[JaimeLaFrite]

You Won't Believe How Many
Wives Cheat

Hey, guys: Where's your wife? The modern American or European woman is just as likely to cheat on her husband as he is to cheat on her.

Those are the eyebrow-raising findings of a team of German researchers from the Hamburg-based GEWIS Institute for Social Research. Reuters reports that in a survey of 1,427 men and women between the ages of 25 and 35, fully 53 percent of women said they had been unfaithful to their partner, compared with 59 percent of men.

Unlike most men, the reason women have affairs is primarily non-sexual. While sex is no doubt the outcome, what women are seeking when they first stray from their husbands is reassurance and understanding. In other words, they are looking for emotional intimacy.

Lead researcher Werner Habermehl said that changing demographic factors have also contributed to the startling increase in unfaithful wives, including more liberal attitudes about sex, greater knowledge about contraception, and more freedom for women.

Some women are serial cheaters. Seventeen percent of women surveyed said they had cheated two or three times, compared with 22 percent of men. And get this: Eight percent of the women said they had cheated four or five times in the course of their marriage, but only 4 percent of men admitted to this.

Here's the really scary part: Infidelity can happen to good people in good marriages. Psychologist Shirley P. Glass, author of "Not 'Just Friends': Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal," primarily places the blame for all this cheating on three factors:

* Friendships at work
* Child-centered marriages
* Intimate Internet conversations

Glass told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that today's workplace infidelity is less likely to be between the boss and the secretary and more likely to be between colleagues who are drawn close in a shared project or deadline. Oddly, she says that the people who indulge in these affairs often have very happy marriages. Glass also blames what she calls "child-centered marriages," in which couples focus their energy on their kids' lives, while they neglect their own. (Hint: This is you if the only thing you have to talk about is the what the kids are doing.) And she points a guilty finger at the Internet where people believe that betrayal through e-mail and Instant Messenger isn't real infidelity.

Why do we stray? Because we can. There is attraction. There is proximity. There is opportunity.

[lolita]

Loooool!
A very interesting article!
I was very surprised!
Lolita...