By Bailey Molineux – 11/15/05

Affair prevention

It’s a fact of human life that solving one problem usually creates other problems that are as serious, if not more so, than the original problem.

The so-called sexual revolution is a case in point. Sexuality was too taboo a subject during the Victorian era, so it was probably inevitable that sexual repressions would be lifted. But the loosening of sexual morality came at a cost. An increase in sexually transmitted diseases and illegitimate births are two examples which come to mind.

It may well be that our increased divorce rate is also partially the result of the sexual revolution. One study found that approximately 37 percent of men and 20 percent of women have extramarital affairs. Although I don’t know of any research, it would be interesting to see if there is a strong correlation between divorce and affairs, if many of those who divorce have cheated on their spouses.

For obvious reasons, revealed affairs are incredibly hard on marriages. Having an affair is one of the most hurtful things one spouse can do to another, causing far more emotional pain in both than whatever fleeting pleasure was involved in the affair.

In my own marital therapy practice, I usually assume an affair involves three people: the unfaithful spouse, the hurt spouse, and the other person. Although not justifying the behavior, a revealed affair sends a message of marital dissatisfaction to the hurt spouse. It signals that the marriage is in serious trouble but thereby adds to that trouble.

Can a marriage survive an affair? Probably, but not without working through a great deal of hurt, anger and guilt. The hurt spouse eventually has to forgive the unfaithful spouse, while the latter must be genuinely remorseful and promise not to let it happen again. And both should start to work on the problems that may have contributed to the affair.

As is true in all areas of health, prevention is far better than any cure. If your marriage is unsatisfactory, there are more effective ways to express your unhappiness than through a revealed affair. Tell your spouse directly and get into marital therapy to find out what’s wrong with your marriage and what, if anything, can be done about it.

Maybe it’s too late to save your marriage but maybe it’s not. An affair as an expression of dissatisfaction will only make your marriage worse and could ruin any chance of saving it.

J. Bailey Molineux is a psychologist with Adult and Child Counseling, and can be reached at 406-443-1990.

Daddy Oh
Tony Robinson
Sunday, November 20, 2005

The gods are just, And of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
- Shakespeare, King Lear.

What is a vice really, except some strange rule or law that determines mankind’s sexuality? And oh, how these change over the years.

Throughout the ages the Church has foisted on us the belief that men and women must not only get married and live together for ever and ever, but that they must never have sex with anyone else for as long as they are together, and even after they part, in some cases.

Enter monogamy, as unnatural a state as a pig dancing the tango. But still, society insists that is the way to go, even though it flies in the face of the natural order of things. As a result, people make promises or recite vows of fidelity then sneak around behind each others’ backs and then accuse each other of cheating.

“But you promised to be faithful to me only.”
“But that was last year, Honey. Things do change, you know, man can’t eat bully beef every day.”

This then causes a break-up in the relationship and then both move on to other relationships where they hope that the new partner will not cheat also. This cheating thing is such a big deal in people’s lives and is the root cause of most marital destruction. The irony is that even though women will curse and carry on, they tend to be more forgiving of their men when it comes to cheating – not all, but many.

Even so, many a suffering husband has told me, “I would have been better off if she had left me when she caught me, rather than forgive me and then make my life a living hell after that.” Most men would never forgive their women for cheating, even if they too are doing it. It’s the hypocrisy and double standard of society that would be laughable if it wasn’t so deadly.

But even though I am not condoning it, agreeing with it or promoting it, I am here to tell you that sometimes this so-called cheating is justifiable. The fact is, men are constantly lusting and yearning after women, no matter who they are. It’s a God-given desire that rages in all of us. well, most of us at least.

Now, whether we act upon it is another matter, but it’s a constant battle between good and. but how can I say it’s evil when it’s a man-made law that changes as time goes on? It’s cheating if you profess to love your partner, make passionate love to your spouse, then go and do the same thing to someone else. That’s cheating.

But there are times when it’s justifiable. Hey, even for the most heinous of crimes like murder, you have extenuating circumstances, ergo, justifiable homicide. If you are provoked, harassed, chased, beaten and you retaliate and drop the person first, then it may be deemed justifiable homicide.

The French have crimes of passion. So, for example, you can go home and catch your woman naked in bed with Joe and if you do him in, it’s a crime of passion, as opposed to premeditated murder.

So if we can have justifiable circumstances to taking another person’s life, then why can’t we have justifiable cheating? If you have your woman and she locks shop on you, refuses to carry out her wifely duties, finds all sorts of excuses why she doesn’t want to, seals the vault, does not want you anymore, and you go and get it elsewhere, then that’s justifiable cheating.

Some women do just that, be like the dog in the manger who does not eat grass, but wants no other animal to come near to partake.

These same women who deprive their men are the ones who are most strident, vocal, angry, resentful, violent, when their men go and get it elsewhere.

It matters not to her that two years have passed since anything sexual happened between them, all she sees is that he cheated. So many men have told me this, and women have corroborated it, saying how they purposely deprive their men for whatever reason, but, “If him think seh him bad and go a street with any other woman, a kill him”.

On the other side of the coin are men who are so preoccupied with their work, gambling, drinking or other women, that they too deprive their women of conjugal bliss. When she gets it elsewhere, he calls her whore, slut, harlot, cheater, and may even do her serious bodily harm in the process.

I just don’t get it. I could understand if everything was all right and there was a happy home and they were making love regularly and all was bliss, then he discovered that she was playing around.

That I could understand, as he would feel betrayed. But how can he neglect his woman for many years and not expect her to satisfy her desires elsewhere? If you even stop feeding your pet or showing it love or affection, it’s going to start sleeping next door, so what about people?

Cheating is really not about sex, but rather about deception.
When a man has a woman on the side, a mistress for many years, but still maintains the façade of a marriage, then that’s cheating. The same goes for women. Sex is such an important part of relationships, yet some people treat it so lightly.

Just recently I saw this CNN poll that showed that the average couple in America had sex at least three times a week and some wanted more. Sex is so important that a marriage is not deemed legal unless it’s been consummated. Sex brings people together, and lack of it drives them apart. Many people are promiscuous because they’re simply seeking to bond with someone, that’s all, looking for love.

So with all this importance, why do people use it as a tool, a toy, leverage, to deprive or reward as they see fit? It’s not cheating if you admit to it, but it’s cheating if you’re sneaking around and carrying on like ‘thief with long bag’.

People need people who will fulfil them emotionally, spiritually and physically. That physical part is mighty important, as I do not see men visiting GO-GO clubs, picking up women or buying prostitutes to bond with them emotionally or spiritually.

That’s another thing; is it cheating if you go with a prostitute? After all, is there any emotional involvement? I know men who specialise in buying prostitutes only, married men too, who tell me that at least it’s honest sex with both parties knowing exactly what they’re getting.

Do a poll and ask men what they would prefer, a woman who bonds with them emotionally and spiritually, or a woman who will rock their world with headboard-banging, stallion-bucking, hog-sweating, banshee-screaming lovemaking. Ideally we would want all those attributes, but if we could just have only one, guess which one we’d choose? We must be honest with our inner self.

The fact is, over 70 per cent of couples cheat, even once, with both men and women bawling when it’s discovered. Some never find out, thinking that all is well in their camp, and even those may be cursing me right now for saying this, as their partner ‘would never cheat’. If you knew what I knew, you’d be surprised.

Still, I’m a realist, and if I become useless and my woman goes elsewhere, then her actions would be justified. Remember the Kenny Rogers song Ruby, in which he sings “Oh Ruby, don’t take your love to town”? There he was, in a wheelchair, can’t do anything, but doesn’t want his wife to go to town for some loving. Now, I repeat, I am not condoning it or telling you to go and cheat, but there are extenuating circumstances that may very well justify it.

Let’s just hope that your spouse will buy your argument and see it your way; and don’t tell them that I said to go do it either. More time.

Seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: The statistics regarding people who cheat are mind-boggling and it seems to be mankind’s chief pursuit. Even priests are now admitting it in great numbers, let alone people not so entrenched in the Church.

Still, it’s the world’s best kept secret, as most will never admit to it. Even when the evidence is overwhelming, so many do not find out or want to find out.

Hey, readers who e-mail me but do not wish that their letters be published, please indicate so, as some of your letters are so well written and opinionated that I feel obligated to share them with my editor and other readers.

You know that I love the feedback, even when you curse me, but if you don’t wish to share, then ask to use your initials only or a nom de plume. Respect.

Written by Burt Prelutsky
Friday, November 18, 2005

Not being religious, I don’t feel comfortable discussing other people’s sins. Even where the Ten Commandments are concerned, I’m probably only batting about .650. However, one of the thou-shalt-nots I seem to take more seriously than a lot of other people, including those in the church-going crowd, is number seven on the hit parade, the one dealing with adultery.

Having been divorced twice, I recognize that all marriages are not made in heaven. Some, in fact, seem to have been cobbled together in Dr. Frankenstein’s basement. Speaking from experience, there are perfectly good reasons for certain unions to be dissolved. But, for the life of me, I cannot come up with a single decent excuse for adultery. Frankly, I regard adulterers as lying, contemptible, sleazebags. I can’t begin to imagine how they live with themselves, let alone their mates. Even the terminology is distasteful, unless, unlike most of us, you don’t mind being a cheater.

I recall hearing that Chicago’s mayor, the late Richard Daley, who was one of the last of the big city bosses, when once asked why, with all the women available to him, he remained faithful to his wife, replied, “If I can’t keep my word to my wife, why should anybody else trust me?�

Now the story may be apocryphal, and, for all I know, Mayor Daley may have been a worse hound than Bill Clinton, but the point is still a good one. If before man and God, you pledge your troth, and, first chance you get, you hop into the sack with someone you’re not married to, you’re nothing but a four-flusher.

What truly confounds me are cheating couples who eventually wind up married to each other, and are then astonished that their partner is now cheating with somebody new. Anybody who believes they are so special, so beautiful, so fascinating, so charismatic, that they can trust their adulterous spouse to remain faithful is not only terminally narcissistic, but more gullible than the hayseed who pays good money for the deed to Brooklyn Bridge.

After giving it some thought, I am convinced that there are motives for adultery that have little or nothing to do with sex. I believe the first of these is based on resentment. Either the husband or the wife feels neglected because kids, work, hobbies, or booze, seem to have supplanted them in importance. The adultery not only provides them with a temporary ego-boost, but it gives them the feeling that they’re extracting a measure of well-deserved revenge. That is why after the initial excitement of the illicit affair wears off, the adulterer begins to resent the fact that his or her mate doesn’t even suspect anything. Their attitude often changes from one of “Oh, aren’t I the clever one to be pulling the wool over the fool’s eyes!� to “The damn fool doesn’t notice because he/she doesn’t think I’m sexy enough to attract anybody.� Ultimately, it’s vanity, rather than a guilty conscience, that leads them to confess all.

Another reason that people risk destroying their marriages, hurting their children, and damaging their reputations, is because their lives are so darn boring, and I’m not even referring to their sex lives. The truth is that most people live lives, not necessarily of quiet desperation, but filled with tedious activities spent with boring, mind-numbing, dullards. What makes it even worse is that every time they turn on television or pick up a magazine, they’re confronted by gorgeous celebrities, male and female, living the way they’d like to–a mad whirl of parties and premieres, vacations in exotic locales, private jets, limousines, servants, and, yes, tacky affairs. Well, chum, with your income, your humdrum job, and your ordinary looks, you can forget about everything on the list except that last item. But even you can meet George or Helen the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month at the Bide-a-While Motel.

And aren’t you, for about an hour or so, every bit as sexy and glamorous as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Sure, if you say so.

But when you drive home afterwards, saddled down with a load of guilt and self-contempt, can you honestly say the lay was worth the lie?

About the Writer: Burt Prelutsky is a humorist, movie reviewer, writer for television series and movies, and author of the new book, “Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco.” His website is at http://burtprelutsky.com. Burt receives e-mail at BurtPrelutsky@aol.com.

Is your spouse or partner cheating on you? The answer may be as close as your computer. And there’s a new way to prove your loved one is having an affair.

Relationship experts say it’s now one of the most common ways for someone to cheat on their partner, the internet. But one woman has now made it her mission to bust online cheaters. And she’s beating them at their own game.

“We were together a year and a half, we lived together, we talked about marriage.” This woman doesn’t want you to see her face but she does want you to hear her story.

“He would be online and I would walk in the room and he would minimize the screen and little things that I thought were suspicious and his reasons for that didn’t make sense.” The woman, we’ll call, Debra suspected her longtime boyfriend was meeting other women in internet chatrooms. But Debra wanted proof and she found it in Taunya Messner.

“If you’re online and looking to cheat and looking to chat and you want that adult interaction you’re going to talk. Messner started the site….cheating spouses online. For a fee she goes into internet chatrooms and starts a conversation with the person suspected of cheating.

“If you go into a chat room the majority of people are married and if they tell you that they are seperated they probably mean just by walls and that their wife is sleeping in the backroom.” Messner says all but one of her investigations has uncovered online infidelity. She pretends to be a single woman or man and she says almost every person takes the bait.

“If they tell me that they’re divorced or single and I know they’re married I’ll take it a step further and say well how long have you been single? what went wrong?” In Debra’s case her boyfriend sent Messner pictures and detailed personal information the relationship ended shortly after.

“It’s sad to say I reccomend spying on your boyfriend of husband but its a safe way to validate your feelings of suspicion you have for someone.”

The fee is 29.95 which inlcudes three chatroom convesations.

Checking On Partner’s Whereabouts Is Top Sign

Men behave in certain ways to retain their partner and to continue their relationship with her. Sometime it’s sweet, like holding hands or giving flowers, and sometimes it’s a harbinger of danger, according to new research.

A study published in the latest issue of Personal Relationships identifies several specific acts and tactics that lead to the possibility of violence.

Vigilance over a partner’s whereabouts was the highest-ranking tactic predicting violence. Emotional manipulation, such as a man saying he would die if his partner ever left also was predictive of violence.

Monopolization of time and the threat to punish for infidelity also were signals.

Showing love and care were among the tactics not associated with violence.

“Mate retention behaviors are designed to solve several adaptive problems, such as deterring a partner’s infidelity and preventing defection from the mating relationship,” author Todd K. Shackelford explains.

The researchers reviewed three studies to get these results.

In the first two studies, the researchers asked independent samples of men and women to report on men’s retention behaviors and men’s violence against their partners. In the third study, they asked husbands and their wives to report on men’s retention behaviors and violence against wives.

Acts such as “dropped by unexpectedly to see what my partner was doing” and “called to make sure my partner was where she said she would be” were the overall third and fifth highest predictors of violence.

Did you know there is a web-site for those who have cheated on their spouses? I was surprised when the site was shown to me by an acquaintance. On this site people talk about their affairs and share their love, pain, and guilt; kind of an internet therapy for cheaters.

I checked out the site and was shocked at the attitudes of the “cheaters.” Some said they still loved their spouse, some said it was their spouse’s fault that they cheated, some felt that the cheating was “nothing bad” as long as their husband or wife didn’t find out! Talk about ego-centric! Only a few were contrite that they had broken their marital vows.

Cheating is one of the worst things that can happen in a marriage. If couples choose to stay together after an affair has been discovered and ended, the effects of the cheating can be devastating to the innocent party. Trust, the basis of a good marriage, has been irrevocably broken.

How do you know for sure that your spouse is cheating on you? Besides the tell-tale signs of unexplained late hours, money that mysteriously disappears, lack of marital sex, and recent criticisms aimed at you, (your body, your attitude, your intelligence), by your cheating husband or wife, some people are looking for positive proof. The use of the private investigator has returned and their services are on longer only for the rich and famous.You, too, can have a PI looking out for your interests.

The help and assurance a private investigator offers can be invaluable.Like a good lawyer who works hard for her client a private investigator will work to give you the information that you need either for a confrontation or for legal purposes.

Most marriages do not survive a spouse’s infidelities. If they do, the marriage remains damaged. Nothing is the same, or will ever be the same again.

There is no reason for cheating. Some women, (and a few men also), feel that there was something lacking in their own selves. They have a chorus of the “enoughs� as in “I’m not good-looking enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not sexy enough, I’m not good enough, etc.� They tend to blame themselves for what is not their fault.

If you suspect your spouse of cheating and the idea of it is ruining your daily life, causing you to miss work and become depressed, then do consider a private investigator. The cost outweighs the tension and anguish of not knowing.

As far as cheating spouses go, women are just as apt to cheat as men. There is no real difference in the sexes.

Why do some spouses cheat and others do not? What makes one person hold his or her marriage vows sacred, while another risks throwing everything away? Despite the “psycho-talk� of religious upbringing, values, or moral fortitude, no one really knows the answer. A person with no religious background is just as likely to stay faithful as a person who has had religious instruction and values all their lives. A man or woman who has been brought up with certain values and morals will cheat the same as a man or woman who had no definitive morality.

Cheating by its very definition is wrong. Knowing for sure that your spouse is or isn’t cheating is a must for anyone who suspects infidelity. Take charge of your life.

Not being religious, I don’t feel comfortable discussing other people’s sins. Even where the Ten Commandments are concerned, I’m probably only batting about .650. However, one of the thou-shalt-nots I seem to take more seriously than a lot of other people – including those in the churchgoing crowd – is No. 7 on the hit parade, the one dealing with adultery.

Having been divorced twice, I recognize that all marriages are not made in heaven. Some, in fact, seem to have been cobbled together in Dr. Frankenstein’s basement. Speaking from experience, there are perfectly good reasons for certain unions to be dissolved. But, for the life of me, I can not come up with a single decent excuse for adultery. Frankly, I regard adulterers as lying, contemptible, sleazebags. I can’t begin to imagine how they live with themselves, let alone their mates. Even the terminology is distasteful, unless, unlike most of us, you don’t mind being a cheater.

I recall hearing that Chicago’s mayor, the late Richard Daley, who was one of the last of the big city bosses, when once asked why, with all the women available to him, he remained faithful to his wife, replied, “If I can’t keep my word to my wife, why should anybody else trust me?”

Now the story may be apocryphal, and, for all I know, Mayor Daley may have been a worse hound than Bill Clinton, but the point is still a good one. If before man and God, you pledge your troth, and, first chance you get, you hop into the sack with someone you’re not married to, you’re nothing but a four-flusher.

What truly confounds me are cheating couples who eventually wind up married to each other, and are then astonished that their partner is now cheating with somebody new. Anybody who believes they are so special, so beautiful, so fascinating, so charismatic, that they can trust their adulterous spouse to remain faithful is not only terminally narcissistic, but more gullible than the hayseed who pays good money for the deed to Brooklyn Bridge.

After giving it some thought, I am convinced that there are motives for adultery that have little or nothing to do with sex. I believe the first of these is based on resentment. Either the husband or the wife feels neglected because kids, work, hobbies or booze, seem to have supplanted them in importance. The adultery not only provides them with a temporary ego-boost, but it gives them the feeling that they’re extracting a measure of well-deserved revenge.

That is why after the initial excitement of the illicit affair wears off, the adulterer begins to resent the fact that his or her mate doesn’t even suspect anything. Their attitude often changes from one of “Oh, aren’t I the clever one to be pulling the wool over the fool’s eyes!” to “The damn fool doesn’t notice because he/she doesn’t think I’m sexy enough to attract anybody.” Ultimately, it’s vanity, rather than a guilty conscience, that leads them to confess all.

Another reason that people risk destroying their marriages, hurting their children and damaging their reputations is because their lives are so darn boring, and I’m not even referring to their sex lives. The truth is that most people live lives, not necessarily of quiet desperation, but filled with tedious activities spent with boring, mind-numbing dullards.

What makes it even worse is that every time they turn on the television or pick up a magazine, they’re confronted by gorgeous celebrities, male and female, living the way they’d like to – a mad whirl of parties and premieres, vacations in exotic locales, private jets, limousines, servants and, yes, tacky affairs. Well, chum, with your income, your humdrum job and your ordinary looks, you can forget about everything on the list except that last item. But even you can meet George or Helen the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month at the Bide-a-While Motel.

And aren’t you, for about an hour or so, every bit as sexy and glamorous as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Sure, if you say so.

But when you drive home afterward, saddled down with a load of guilt and self-contempt, can you honestly say the lay was worth the lie?

Burt Prelutsky has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times, a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine and a freelance writer for TV Guide, Modern Maturity, the N.Y. Times and Sports Illustrated. He has also written TV scripts for shows such as “MASH,” “Mary Tyler Moore” and “Diagnosis Murder.” His most recent book “Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco,” is available from WND’s online store, ShopNetDaily, or if you’d rather order by phone, call WND’s toll-free customer service line at 1-800-4WND-COM (1-800-496-3266).