50 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
of marriage at one in seven; one in four between years two and
ten; and one in three after ten or more years of marriage. (4) Dr.
David Barash in his book, The Myth of Monogamy, estimates that
30 to 50 percent of married women and 50 to 80 percent of mar-
ried men have had affairs. I suppose you can pick your own per-
sonal favorite as to the statistical probabilities... but, it sounds
like a fairly serious issue to me.
Meanwhile, the gut feelings and suspicions of the cheated-on
spouse often prove accurate. According to one group of research-
ers, 90 percent of the wives questioned who suspected their hus-
bands of straying outside the marriage were correct in their as-
sumptions, while 87 percent of the husbands who thought their
wives had extramarital experiences were accurate.
There is no question in my mind that the greatest difference
between men and women in the motivation for having affairs
is this: men tend to seek mainly sexual variety and excitement;
women, on the other hand, look primarily for emotional returns.
Women embark upon extramarital affairs for numerous reasons,
of course, but the vast majority of those wives who are unfaithful
explain their motivation in terms of a search for heightened emo-
tions and intimacy in the face of being emotionally dissatisfied
with their husbands. Whereas a “fling” style affair undertaken by
a husband may not necessarily threaten a marriage unduly, the
more “seriously seeking meaning” style affair undertaken by a
wife may indeed be a more serious and problematic issue for the
marriage and a stronger predictor of divorce.
Affairs are not fair. There is an innate deceit involved in extra-
marital dalliances, and that deceit breeds numerous and often
unanticipated complications. If a person’s extramarital activities
are discovered—which happens in a surprisingly large number
of cases—there is a sizable risk that this will seriously undermine
the trust and intimacy of his or her marriage.
Another big negative follows the discovery of an affair—it vic-
timizes the uninvolved spouse. The cheated-on partner may be
victimized in a number of other ways beyond simply having their
feelings hurt and their trust eroded. For instance, they may have
been exposed to sexually transmitted diseases, or have been vic-
timized economically as well.