The Chosun Ilbo Reports

If one day your wife looks out the window and starts smiling for no reason you can discover, it may be because another man is in her heart. “It started out of curiosity,” says 38-year-old Kim Yeong-mi (not her real name). Three months ago she met an old classmate through her Cyworld blog. They had dinner together, short dates grew into long drinking sessions, and one thing led to another.

“When I heard him say, ‘You’re still as pretty as ever,’ I felt like a woman for the first time in a long while. It had been ages since I heard that or got that feeling from my husband.”

The entire time she dated her lover, she felt pain thinking of her husband, her nine-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. Yet each time she decided to break it off, she found herself waiting for her lover’s calls instead and arrived early at their place of rendezvous.

“I confessed to my friend, but she said to keep meeting him until I grew sick of him. Don’t break up your family, she said. She said there’s barely a married woman who doesn’t have a bit on the side these days.”

In a poll of 1,000 married women conducted by the Chosun Ilbo, the Korea Institute of Sexology, Pfizer Korea and Research Plus, 63 percent of respondents said they could imagine having sex with a man other than their husband. Some 21 percent said they were sitting on the fence, and only 16 percent said they could never sleep with anyone other than their husband.

Park Mi-jin (not her real name) is 43 and seeing a younger man despite being married for 15 years. “In the past, when I told my friends I had a lover, they used to say I was crazy, but now they say I’m clever.”

Chun Kyoung-hee of DeRyook International Law Firm says, “Fewer people now think of marriage as an eternal promise, so infidelity and divorce are rising rapidly.” As women grow more active in society and their economic power increases, their thinking about marriage and affection has grown freer, she said.

For a thesis on extramarital relationships, Sungkyunkwan University student Yang Da-jin interviewed 196 women in the Seoul-Gyeonggi Province area. “Of the respondents, 26 percent said they had had an extramarital affair,â€� she says. “The women were frank and unconcerned writing down their experiences on the questionnaire.”

Some attribute this atmosphere to TV dramas and movies that make infidelity look good. Since the 1996 drama “Aein” (Lover), women’s infidelity has ceased to be the stuff of controversy, with films such as “Happy End”, “Ardor”, and “Three Women” following the trend. The Internet, too, makes illicit relationships easier. Most of the respondents who confessed they had lovers said they met the men on school alumni sites or online chat. Psychologist Lee Eun-ha says, “The environment, like dramas and films, just helped break social taboos; infidelity on the part of women is rising as they grow confident that they can live on their own even after divorce thanks to their increased economic power.”

Choe Yeong-lee (assumed name), 37, who is having an affair with a colleague, said, “My husband thinks of me as someone who’s there to do housework, but my lover is always considerate of me.” What makes her stay with her husband? “My husband has had many flings with bar girls. We just pretend not to know,” she says.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

By Erin Shultz

It’s like a form of addiction, where you don’t deal with the problem at hand. It’s an easy way out.
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The opportunity to stray seems easier and faster than ever. The social stigma of adultery is fading and the trendy soap opera-esque fantasy of hooking up with John, the 19-year-old gardener, suddenly seems much more possible.

I’ve seen a big increase of infidelity among women in the past five years,� says Judith St. King, clinical director at Women’s Personal Growth and Therapy in Okemos. (Infidelity) is routinely shown in the media, but shown as romantic love. It doesn’t show the devastation.�

For better or worse, women have reasons for being unfaithful. Some experts report that an astonishing 60 percent of married women are now having affairs. Philanderers International, a Web site featuring personals for “extramarital dating,� estimates the number of adulterous women at somewhere between 40 and 60 percent.

Why are we cheating, ladies, and more often now than ever? Are we really whipping out the scarlet letters for a few sleazy Web sites? Are we throwing away years of commitment, loyalty and family life for a quick fling, just because that episode of Desperate Housewives made it look cool? Are things really that bad at home?

It’s like a form of addiction, where you don’t deal with the problem at hand, says St. King. It’s an easy way out.

GLW talked to a wife, a Web site manager and two local therapists to find out why we’re driven to take the easy way out, and what we can do to pick up the pieces.

A relief from abuse

Eryka, 27, says she doesn’t advocate infidelity. She would never tell a woman thinking about an affair to do it, even in the worst of situations.

She would know.

The more things you pile on top of a marriage, the longer it takes to get to the bottom of it, she says. It’s so easy to use your lover as a buffer between you and your spouse.

She got married in 1999 to a man she’d been living with since she was 19. They moved from Ann Arbor to Lansing, went into business together and had two kids. Things were going well, but when their second son was born three years ago, her husband’s drinking and drug abuse got out of hand.

He’d spent $10,000 on cocaine; I had to sell my engagement ring to pay the mortgage, she says.

He was also cheating on her constantly. Eryka says she easily forgave him for his infidelities, seeing his worsening addictions as the bigger problem. But after too many times in and out of rehab, she gave up hope.

My attachment for him became more about me taking care of him,� she says. “I needed someone to pay attention to me.

One night, during one of her husband’s down times, she met a long-time male friend at a bar, and one thing lead to another. It was the first and only time she’d cheated in seven and a half years. She and her husband are still married, but are now separated. She says she’s closer now to her in-laws than ever, but not because of her affair.

I should probably feel guilty about it, she says. But we’d done so much damage to each other. I broke my marriage vows, but they were in pieces already.

Filling the emotional void

Eryka didn’t have an affair to have a new sexual experience. It was a shoulder to cry on; a temporary escape from an abusive relationship.
Which is, according to St. King, what an affair usually is, even in less extreme cases than Eryka’s.

Women cheat due to a lack of intimacy, a lack of being cherished, she says. Making a friend or co-worker that could be a sexual partner into a confidant — that opens up a whole ball of wax. To Dr. Linda Blohm, therapist at New Hope Mental Health Center in Lansing, opening up this ball of wax might not be a bad thing.
I wouldn’t judge it negatively, she says. It might help a woman realize she’s in an abusive relationship.

As cliche as it sounds, many women stay married for the kids and for other socioeconomic reasons, even in this day and age. After years of this sort of marriage, a women might need an affair to fill an emotional void left by her perfectly nice, faithful husband.

That rush of intimacy, of desire, of feeling special, even from a one-night stand, meets a need, says Blohm. She gets her self-esteem back and is better able to be content in her marriage.

The grass might look greener …

St. King would still call cheating an easy way out.

Telling your partner your bottom line raises your self-esteem, too, she says. We use affairs as excuses. There are other ways people can connect.

Why not just be honest? Why not focus your energies on the relationship you’re currently in instead of creating a new one, which will inevitably develop its own set of problems? St. King says to stay focused on the relationship, even long after the romance is gone — or focus on ending it.

People who continue to grow as a couple, continue to know each other as a couple, she says. They generally stay together even after an affair.

A legitimate lifestyle?

Philanderers International, based in Toronto, is an online extramarital dating service and support group for people who are already in affairs. (Besides philanderers.com, there’s also meet2cheat.com, marriedcafe.com and discreetadventures.com, to name a few.) Leigh is philanderers.com’s 51-year-old Web site manager. She’s been involved with a married man herself for more than eight years.

I’ve come to believe that this is a legitimate lifestyle choice, she says. Are traditional ideas of marriage really valued at this point? People live longer, things change faster and people do outgrow their spouses. Marriage is not the end-all-be-all like we’re taught.

Leigh knows about marriage — she’s been married and divorced three times. She says her relationship with her current lover, although adulterous, is the most honest relationship she’s experienced.

He will tell me exactly what he honestly believes, she says. I know what he thinks about his wife and his marriage.

Her lover lives two (as far as she knows) separate lives. Leigh can call and see him only at certain times, but she’s more than content in her role as permanent other-woman.

It would kill her if she ever found out, she says. They have a wonderful, strong marriage. But I have him in many ways she doesn’t. I know I have a place.

And philanderers.com?

We’re not encouraging people to cheat, she says. We have two million hits a month. People do what they need to do. We’re supporting them.

In the end you might be able to convince yourself that being unfaithful is a legitimate lifestyle; that it will fill the void; that it will fix whatever you can’t fix yourself. For women, it’s easier and trendier than ever. But cheating is, by definition, to deceive by trickery; to mislead; to fool. For a man or a woman, cheating is lying, lying hurts, and in the end, you’re not fooling anyone.

Women come to me, already in the affair; they say their spouse doesn’t know, says St. King. But internally, their spouse, their kids — they already know.

This publication is a product of the Custom Publishing department at the Lansing State Journal

By MICHELE INGRASSIA
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER

Rita Ewing uncovers the steamy side of gym life in book.
The Knicks ended their season in the Atlantic Division cellar, but for Rita Ewing, it’s something of a championship season.

The ex-wife of ex-franchise player Patrick Ewing is already a nurse and lawyer with an MBA. She has three daughters (the oldest wears No. 33 on her school basketball uniform). She’s also a co-founder of Harlem’s formidable Hue-Man bookstore and co-author of “Homecourt Advantage,” a 1998 novel that dished the tawdry side of NBA spousehood. Now Ewing is going solo. “Brickhouse” (Avon Trade, $12.95), out today, is a novel set in a Harlem gym. The plot involves a stunning gym owner, a steroid-abusing trainer, a bulimic daughter, a conniving local minister and an unhappy NBA wife. Which isn’t necessarily a stretch for Ewing, whose marriage hit the skids in 1998 amid stories that the $64 million center was having an affair with a Knick City Dancer. As she chats at Hue-Man, she juggles book-promoting with the realities of getting a plumber for the store’s only toilet, which has just conked out.

Your character Leila is an NBA wife whose husband is cheating on her — and she’s cheating on him. Did you draw on reality?

Absolutely! Leila was the character I had the most fun with. She was the essence of vindication for those women who are married to anyone who’s cheating on them. What better way to pay him back than to have an affair with a teammate?

We’ve all heard about NBA groupies in hotel elevators. Is it worse than we imagine?

I remember being part of the rookie transition program, and players who had been in the league were coming back and telling us: “Watch out, there are people who will just be there lying in wait to work a game on you.” With the Knicks, they had these policies that wives couldn’t travel to the road games, so you weren’t able to observe firsthand what was going on.

Thirty-eight percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Infidelity is one of the top reasons.

With split-ups getting more costly, many are looking for ways to make sure they have the upper hand in court.

“If somebody does something out in public, your privacy rights are basically out the window,” private investigator Jesse Quackenbush said.

With cameras in cigarette lighters, binoculars and sunglasses, it’s pretty easy for private investigator Jesse Quackenbush to keep his eyes on cheaters.

“You can typically follow anyone, and its kind of funny how most people don’t expect they’re being followed or photographed or videotaped for that matter,” Quackenbush said.

A lawyer for the past 14 years, Quackenbush recently entered into a new side of the divorce business called Cheat Busters. Women and men hire him to spy on their spouses.

“We try to get them to go home and do a little self-surveillance themselves. To look at phone records. Look at credit card reports. Check for anything that seems unusual — hotels,” Quackenbush said.

News 36 spoke with one of his clients who wants to remain anonymous. She knew her husband was cheating even followed him herself, but, with four kids, she needed ammunition for court.

“I knew that none of my friends or family would believe that this was happening and so I wanted proof,” “Ann” said.

Proof is what Quackenbush got while drinking a beer, playing pool in the corner.

Quackenbush says in about 90 percent of his cases, the spouse is cheating. It only takes a few clicks for proof.

“There’s a variety of places where people think that they can meet safely. When in fact, they can’t,” Quackenbush said.

by Stephanie Siegel
Staff Writer
May 25, 2005

See related story: Love notes for that ‘other’ special someone

Readers sound off on sentiment, business

An article last week about a Bethesda woman who created a line of greeting cards designed for people involved in affairs elicited numerous responses from readers who found the idea objectionable.

“I was really shocked about the infidelity cards,” said Bethesda resident Lola Gimmel. “I don’t agree with this sort of thing and I just felt it was shocking.”

Cathy Gallagher created the line of cards and launched her company, The Secret Lover Collection, at the National Stationery Show last week in New York. The story ran on May 18 in The Gazette, headlined “Love notes for that ‘other’ special someone.”

People in the card industry said the idea is unique and marketable, but a number of The Gazette readers and others who work with couples dealing with marital infidelity said there’s no place in society for such a product.

“We don’t see Hallmark cards about abuse or alcoholism or addiction,” said Joanna Bare, chairwoman of the board of directors of the local chapter of Save Your Marriage Central, a national organization that helps couples who are dealing with infidelity. Bare, a Bethesda resident, e-mailed The Gazette after reading the story.

Like abuse or addiction, affairs cause havoc in marriages, Bare said. Cards for people in affairs romanticize such relationships and ignore the harmful aspects of them.

Read Full Article Here

The Cheating Test

May 16, 2005

It can start as an innocent conversation in an online chat room and quickly spiral out of control….we’re talking about cheating. Spouses willing to risk it all to satisfy desires they may not be getting at home. Why do they do it and how can you tell if your spouse is cheating?

Shauna Lake has some warning signs

It can be devastating to learn your spouse is cheating. Families are torn apart and oftentimes, spouses have no clue, their partner was unfaithful. Two women say they can spot a cheater and share ten questions you can ask yourself if you think you have a cheating spouse.

“Everyone wants to be accepted and appreciated and I felt it wasn’t happening at home,” said Andrew who cheated on his wife.

That’s why Andrew, whose identity we’ve altered, cheated.

Vist Full Story and Video here

Great Story about the efforts of Ohio Private Investigator Mike Mullins as reported by ABC 13 in Toledo, Ohio

PI is on the trail of husbands and wives with lovers on the side.

video VIDEO: Caught in the act

Forsaking all others ’til death do you part — that line has been a part of marriage vows for centuries. But recent surveys show that 22 percent of men and 13 percent of women have cheated on their spouses.

What do you do if you suspect your spouse is cheating? Husbands and wives in Toledo are increasingly turning to private investigators to learn the truth. The itch to find out if their hunch is right has driven some suspicious spouses to shell out up to 60 grand to put a professional on the trail. You may be surprised just how far these private eyes will go to catch them. I-Team reporter Sarah Oehler tagged along with a local PI. On that outing, he said, “We have a husband today. The wife has no concrete proof but thinks he’s having an affair, possibly more than one. He’s been acting different towards her and I can tell you right now his vehicle is in the parking lot.”

Mike Mullins gets paid to pry. The Toledo private eye will travel across town, or across the country, to follow people suspected of cheating in business or in love. Mullins has seen some strange things in his 30 years as a P.I. “I’ve caught wives seeing two boyfriends in one day, and they were both married.” But he still gets a rush on every new case..

From night vision goggles to hidden cameras, P.I.’s have a whole bag full of tricks for getting some incriminating evidence for their clients.. Mullins says, “In the old days, back in the 70’s, we’d literally kick the motel door open, take a picture and run. We don’t do that anymore because you get arrested. If they go to motels, you try to figure out what room they’re in and try to get a room close to them, usually across the hall, so we can see when they come out. We can follow them down the hall and videotape.”

Shows like “Cheaters” have brought a lot of attention recently to what some P.I.’s do. Now, more people are hiring them to get evidence, and get revenge.