On the Couch with Gail Saltz, M.D. | A Mental Health Blog at iVillage.com
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I have certainly blogged about infidelity before and, sadly, it is all too common in a marriage. However, we certainly have seen a number of politicians cheat recently and many of us are left wondering, "What is up with this?" Power is intoxicating and power can corrupt. It intoxicates both the powerful and those looking to “get power” by being associated with it. People around a politician often say "yes" to them so much and praise them to the point that the politician starts to buy into the idea that they are so powerful the rules no longer apply to them. In addition, many politicians are high risk takers to begin with; it is what drew them to politics. It makes them good at the game but it also makes them likely to take a self-destructive risk.
The spouse and any children involved suffer terribly when such a scandal erupts. But what I find especially disturbing at this point is that the national psyche is suffering. We as a nation are watching politician after politician lie, cheat, cover up and break the very rules that they portend to uphold the most. This level of hypocrisy is chipping away at our national trust. Much like a betrayed spouse, I think the country is trying to figure out if they can trust any politician. We are caught feeling everyone is suspect and we don’t have any great method of telling who is being truthful in what they say. If you want to run for President, or any other leadership position, you need to remember that it hasn’t been called “the father of our country” for nothing. The father figure must uphold honesty and integrity for people to place their faith in him as the leader. It is true that marriage is suffering as an institution in many ways in this country, but politicians need to acknowledge that we have psychic reasons to believe they need to be held to a higher standard.
What are your thoughts?
More from Dr. Gail Saltz:
Last week a group of girls videotaped themselves beating up a classmate and this week a woman airs her marital grievances as well as her accusations of infidelity and impotence.
Why is this happening? There was a time when no one would have dreamed of revealing such awful behavior and would avoid public humiliation. But the new millennium seems to have brought with it an ever-increasing threshold for public display, shame and exhibitionism.
Unfortunately, exhibiting shameful behavior has become sport, from reality TV to Youtube to Myspace ... Screens are blasted with image after image and we are all watching. We have become increasingly desensitized to the taboo of exhibitionism and to the taboo of sadism. Sadism and masochism are also parts of human nature but usually kept in check by a community that wants to keep each other safe and moral. Today, watching sadism has become in vogue, whether watching a chef torture wannabes or watching the humiliations and razor-sharp criticisms of American Idol, or everyone going to the boxing match to see the knockout, not the fancy footwork.
The risks are that the next generation will have an even harder time keeping the more primitive aggressive drives and wishes in check. Children learn from what they see and they will do as you do, not just as you say. Talk to your child about what they are seeing and teach them why this kind of public humiliation sadly helps no one and for many will be very destructive.
Related content from Gail Saltz:
Statistics (on how many men are cheating) are hard to come by, because, let’s face it, most men do not want to come clean on this subject. However, figures range from 24% to as much as 60%. Any way you cut it, many men are straying from monogamy.
What are the reasons that men do cheat?
Men appear from studies to be more sexually motivated to have an affair than women (who are more emotionally motivated). So, for instance, men are motivated by a desire for sexually experimenting and for having the rush associated with “new sex”. This is their way of prolonging indefinitely the early and intoxicating phase of infatuation in a relationship.
They also do it for control and power in the relationship. If he is an affair with no promise of commitment then he controls his level of vulnerability in that relationship. Some men cheat, in fact, to avoid any real intimacy. Intimacy scares them, so they distance themselves from their wives by cheating on them, and they also never get too emotionally involved with their lovers. This way, they never have to trust, rely on, feel hurt or angered by their partner. This kind of man probably also greatly fears conflict.
Many men strike up an affair when they start to feel the fear and loss that comes with aging. To run from the terror that they are not so young and invulnerable anymore, they have an affair to deny the aging, and all that aging means. They find something or someone “young and new”.
I will discuss on the TODAY Show what happens when your partner has a wandering eye.
First off, it is worth saying that humans all have some measure of voyeurism and exhibitionism: we like to look and we like to show. Some of us like it however, more than others. I tend to hear more distress from women about their male partner looking at other women and how much this bothers them.
Both men and women are visual, but it is true that men tend to look more at women's bodies than women checking out men, but women having a wandering eye is on the rise. Men also tend to think about sex more times per day than women and this becomes a part of their looking.
Still, there is looking and there is LOOKING. Most people are not very bothered by the occasional glance. But blatantly checking out, commenting on, repeated admiring of and certainly flirting or touching usually feel quite undermining to a partner. Such behavior makes one feel unappreciated, and even threatened in the relationship. Unless both parties are confident of the others' affection, appearance, and fidelity it generally will stir envy and hurt.
It's helpful to know that some people don't really realize what they are doing and how it makes you feel. You really do have to point it out, make them aware of it and how it makes you feel. Many partners, once told how hurtful and disrespectful it is to you, will make an effort to curb such behavior, but the hurt party will often have difficulty explaining how they feel.
Make it clear: you don't expect them to wear blinders, or stare at the ground; just don't ogle. If your partner really won't make any effort to change and doesn't appear to care how it makes you feel, it's likely you have other such issues and couples therapy may be in order. Most important is to be rational and reasonable in your request. Being unreasonably jealous with unreasonable requests is likely to make your partner throw out the baby with the bathwater and pay you no heed.
Also make sure you do give your partner positive feedback and admiration because everyone needs that and if you don't at all, they may be "looking" for that feedback elsewhere.
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Today on the Today Show we discussed a new poll about infidelity. Here is a little more information about infidelity.
Danger signs.
No one wants to believe a partner is cheating; unfortunately this sometimes means that you stick your head in the sand and ignore all the signs. The message becomes “go ahead and I won’t look”. So there may be continual cheating, and anger will slowly build until it erupts and makes repair even more difficult.
If you ignored the signs you are bound to feel more humiliated once you look back and realize they were there all along.
1. Acts distant
2. Works late hours
3. Wants less sex, or when has sex has new moves
4. Mentions some new person a lot
5. Is angry, or overly nice
6. Sudden interest in appearance
7. Has some new behaviors
8. You find yourself thinking a lot about how he would never cheat (this means it's on your subconscious mind and you are being consciously defensive).
Cheating Myths:
Once a cheater, always a cheater
There is such a thing as the serial cheater, someone who, for his or her own psychological problems (who can’t tolerate being truly intimate) needs to keep moving from partner to partner. But this is more the exception than the rule. Most either cheat for long periods of time, or one-night stands, but not repetitively.
Cheating means your marriage is bad.
It can, but cheating often comes from some psychological conflict that is unresolved on the part of the cheater, i.e., a woman whose father rejected her may chronically cheat with older men to get approval of her father. An individual problem can cause cheating even when the marriage itself was in decent shape. Once the person has worked on the issue the marriage may be OK.
She was after him, so its not his fault.
Don’t blame someone else. The cheater is ultimately responsible for his or her own actions.
In order to get over it, you need to know every detail of the affair.
You need to know the “who”, “what”, “where” and “did you love her?” of the affair in order to have a packaged story that you can digest. But knowing how many times they did it, and which position, and which motel room is just going to feed the flame and make it more difficult to move on and forgive.
I can’t forgive if I can’t forget.
You won’t forget and frankly you shouldn’t forget because pretending it never happened could encourage it to happen again. But you can CHOOSE to forgive and need to make that a conscious decision if you want to save the marriage.
