Tag Archive | why marriages fail

Reasons Why Women Cheat

Why Women Cheat

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.

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

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.

An Eye for an Eye

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

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Should I Marry Or Just Live With My Partner?

Jul8

Should I Marry Or Just Live With My Partner

I receive countless emails on the topic of getting married versus living with your partner with the possibility of one day getting married and all the apprehension that goes with that decision. So in this article/blog I’m going to address these questions as I understand them and welcome your comments as well.

I also receive many questions about arranged marriages, and the consequences of that on the couple, as well as about marriages that are not arranged and do not have the approval of family.

Here are a couple of scenarios:

Boy meets girl – they fall in love – they commit to each other and set up house either with a view to getting married or having just done so.
Families introduce the couple – they live with their own families until they get married often not even meeting, or if so briefly in the parents company, before their wedding day.

Researchers have looked into each of these scenarios, amongst others, to determine what situations give the best long-term outcomes for couples.

And here is what the research is indicating:

Generally over the long-term arranged marriages have the highest rate of success. That is not necessarily to say that these couples are the happiest but, due to the cultural structure of their communities, where women particularly often have less input into their life decisions, the permanence of these relationships is pretty much guaranteed.

Another indicator coming from the research is that marriages that have resulted from a courtship whereby the couple has lived separately until their wedding day also seem to have a higher success rate than couples who have lived together prior to becoming married.

The lowest long-term success rate comes from couples who live together before they marry or who live together without marrying at all or who have only known each other for a short period of time before marrying.

My hunch is that there is a common denominator here that is to do with commitment. This commitment however could be self-directed or other directed. In the case of an arranged marriage there may be a commitment based on lack of perceived choice. While on the other end of the continuum, the couple who live together without making a long-term commitment, may actually not have given enough thought to the decision and consequently may feel more able to step away from the relationship if things get too hard.

This is a huge generalisation based on a set of figures which of course is just that; numbers not real people.

I look forward to your stories to tell me of outcomes that are contrary to the research results, for good and for bad, and maybe we can conduct our own research to see what structure relationships take that have the best outcome.

There is another set of figures being published too that says that second marriages have a higher failure rate than first marriages. This is often blamed on the additional stress of there now being children in the relationship or that someone has not learned their lessons from the first relationship and thereby just gets into the same negative place again.

And in terms of going against statistical norms I will be the first to hold up my hand. I met my current partner just as I was ready to end my previous relationship. I don’t mind saying that while we have never married we have now been together for twenty plus years and each year just gets better and better.

So what does all this tell us? Simply this: there is no best way to choose a partner or to choose a type of relationship or even a best time to marry. This might also mean then that there is no optimum time to know each other before committing to a relationship nor a best age to do this.

The most important thing is that you love each other and respect each other and treat each other as if you are the most valuable thing in the world. This presupposes that each of you is at peace within yourself. Sometimes this means making it more about your partner than about you. If you can do this then whatever arrangement you have will work.

A Word of Warning

A really important thing to remember is that relationships can be fragile and need regular nurturing and care. Don’t ever treat another person as someone to own or to have control over or to force into a relationship without their want. This is not respectful or favourable to being loved.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Is It Possible to Make an Affair Work for You?

Jun24

One of the most hurtful events of a relationship is when someone is discovered having an affair.

Generally one of three things happens when someone discovers that their spouse has been cheating on them.

The affair is ignored. This may mean that the affair continues but nothing changes in the relationship. This is often because the party being cheated on just doesn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ for fear of what might come of it.
The relationship ends. Sometimes one or other of the couple decides that they can no longer be in the relationship and so the relationship ends.
Ideally the affair stops. The old relationship discontinues and a new relationship begins.

Whether the relationship ends or not, some serious losses will be experienced. Losses can be physical or symbolic and may include:

Loss of trust
Loss of security
Loss of hope/dreams
Loss of faith
Loss of intimacy and affection
Loss of self-esteem

Sometimes it is these losses, over and above the affair, that pulls the couple apart and sounds the death knell for continuing the relationship.

If the third option is the case the challenge then is for the non-offending spouse to overcome these losses and find trust again for the other person. This is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome.

The Way Forward

The way forward then is to take the time with your spouse to talk about all these issues and to realign them with a new way of being. More than anything for a relationship to make it through there needs to be forgiveness: forgiveness of each spouse of themselves and of each other for the part they played in the affair.

And yes, as hard it sounds, even the non-offending spouse might need to look at their part in causing the affair. In saying this I don’t mean to imply that the offending party should be absolved of what they have done. They must take full responsibility for the hurt they’ve caused but, as I’ve said before, the reason this affair has happened is because there was something amiss in the relationship to start with. For this both spouses need to assume responsibility.

To help you both along the way it might be useful to start a journal. Express all your thoughts and feelings in this journal; the good, the bad and the downright ugly. And besides making the time to talk about what happened there might also need to be some new, if only temporary, rules put into place regarding letting each other know where you are and what you’re doing and how long that will be. This can be the only way forward if trust is going to be re-established.

And by the way the spouse who decides the ultimate outcome of the affair will be the non-offending spouse not the one who cheated. Your role is to just grin and bear it, as this is the consequence of having erred. If there is enough love and a renewed commitment and trust you will find a way to reconnect. For both of you don’t be in a hurry. It will take as long as it takes.

Sometimes all this might seem too hard to do on your own and you might need some professional help. Take that help even if you don’t yet know what you should do now that the affair has been exposed. Counselling will help you find your way through the mess to then be able to make a clear decision to either leave the relationship or to recommit. It’s only as you come to make this decision that you can start to move forward.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Are You Thinking About Separation or Divorce?

Jun9

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If you would like to attend the free presentation please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the free presentation”.

Some excerpts from my workshops.

The Blame Game

Apr14

Is It Her or Is It Me?

Couples invariably get to some point in their relationship when they start asking questions about whether any issues that they have, have to do with them, each other or some external factor.

Some of the questions that are asked can be about religion, culture or even age differences as a way of understanding why they are in trouble.

While these differences may impact on the development and growth of a relationship they are not the most important issues as there are just as many relationships with these differences that are successful.

And even in relationships that have no significant distinguishing variances there can be issues that result in the relationship not working.

So if it’s not the differences that ultimately put the greatest pressure on a relationship what is it then?

In all the years that I have worked with couples what I see as the single biggest destroyer of relationships is the “BLAME GAME”. It’s the individual’s unwillingness to take responsibility in their part of what went wrong.

Let me ask you a question – have you ever found yourself saying that if only your partner would be, do, think or speak differently then everything would be ok. Well what about you? What if you would be, do, think or speak differently what do you think would happen?

I constantly surprise clients when they contact me saying that they’d love to come into counselling but their partner doesn’t want to. What I tell them is to: “Just bring yourself into counselling. We can do couples work without your partner ever have to be there”. Then they’re further surprised when they notice things actually changing for them when they put into practice the things I suggest to them to do.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Top of this list of things you can do is to STOP THE BLAME GAME! Everything that your partner does happens for a reason and you are as much a part of that reason as they are.

Firstly they learned, either by observation of their parents are other close family members, or from their own life experience, what to do and how to act when they are in conflict. For some of you this might be to go quiet and withdraw, yell louder than your partner, or distract yourself with something, or someone else.

So when you are in conflict as an adult your tendency will be to return to those old ways of responding. And as you do it your way your partner will do it their way.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Relationship Release – The Easiest Way to Leave Your Lover

Apr3

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If you would like to attend the free presentation evening please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the free presentation evening”.

Some excerpts from my workshops.

Why Is My Husband Addicted To Sex With Other Women?

Feb25

man addicted to sex Some time ago I received an email from a woman questioning her husband’s continuing infidelity despite the fact that they have been married for more than twenty years. The simple question was why he would continue doing this?

The answer of course is never quite as simple as the question as there may be a number of reasons that he might continue to be unfaithful. In this article I’ll describe a few and what this woman might be able to do about it.

The first thought I had when reading this question was that this man has not yet grown up. It feels like he may be stuck in adolescence still trying to figure out who he is and how he wants to be as a man.

The other thought I had that may be an extension of the one above is that this man is trying to prolong his youth by acting as a young man still unable to control his biological urges, which makes me wonder how this might present in other areas of his life such as in his work or as a parent himself.

And then it could be that he’s just trying to prove that he still has “it”, whatever “it” is. It may be something to do with a low self-esteem that he feels he needs to prove to himself or even to his wife, that he is still attractive to others and be attractive enough to be sexually desirable.

But then it could be that his wife, she who wrote the email, is a very powerful character in her own right, or maybe is simply a “nag”, and the affairs are his way of escaping, if only for a moment, her abuses.

And then it could be that this is what was modelled for him as a child by his parents, or other significant people in his life, as being the way to behave as an adult thereby having the husband believing that this is what all married couples do.

And of course it may be that the women he is having the affairs with are having their own issues and are manipulating him into believing that he is more than a conquest by their seductive advances which, because of his low self-esteem he is unable to resist.

Nonetheless, whatever the reason, the continuing affairs are certainly representative of something critically amiss in this relationship that needs to be addressed.

The way to do this is firstly is for the wife to challenge him on what he is doing. In this case she needs to ensure that he understands that the behaviour is inappropriate and will not be tolerated any further. It might be that for the sake of the relationship, or for the children of the relationship, never a good reason, that she has turned a blind eye to the behaviour and pretended that it just didn’t happen.

The wife might have to take a good hard look at herself as well in terms of what she might be doing or saying that encourages him to continue the behaviour.

This may be too big an ask for anyone to address between themselves so this might be best done with the assistance of a couples counsellor. The counsellor will ask both of the couple lots of questions that might not have otherwise been asked to help both people in the couple to understand exactly what these recurrent affairs mean to them and what they can do to bring their relationship back on track.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Is Your Relationship In Trouble?

Feb24

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”.

Some excerpts from my workshops.

Presentation January 22, 2015

Jan14

Click on the flyer to see it in full size.
If you would like to attend please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the presentation”.

Some excerpts from my workshops.

Why Women Cheat?

Nov25

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.

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

The reasons why women cheat include loneliness, revenge, and boredom or as an attempt to raise their self-esteem.

An Eye for an Eye

They may be extremely hurt by their partner’s actions and seek a way to hurt them in the same way.

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.

So until next time – Relate with Love

Relationship Remedy Signature jpeg

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Tag Archive | why marriages fail

Reasons Why Women Cheat

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

An Eye for an Eye

Should I Marry Or Just Live With My Partner?

Here are a couple of scenarios:

And here is what the research is indicating:

A Word of Warning

Is It Possible to Make an Affair Work for You?

The Way Forward

Are You Thinking About Separation or Divorce?

The Blame Game

Relationship Release – The Easiest Way to Leave Your Lover

Relationship Release – Is Your Relationship in Serious Trouble?

Why Is My Husband Addicted To Sex With Other Women?

Is Your Relationship In Trouble?

Is Your Relationship In Trouble?

Presentation January 22, 2015

Some excerpts from my workshops.

Why Women Cheat?

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

An Eye for an Eye

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

An Eye for an Eye

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Here are a couple of scenarios:

And here is what the research is indicating:

A Word of Warning

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The Way Forward

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Relationship Release – Is Your Relationship in Serious Trouble?

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Is Your Relationship In Trouble?

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Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

An Eye for an Eye

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