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If you would like to attend the seminar please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the seminar”.
Click on the flyer to see it in full size.
If you would like to attend the seminar please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the seminar”.
Recently I was surprised to hear news of increasing number of websites promoting affairs. So it maybe a bit of a surprise to hear that men are not the only ones who cheat on their partners. It is becoming more and more common for women to be guilty of cheating.
And while years ago a woman cheating on her spouse was unheard of more recently the number of women who enter into affairs and cheat on their spouse is growing exponentially.
However while women may be cheating as often as men, the reasons why women cheat are very different to the reasons why men cheat.
Research is showing us that the principle difference between men and women cheating are that men often cheat for physical reasons while women often have emotional reasons for cheating on their partner.
The reasons why women cheat include loneliness, revenge, and boredom or as an attempt to raise their self-esteem.
A partner who becomes excessively involved with his work or some pastime may no longer make time to spend with his partner. This often results in the woman feeling as if she is all alone. So if a woman is not receiving the attention she feels she deserves in a relationship, she may be tempted to seek that attention elsewhere and become involved in an affair.
Loneliness has amazingly become one of the primary reasons that women seek out affairs and cheat on their partner. Although it sounds contradictory that they should feel lonely while being in a relationship, it is because that relationship has simply become emotionally unfulfilling.
Revenge has also become a growing factor in why women cheat. The modern woman is no longer willing to sit back and accept the fact that their partner may cheat on them. If a woman confirms or even just holds a suspicion that her partner is cheating on her, she may be driven to engage in an affair of her own as an act of revenge.
They may be extremely hurt by their partner’s actions and seek a way to hurt them in the same way.
Boredom may also factor into why women cheat. Their current relationship may have fallen into a rut and lost the excitement that it possessed in the early stages of its existence. They may feel that their relationship has become dull and predictable so rather than trying to bring excitement into their current relationship they may pursue affairs in the hopes of rediscovering the excitement they felt when they first became involved with their partner.
While an affair may bring about a temporary solution of making the woman feel excited about love again it may ultimately destroy both their current relationship as well as their cheating relationship.
An affair is exciting not only because it involves a relationship with a new person but also because it involves sneaking around and ultimately getting away with doing something wrong.
To many women this is very exciting and they are willing to risk losing their relationship over the affair.
Another reason why women cheat is a lack of self-esteem. Women may feel that they are not getting an adequate amount of attention from their partner and they may be tempted to cheat to confirm that they are still attractive and desirable.
Being found desirable by another compensates for the lack of appreciation they feel from their partner which helps to boost their self-esteem. While women with a healthy self-esteem are more likely to remain happy in a relationship, and do what needs to be done to find it, those who lack self-esteem may be more driven to cheat on their partners.
So if you are finding yourself lonely, bored or feeling like your self-esteem is failing you think twice before embarking on an affair. Maybe there is a better way out. This might be to seek some counselling and then to find a way to confront your partner about what it is you’re experiencing.
So until next time – Relate with Love
This week’s blog could have many titles and hopefully will address many of the questions I get on the topic of ‘…so now that we are married – now what?’
Some of the questions relate to: ‘Keeping Love Alive’, ‘Holding on to the Spark’ or maybe related to the question: ‘How do we Sustain a Marriage after 10, 20 or 30+ Years?’ Sometimes the questions are just about ‘What to do from Becoming Bored’
There is so much I could say about this topic I scarcely know where to begin. The reason you become bored in relationships is that you think there is nothing more to learn about the other person or you lose the want to find out if there’s something still worthwhile knowing. In short, you become bored because you most often just don’t want to be bothered anymore.
When you first meet someone, and you don’t know them well enough yet to see the negative qualities they possess, you just want to get as much of them as you can. You want to be with them 24/7 to feel the good feelings you get just by being near them. You want to know there most personal thoughts, about everything, in your quest to prove to yourself that they really are the right person for you and so much so that they become perfect in your eyes.
And then one day you think you’ve got them figured out! From here then it’s a short step to it becoming all too much trouble.
And by the way this goes both ways – they think they’ve got you figured as well. So as you stop talking to them, they stop talking to you and you get into a stage of relationship that I call ‘Assuming your way into oblivion’.
There’s an old adage that says to ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and ME. From there it’s a downhill slide into second guessing and taking the others needs and wants for granted.
The funny thing about this is that you unconsciously encourage this by your own expectation that if your partner truly understood you then they would know what you are thinking and thereby what you are wanting and/or needing and would somehow then just magically do it.
But guess what you aren’t a mind reader, most of us aren’t anyway, and as well as you think you might know your partner you really have no idea. You have not had his or her life experiences for one thing, you don’t process your thoughts in the same way as he or she does and therefore you will naturally respond to things differently.
So to get back to the topic at hand – if you’re not a mind reader then neither are they. The way forward then is to keep talking, stay curious and always check out what’s new for the other person. Share your thoughts and feelings with them as well and never give up.
I have met with couples that have issues that keep coming up for them. They might even have a brief conversation about it and, for a moment at least, it seems that things might change. But guess what? The issues just keep coming back again and again. And this is why: The real core of the issues were never fully understood in the first place and just as often by the person holding the issue as well as by the other trying to grapple with it.
So if you don’t get it for yourself then what hope has your partner got of getting it and consequently what hope have you got as a couple to really find a satisfactory and long-term resolution?
The answer is none.
You need to be friend to your partner as well as a lover. Never assume that you really do know what they mean when they say ‘… you know.’ The truth is if they don’t, you can’t either. Friends are interested about each others thoughts and feelings. They ask meaningful questions and listen actively to the responses. This consists of more than an ‘I understand’ and may actually require a statement about what you think you are actually hearing so that the other can confirm, or restate or expand, so that you can really get down to the truth about what they are actually saying to you.
In this way you can never get bored as there’ll always be something to talk about. And it won’t matter that you have been married for 30, 40 or even 50 years as there will always be something more to learn about that person that you’ve never known before. And just maybe there will be something to also learn about yourself.
To get you started on this quest check out the page on my website titled ‘quizzes and questionnaires’ and look for: ‘My life in 34 Questions’. Answer the questions for yourself and for your partner before sharing your answers. You might find out something you never knew before.
So until next time – Relate with Love
Early in your relationship the romance factor is very high. The romance is seemingly effortless and it seems as though the romance will never fade. You may find, however, that over time the romance does fade and the relationship doesn’t seem as exciting as it did in the beginning. This is natural. As you become more familiar with each other you may make less of an effort in the romance. When this happens it is time to start making a conscious effort to recharge your romance.
It is natural for romance to begin to fade if you begin to take each other for granted and stop trying to impress. Romance doesn’t exist on its own it needs to be nurtured in order to survive. Recharging your romance may seem like a daunting task but it really isn’t. Try it and see what it can do for your relationship.
So until next time – Relate with Love
If your relationship is starting to lose its passion you may need to make a conscious effort to re-ignite the spark in your relationship and reawaken the passion. Sometimes it may take elaborate plans and gestures to reawaken the passion in your relationship and sometimes it may just be small seemingly insignificant things that can help you.
If your relationship is starting to lose its passion it doesn’t mean the relationship is over. All of these examples are simple ways that a couple can reawaken the passion in their relationship. As long as the love still exists, it is possible to bring back the passion.
So until next time – Relate with Love