Seven Castles

Extramarital Affairs

                                      

September 29, 2006

 

Extramarital affairs are when sexual addiction and infidelity meet.

 

Sexual infidelity is one of humanity's great obsessions, perhaps second only to violence. Infidelity occurs when one member of a couple secretly violates the commitment to monogamy. Recent statistics suggest that most of the marriages will have one spouse at one point or another involved in marital infidelity. It is clear that men are more prone to infidelity. Some say that as many as 50% of women cheat on their husbands, and 70% of men step out on their wives. There are a great number of people involved in infidelity never discovered. Those hiding the affair will continue to hide.

 

It is important to understand that extramarital affairs are different and serve different purposes. An extramarital affair might be for revenge either because the spouse did or did not do something. Or the revenge may stem from rage. Although revenge is the motive for both, they look and feel very different.

 

Extramarital affairs are costly. They affect family, friends and colleagues. This activity is bound by fear: the fear of getting caught, the fear of consequences, the fear of "being found out", the fear of being abnormal, the fear of being punished, and the fear of losing family, spouse, job and respect. However, infidelity is also an opportunity - to redesign one's life and love relationships in ways that create honor, joy and true intimacy.

 

Today's society accepts extramarital sexual relationships as the norm. Yet the pain, loss of trust, and feelings of betrayal that accompany this, whether the infidelity is declared, discovered, or lies hidden, is one of the most pernicious cancers that can gnaw away at the heart of the strongest relationship.

 

China's economic boom has led to a revival of the two-millennium-old tradition of "golden canaries", so called because, like the showcase birds, mistresses are often pampered, housed in love nests and taken out at the pleasure of their "masters". Mistresses, again a status symbol in China, have become a must-have for party officials, bureaucrats and businessmen. Like the saying goes, "Behind every corrupt official, there must be at least one mistress". Mistresses do become a motive for public corruption, as found in many cases.

 

As the mistress boom is contributing to a surge in divorces and fierce battles over property when relationships collapse, China amended the marriage law to make men who indulge in mistresses pay heavy penalties and to give their spouses greater rights in separations.

 

【作者: zhangliping】【访问统计:】【2006年09月29日 星期五 06:40】【 加入博采】【打印】