Is Your Marriage Ripe for an Affair? :: Emotional and Mental Health

Is Your Marriage Ripe for an Affair?
by author Morrie and Arleah Shechtman

Quick, answer this question with the first thing that comes to mind: If you were worried that your spouse might stray, how would you prevent it? Maybe your knee-jerk response is “I would lose 20 pounds and upgrade my wardrobe” or “I would shower my spouse with expensive gifts.”

Or you’d answer “I would be extra attentive to my spouse so she would realize how good she has it.” If your answer resembled any of those above, bad news: you’re on the wrong track. You’ve bought into a common misconception about what causes affairs in the first place.

Most people assume that people have affairs with someone more attractive, sexier, or richer than their spouse. Despite the clichés–the mid-life crisis situation where the husband runs off with his much younger secretary, for instance–that’s not what infidelity is about. People who cheat generally choose someone busier and more goal-oriented than their current partner. Someone more interesting, in other words.

That’s right. The harsh truth is that when one spouse strays, it’s probably because the other spouse has become, well, boring. So your focus on your appearance or your desperate attempts to please your partner completely miss the point.

Here are five warning signs that your marriage may be ripe for an affair.

1. You don’t challenge each other

Unconditional acceptance is a myth. Healthy marriages require a mutual willingness to challenge and be challenged. An “Oh, I’ll let the little woman do whatever makes her happy” attitude is condescending and harmful. If your partner lounges around in her bathrobe watching TV every day and you say nothing, then you’re not invested in her well-being. Maybe she’s depressed. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe she’s succumbing to laziness. Regardless, the message that she gets loud and clear from your silence is that you don’t care. Not only do you have the right to make reasonable demands on your partner, you have the obligation to do so.

2. You and your partner have morphed into one

Getting married does not mean becoming two people with the same interests, hobbies, and friends. If you and your spouse do everything together, something’s wrong. If your partner is not allowed to have a life of his own, he will eventually become resentful. Similarly, if you’re over-interested in his life, wanting to know or be involved in every detail, he will feel intruded upon and smothered. True intimacy requires two people leading independent lives, not two people living through each other. The best marriages are low-maintenance ones that give each partner space and freedom.

3. One person selflessly lives for the other

We like to tell the story of Bernard, a heart surgeon, and Stacy, the wife who selflessly devoted herself to him. She supported him through medical school. She stayed home and raised his kids. She prepared gourmet meals for him, often complete with heart-shaped ice cubes. And one day Bernard left Stacy for a dishevelled photojournalist, two years his senior, who chastised him for stealing a cab she’d just hailed. Why? Because the photojournalist was interesting. Selfless devotion is boring. Bernard could have hired a housekeeper and a caterer. Gratitude for services rendered is no replacement for a stimulating partner. By failing to cultivate a life of her own, Stacy deprived Bernard and herself of that.

4. Everything centres on your children

It’s easy to succumb to the temptation to make your kids the centre of the universe. Don’t. For too many parents, running kids to and from soccer practice, dance lessons, and weekend parties becomes an insidious dance of intimacy avoidance. When you are reduced to being little more than an appointment secretary or a taxicab for your children, there’s precious little time to develop an identity or a life of your own. Remember, children are temporary. One day they will grow up and leave and your marriage will still be there. More to the point, you’ll still be there. So devote at least as much energy to your personal growth as you do to the social life of your kids.

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Morrie and Arleah Shechtman are practising psychotherapists and authors of Love in the Present Tense: How to Have a High Intimacy, Low Maintenance Marriage (Bull Publishing, 2004). morrieandarleah.com.

Source: alive #270, April 2005

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