are people who are close to it. I feel for everyone involved. What a mess.

Now, it is Elizabeth Edwards speaking to the Detroit Free Press who is having to find a way to acknowledge what is with as much dignity as she can find and move forward. She didn't really say what "forward" will be at a deep personal level, but she did tell us that she's going to focus on her children and health care legislation. Sounds sane to me.

As for how she is coping with the broken trust, she also did an admirable job, saying that that is just too sensitive to talk about.

Every time I hear about another of these stories I feel like another Greek tragedy is playing itself out. The characters will either be transformed in some way, learn some great lesson, or be destroyed. And once the curtain is pulled back an the story starts to unfold, no one can do anything but play their part with as much dignity and integrity as they can muster.

There are experienced, professional people telling us lots of useful things about affairs, cheating, infidelity, or whatever else you call it. It's good stuff. It's helpful because this is one of those things in life that we don't want or need to know a lot about. Hopefully we'll never have to deal with it and if we do, we pray it is a one time aberration.

I discuss what some of them say and provide links to articles on my website, www.Better-Relationships-Over-50.com

More Infidelity: now it's John Edwards

Now it's John Edwards who we hear has been having an affair. What the heck is with these guys?

On the one hand, one might think that what politicians do in their private lives is just that, private. Or maybe that line of thinking starts with an assumption that it should be. I have found this view quite attractive and apparently logical for many years, but I am starting to wonder.

All moral, ethical, and pragmatic relationship reasons not to cheat on your spouse aside, . . . if you are a public figure you are going to get caught.

And, if you have taken on a public trust, if you have said you were willing to take a leadership position in championing the interests of groups of people, then you had better not do obviously dumb things to lessen your ability to do that. It isn't a breach of trust just with your partner, but also with all the people who supported you.

So here's Edwards, who was arguably one of the most articulate and effective spokesman for groups of people who aren't doing so well in society today, going out and making it easy to devalue not just him as a person, but also the issues, ideas, and ideals that he expressed.

Does this apply to all the rest of us who walk around in relative anonymity? Does it matter less if we do stupid, destructive things?

I used to think that it didn't, at least not in the same way, but giving our trial lawyer-millionaire-friend of the disadvantaged bad example of the week, John Edwards, some more thought I have changed my mind.

The only thing that is different in the size of the circle of damage. And, to each individual within the circle of that influence affairs, cheating, infidelity is just as hurtful. In fact, the smaller that circle, the more concentrated the hurt.

If your level of moral development hasn't progressed far enough to consider the interests and needs of others, for crying out loud be smart and keep yourself out of trouble!

ps - and if you think you can just not get caught and stay out of trouble that way . . . WAKE UP!! and while you're smelling the coffee notice all the cell phones with cameras built in, the IP addresses with your web activities, the reverse phone number services. Even without all that stuff your odds of not getting caught were never that good, but now the deck is stacked against you even more.

For more consideration and resources on this topic, check out the infidelity section of my website, www.better-relationships-over-50.com

Does Infidelity Ever Die?

Talk to anyone who has ever been caught in an affair, admitted to an affair, or seriously accused of being in an affair and one thing you will hear over and over is that nothing they do or don't do seems to make any difference. It is always hanging over them.


Talk to anyone who has caught their partner in an affair, had their partner admit to an affair, or who has seriously thought their partner was having an affair without being able to prove it or get a confession and the one thing that you will hear over and over is that there seem to be nothing that makes them feel safe again.


Apparently, how surprised you are by your partner cheating correlates directly with how bad it is for you, how hard it is to move on.


This is why finding out that your partner, lover, spouse has been unfaithful to you leads to a form of post traumatic stress disorder. The theory goes something like this - -

• We live in a very uncertain and dangerous world and there isn't much we can do about it. The incidence of bad things happening may be low, but it is always there.


• To survive and manage the uncertainty, we act as if it isn't going to happen to us. As long as it doesn't, this strategy works pretty well.


• When the unimaginable does happen to us or to someone close to us and this strategy is torn from us, our internal environment becomes very unstable. In other words our mind/body/emotional system freaks out.


• Getting back is possible, but tough.

Moral to the story? If you decide to mess around, if you allow yourself to be convinced to cheat, if you think that you are just too wonderful for only one person, if you find yourself slipping into infidelity and don't do anything to stop it, you are setting yourself for disaster.


You will probably blow your relationship up and if you avoid that you'll be taking on baggage that you'll lug around for a long long time. Ask anyone who's tried it.

Revenge Affairs

Dr. Bob Huizenga has recently written about what he calls the Revenge Affair as one of the identifiable types of infidelity. What is it?

The obvious answer is that when your partner has had an affair, you get back at him or her by having one of your own. Simple, right? Well, yes and no, because I think that emotional revenge or distancing can happen in a number of ways using a number of tools.

Can you be untrue to your relationship by how you relate to:

• your children?


• your grandchildren?


• your job?


• your hobby?


• your humanitarian causes?

I think that you can. It all depends on how you do it, what your intention is, and how it affects your partner.

Worth some thought? That's up to you.

Survive the Affair

Affairs deliver a huge body blow to any relationship, whether they are

• suspected, but not proven


• have recently been discovered


• are still going on


• have recently stopped

or . . . .


• occurred a long time ago, but the hurt, confusion, and lack of trust live on.

They aren't something that anyone can reasonably be expected to know what to do about, whatever role you are in. It just isn't that kind of thing.




Which is why I support getting and using advice information from a professional who has spent years working with people in the throes of affairs and their effects. A readily available and affordable source can be checked out by clicking HERE.




And do me a favor, would you? Tell me what you think of both the free information that you find there and any of the services and products that you may buy too. It looks quite good to me, but everyone has their own specific needs.

Infidelity In A Nutshell

You can't put infidelity in a nutshell. It's as simple as that.

Back when the assumption was that women were chattel and that messing with another man's woman was messing with his property it probably was simpler. I don't know.

But now? Wow!! There are old fashioned affairs. There's cheating. There are emotional affairs. There are internet affairs.

I got access to a very good article on the topic recently. You can find a link to it and to other good stuff on the topic at www.better-relationships-over-50.com.

The author pretty much covers the waterfront on the topic of infidelity.

Affairs and Airplane Crashes

Affairs are deadly things when it comes to relationships. And that goes for ones that are happening now and the ones that were over last week and the ones that were over 10 or 20 years ago.

A quick look at the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists' website on the topic contains references to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) type reactions, especially from the partner who was left for another and especially if they were taken by surpise and didn't know it was happening.

But once it's upon you, what do you do then? Eh?

Everything is off kilter. Most of us in such a situation wouldn't be completely clear which way was up and which down. And those of us who thought we did, would very likely be wrong. Not unlike an airplane pilot who gets disoriented.

For airplanes and relationships the response is pretty much the same. In the airplane they teach you to put your attention on the instruments, level the wings, and put the nose on the horizon. Forget about everything else until that is in order.

Of course if somehow you've been in a power dive pointing straight at the ground and you have had enough altitude and skill to get the wings level and the airplane in level flight, neither climbing or descending, nothing else seems very important for quite a while.

Same with the relationship under intense pressure. Back to basics and let the details be taken care of in their own time. Deep breath. Feet on the ground. Get yourself back in touch with what you believe. Work through what you feel, Act in integrity with that. Fly straight and level for a while before you set about doing anything. Just be there. With yourself. With your partner.

Avoid anyone or anything that is telling you that you just have to to anything else. You'll know what you want to do in time. And it will be right, . . . for you. Take care of you.

For some excellent advice and/or support in this area, check out Dr. Robert Huizenga's stuff by clicking here.

Keep a light hand on the controls until things are settled down enough that you can make decisions from a place of knowing and strength.

Infidelity, Elliot Spitzer, and Sanity

Is there any sane way to figure the infidelity that Elliot Spitzer has forced into the attention of so many people?

Did this guy figure he was just so smart and so hardworking that he could get away with denying/repressing/ignoring his own demons until he did something so selfish, cruel, stupid, and pathetic that it will be his legacy rather than the good things he did for all of us as Attorney General of New York?


It's not the human frailty, it's not the mistake, the sin, the transgression that sticks in my craw. These things do happen. They've always happened. And they don't get any more palatable with each occurrence.

It is the narcissistic lying about them to ourselves until we get caught that is sickening.

And by the way, I don't care how much the young prostitute in question was paid, it was not a victimless crime; not to Mrs. Spitzer, not to his children, and not to the young woman for whatever reasons of her own was paid an outrageous amount of money to be part of a rich and powerful man's acting out.

Do You Ever Get Over Infidelity?

The reaction to marital infidelity by one's partner has been likened to PTSD after a life threatening event by the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT).

They have an excellent pamphlet on the topic on their website.

What's your experience? Is it really like that?

If it is, does it follow that getting away from the person who trangressed is the best solution, or you would be better in the long term to work it through and then decide whether to stay or go?

Affairs Leave One Partner With PTSD?

It's been reported that people whose partners have an affair often show emotional responses similar to the post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) symptoms of people who have been through fires, wars, assaults, etc.

The less they saw it coming, the worse the reaction.

So, with all the affairs that apparently are going on, maybe we have a whole group of survivors that is largely unrecognized as such.

- - - -

In my limited experience, partners who have strayed and want to get back have a pretty high level of ongoing stress themselves, but that's another topic.

Seems as though the whole thing is a bad deal.

If There Is No Sex, Is It an Affair? Is It Infidelity?

When it comes to relationships is "No Sex - No Infidelity" the equivalent of the sports saying "No Harm - No Foul"?

In an interview in the December 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review, John Gottman, PhD, says no. The most important things that lead to harm from relationships outside the primary relationship is more about friendship, feeling appreciated, feeling listened to, feeling valued than about sex.

He made a powerful case for this point of view. What he didn't do was really give, me at least, much of an idea of what to do to keep it from happening and wrecking your relationship.

It was clear that if you can't both go to the party, then the two of you had better do some pre-planning an have a non-defense treaty about how you'll talk about it after.
While not saying it explicitly, Dr. Gottman was clearly calling for some attention to the relationship before the inevitable unexected comes along.

Find some general discussions and advice at www.Better-Relationships-Over-50.com.

Infidelity- Do You Want to Catch a Cheat?

There are people who can tell you how to catch a cheating spouse and if you are sure that's what you want to do, I encourage you to click on that link and go for it.

However, that's a pretty big "if you are sure" back there. And, it isn't really asking if you want to get the facts out on the table ever. The point is to ask if you are ready to deal with what you may find or not find now.

Either way --> they-are-having-an-affair or they-aren't-having-an-affair-but-aren't-being-a-lover-with-you <--, you are at the beginning of something, not the end. Finding out guilt or innocence isn't even the half of it.

So, before you break out the computer spy programs, semen detectors, reverse phone call programs, and the "exact words to get them to spill the beans", make sure you are ready for the next step(s).

Infidelity in Relationships Over 50

Infidelity may seem less likely as we get older, and there are logical reasons why this is could be so, but by this point in our lives habits and unresolved personal baggage can have a way of counteracting lessening of hormonal push. Sex may not be quite so compulsive, but the need to feel important and/or appreciated can be higher.

The core of dealing with cheating or fear of cheating in long term relationships is keeping the quality of the primary relationship high and keeping our mood and intention positive.

Sometimes, gnawing doubts make that almost impossible to do. If you think that a cheating spouse or partner may be what's affecting your relationship, before you call the private investigator you might want to educate yourself on how to read signs of infidelity giving yourself a fair chance to get your own personal inner work straight on the topic before confronting it with your partner.

You have lots more choices when you know what's going on.