It's Cheating

It was something new even for a jaded public that had seen it all.  It was something new for everyone who had lived through Monica and Bill, Princess Di and Squidgy, and Jennifer and Brangelina.

The governor of South Carolina had gone missing.

The people of his state had no idea where he was. His staff had no idea where he was. And even though it was Father’s Day weekend 2009, his wife and four sons did not know where he was. Governor Mark Sanford wasn’t answering cell phone calls or e-mails. People worried because it was the first time a governor of a state had gone missing for five days. (more…)

Technology has made our lives immeasurable better, but it also poses numerous problems. For adolescents, growing up in a world with social media, the prevalence of Internet access, and a smart phone in hand has many joys and many challenges. Kids have more ways of communicating with each other than ever before, which can be positive. Of course, there are negatives as well and a huge potential for regrets. (more…)

Psychologist Dr. Shirley Glass can’t tell you exactly what will happen when you find out your partner has been cheating on you, but she can give you a fairly good idea based on her 40 years of research into marital infidelity.  Most people will go through several distinct stages of pain and readjustment, and how they and their partners go through them together determines whether their relationships will survive.

The first stage is the “Moment of Realization.”  This is the precise time your suspicions are confirmed or that exact moment you find out in an undeniable way that your partner has been involved with someone else.  If your partner tells you in person, you may have a better time of it than if you find out through a private detective you or by finding love emails. Either way, the moment is one of profound pain and suffering and one you never forget. In fact, most people remember everything about the moment and relive it in their minds a thousand times in “flashbacks.”  They experience deep anxiety and feelings of being unsafe, and their adrenaline and stress levels increase in the same way they would if they were enduring physical threats to their lives.  What’s really sad is that the one person who used to listen and share their problems has become the actual source of the danger they fear.  They typically feel isolated, humiliated, afraid, and deeply depressed. (more…)

Safe sexting? Forget about it. No image sent across the Internet or a smartphone can ever be completely protected or safe, experts say.

The rise of apps like Snapchat and related programs may encourage sexting among teens, with the belief that the image is present for 10 seconds and then disappears. The reality is that even with additional apps that are supposed to protect against others viewing or retrieving the images, most experts agree that no images are truly confidential or safe. (more…)

The common sense view of people who cheat is that they are vain and selfish, and mostly out for themselves and their own needs.  They don’t care how much suffering they cause others as long as they get what they want.

Social scientists who study people who cheat on their partners actually confirm this common sense view of infidelity.  A cluster of personality traits like selfishness and lack of feeling for others together make up a personality disorder called “narcissism.”  While not everyone who cheats is a narcissist, people with those traits are more likely to be unfaithful and enter into a series of short-term relationships with the opposite sex. (more…)

A couple of years ago an Australian professor of psychology decided to find out whether intelligent people like her graduate students believe that having a relationship online is the same as conventional cheating on your partner.  Since the subject is complex,  Dr. Margaret Whitty deliberately sought complex answers.  Instead of having the 234 students answer simple yes-no or multiple choice questionnaires, she had them write stories, assigning one of these two sentences as a prompt:

Mark and Jennifer have been going out for over a year when Mark realizes that Jennifer has developed a relationship with someone else on the Internet …. (or) ….

Mark and Jennifer have been going out for over a year when Jennifer realizes that Mark has developed a relationship with someone else on the Internet…. (more…)

Even though millions of adults, especially those in the 18-to-34 age range, view pornography on the Internet at least once a month, many may be unaware of how online porn impacts their real-world sex life. A recent post addresses numerous impacts of porn on a person’s sex life, and the impacts aren’t positive. (more…)

Two years ago, New York Congressman Anthony Weiner was embroiled in an embarrassing scandal. He had committed no crime, but yet his colleagues in the United States Congress were calling for his resignation. Donald Trump called him a psycho, and prominent Democrats such as Paul Begala said his behavior was “disgusting.” Comedians could not help but pile on jokes and puns on his name. As Jon Stewart put it, “I’d be impeached as a comic if I didn’t joke about Weiner.” (more…)

Remember the courting process? A young man would show up on the porch of the home of the young girl, asking her father if they could sit on the porch swing under his watchful eye. The dating scene differs greatly today, but a new trend is emerging that is cutting out tradition in favor of going straight to the physical. (more…)

When people suspect that their partners are having affairs, some prefer never to know for sure.  Others have to know. Still others want pictures and physical evidence of the affair to use in court during divorce proceedings.  The last two kinds of suspicious minds are the ones who hire private investigators. (more…)