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Q: She becomes the pursuer, he the distancer.

Dr. G. When she withdraws, the marriage is much further down the road to dissolution, because she’s given up. Her husband, unfortunately, thinks things are so much better because she’s no longer complaining. He doesn’t recognize that she has detached and become emotionally available for an affair. The husband first notices it when she becomes disinterested in sex--or after she’s left! Then he’ll do anything to keep her. The tragedy is that is often too little too late.

Q: By then she is often committed to someone on the outside?

Dr. G. Yes, which is why when women have affairs, it’s so much more often a result of long-term marital dissatisfaction.

Q. Can you predict which couples will get involved in affairs?

Dr. G. When we look at predictors, we’re really looking at them retrospectively. For example, we know that people who have had affairs have attitudes that are more endorsing of reasons for affairs--but did that attitude take root before or after the affair? Some research shows that women who have affairs previously talked to other women who had affairs, a way of getting permission.

Social context is a predictor. If you’re in an occupational or social group where many people have affairs, and there’s a sexually permissive attitude, you’re more likely. Also if you come from a family where there’s a history of affairs--the most notorious are the Kennedys, where the men have a certain entitlement. Coming from one of the Mediterranean cultures, like the Greek, where the double standard is alive and well, is another predictor.

Q: What you’re saying is that an affair is not always about the marriage. There are often cultural pulls or contextual pulls into affairs. This seems to me very important information for women, because women blame themselves.

Dr. G. And society blames women.

Q: So affairs can happen in good marriages. Is the marriage really good?

Dr. G. Sometimes one person thinks the marriage is fine and the other doesn’t. That may be because the more dissatisfied person hasn’t communicated their dissatisfaction. Or they’ve communicated their dissatisfaction and the partner has discounted it.

But after an affair, people often try to justify it by rewriting unhappiness into the marital history. They say. “I never really loved you,” or “you never really acted like you loved me.” That is just a way to make themselves feel that they didn’t do such a terrible thing.

Q: Why do some people in unhappy marriages have affairs and others do not?

Dr. G. Number one is opportunity. Number two is values. Some people do not think an affair is justified for any reason. Others think it’s okay if you’re not getting it at home, or if you “fall in love” with another person.

Most surveys of attitudes simply ask people whether they approve of extramarital sex. Fully 85 to 90 percent of people say no. But asking more specific questions--such as, do you think it’s okay to have an affair for sexual excitement, or to get understanding or affection--greatly discriminates conditions under which affairs are justified.

These break down according to gender. For women, the highest justification is for love; emotional intimacy is next. Sex is last on their list of justifications. It’s the opposite for men; sex scores the highest.

Q: Is infidelity in a longstanding marriage the same as in one of shorter duration?

Dr. G. It is potentially more threatening to the marriage when it happens earlier, and the chances of the marriage surviving are less, particularly where the woman is having an affair.

Q: Did she choose the wrong mate?

Dr. G. She thinks she did, especially if her affair partner is the opposite of her husband.

Q: From your perspective, what’s going on?

Dr. G. She’s growing and changing, and she chooses somebody she sees as more similar to herself. Usually it’s someone at work. Her husband may be working very hard in his profession, or going to school, and not paying much attention to her. She feels a little lonely, and then she gets involved. Or maybe her husband is very caring and the relationship is so supportive and stable that it doesn’t have a challenge for her.

There is some evidence, from studies in the Sixties and Seventies, that infidelity is more likely early in the marriage among working-class couples. The men haven’t yet settled down. Among college educated professionals, affairs generally happen later in the marriage.

Q: The opportunities for affairs have changed radically in the past 20 years. Men and women are together all the time in the workplace, and workplaces are sexy places. You dress up, you are trying your best, there’s lots of energy in the air.

Dr. G. And you’re not cleaning up vomit or the hot water heater that just flooded the basement. And it’s not at the end of the day, when you’re exhausted. Also, you’re working together on something that has excitement and meaning.

One of the major shifts is that more married women are having affairs than in the past. There are several reasons. Today’s woman has usually had more experience with premarital sex, so she’s not as inhibited about getting involved sexually with another man. She has more financial independence, so she’s not taking as great a risk. And she is working with men on a more equal level, so the men are very attractive to her.

Continued >

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