by Brigid Bishop

Created on: April 15, 2008

Cheating and Affairs

I think that it is very important to cover this topic in my article so as to give you some perspective on the dynamics of these difficult situations. I am very nonjudgmental, and in my practice I work with people on all sides of this issue. Please do not read any further if you are stringently offended by this subject matter.

There are many different types of Affairs to consider. We have the situation where a single woman gets involved with the married man, the reverse of the same by gender, two married people becoming involved with each other outside of their marriage, and the brief encounter type of affair that is more like a fling, to name just a few.

Let's examine the affair where a single woman starts to date a married man, knowingly. This scenario will not apply to any of the other "types" of affairs, but there is some cross-over to the other types.

We will focus on the involvement of a woman with a married man with full knowledge of his marital status, this will not apply to those cases where he misrepresents his marital status.

This situation is much more prevalent than most people think. A lot of people still think in the archaic mindset of the secret "mistress" being kept by the married man. This is extremely rare. Most "other women" are extremely self-sufficient and many times they are actually helping the married man meet his obligations in some way.

So, how does this all begin?

People fall in and out of love all of the time. Affairs of this nature can spring up when a marriage begins to turn stale or cold. Many times affairs like this can pop up without the wife ever even realizing that there is a problem. Sometimes we just can't control who we fall in love with, or when. Of course there are the types of affairs where men cheat purely for sexual gratification, those types of affairs are rampant, but they are usually the fling type of affair and not the type where the married man builds an actual relationship with the single woman.

Let's talk about the extramarital affair that occurs due to a pure attraction physically and emotionally to someone other than the original spouse. Frequently, when we are not having our needs met, we will seek to have those needs met wherever we can. The business of marriage is not the "happy ever after" story that many of us fantasized about during our youths, but a partnership in dealing with the business of living. Paying bills, raising children, shopping, housekeeping, financial planning, buying homes

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