Tag: Cheating

According to AshleyMadison.com, the Hispanic community is “the fastest growing community when it comes to infidelity.”

In a press release sent by the self-described “largest dating site for married people”, the company states that since launching the Spanish-language version of their website in 2009, 1.1 million Latinos have signed up, accounting for 31 percent of their total new membership.

The company further suggests that according to their data, “Hispanic members have affairs at the youngest age: Average age of 27 for women and 34 for men (compared to 33 for women and 40 for men in the general U.S. population).”

Considering the stereotype of Latinos as family-oriented and with conservative social values, this may come as a bit of a surprise.

In a 2010 review of General Social Survey data, one intrepid blogger took a look at the “relationship between ancestry and philandering in the U.S.” The writer’s analysis indicates that 19.6 percent of married Mexican men and 12.4 percent of married Mexican women have cheated on their spouses, whereas the rates for Americans (i.e. those who claim this as their only ethnicity) were 28.2 percent for married men and 15.5 percent for married women, indexing over 40 percent and 25 percent, respectively, versus the Mexican respondents.

Persons of the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) rated low for women, 10.9 percent, but quite high for men, at 38.5 percent.

While Hispanics are different from Mexicans or Iberians, and while perhaps presenting a bit of a statistical case for the machista reputation of Latino men, the findings possibly reinforce the stereotype that Hispanics are more socially conservative that the U.S. mainstream when it comes to this issue.

A separate finding reported by AshleyMadison.com in their press release corroborates this, somewhat, indicating that Hispanics who are cheating on their spouses “are choosing to have fewer partners: U.S. members average three affair partners per year; Hispanic members average only one affair partner per year.”

However, in 2009, the National Institutes of Health published a report which showed that Latino youths are less apt to protect against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy due to their focus “on the emotional and social repercussions of potentially revealing infidelity by advocating condom use than the physical repercussions of unsafe sex.”

The findings suggest that this group, Latino youths, are promiscuous and prone to concealing their infidelity, behavior which could persist and lead to the kinds of findings noted by AshleyMadison.com.

So, the jury is still out. The people at AshleyMadison.com may be onto something, maybe they know what’s really going on behind the curtains of Latino marriages. To be sure, they recently announced they are accelerating the launch of their website for Mexico, hoping to launch by end of November.

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Infidelity: how to cope with a cheating spouse

Infidelity in your fifties can be particularly unsettling, says Sarah Cornwell. But you can move on and it can lead to positive change.

Finding out that your partner is having an affair is devastating at any age, but if you’re in your fifties and you’ve been together for years the shock is seismic. Suddenly you’re forced to see the person you thought you knew in a totally new light.

“It makes you feel that all the certainties in the world are collapsing around you,” says Andrew G Marshall, one of the wisest and most experienced marital therapists in the business. “Even if you accept your own contribution towards the problem, the realisation that you get rewarded like this just because you took your eye off the ball not only undermines your trust in your partner but in the general sense that the world is a fair place.”

The fifties are a classic time for affairs. The sense of ‘Is that all there is?’ hangs heavy in the air and the kids are no longer the glue that binds couples together. But no matter how commonplace infidelity has become (it is estimated that 30 to 40 per cent of us will stray at some stage) it is always painful.

So how can you handle the emotional chaos of those first few weeks, when you can’t eat, your brain won’t stop and the only thing that gets you through the night is a hefty dose of Temazepam?

With any luck, at this stage in life, you’re able to overcome the initial impulse to reach for the nearest blade – tempting though it may be – or make off with the mistress’ kitten, like MP’s wife Christine Hemming. Rather than storming out, you’re more likely to take a considered view of what you really want.

“I had always assumed that if my husband was unfaithful I’d leave him,” says Anna, who discovered her husband’s two-year affair with a colleague three years ago. “But when it actually happened to me I reacted very differently, I think because I’d learned from previous crises in our relationship that impetuous gestures are usually counter-productive as well as hard to go back on. I thought very carefully about what was at stake.

“My initial instinct was to tell the whole world the gory details – his parents, our kids, the taxi driver, my hairdresser. I held back, and now I’m so relieved I did. We told the kids the bare minimum, and I found that it was better to talk to just one or two good friends, because otherwise I got too much conflicting advice.

“I remember times when it was a huge relief to be with people who didn’t know anything about the affair.”

Andrew Marshall’s book, How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, speaks to the partner who has had the affair as well as the one who discovered it. Marshall says the hardest thing about the immediate aftermath is learning to live with uncertainty. He urges couples to accept the complexity of their emotions.

“It’s normal to be filled with all sorts of contradictory feelings: love and hate, hope and despair, fear and relief. We don’t like living with ambivalence, and often push ourselves to come down on one side or the other, even if it makes things worse. And there is a tendency to think, I’m in so much pain we’ve got to solve this now. In fact, there is no ticking clock.”

It’s reassuring that 25 years spent counselling couples through the aftermath of affairs has convinced Marshall that, despite all the misery and pain, the soul-searching that follows can make those relationships that survive stronger and better.

“There are many positives: you and your partner will probably speak more to each other in five days than you have in five years. Affairs have the capacity to bring all the unburied bodies in your relationship to the surface. So you’re not just dealing with the affair itself, but also with the long-term issues that you ignored beforehand, which usually turn out to be not as big or as scary as you thought. And that, ultimately, must be a good thing.”

How to cope with the shock: Andrew Marshall’s tips

Resist the temptation to throw your partner out straight away. You need answers to your questions.

Equally, don’t forgive too soon. You can’t forgive until you know what’s happened and seen its full impact.

Don’t make major decisions when you’re in shock. Put off the decision to stay or go for as long as possible.

Tell your kids the absolute minimum: “We’re having problems and we’re sorting it out” is quite enough.

Don’t tell the world and his dog. What you need is a sensible friend who won’t tell you what to do, preferably someone who doesn’t know your partner well (and who hasn’t gone through a bitter divorce themselves).

The healing process starts when you give your partner the chance to tell you.

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Facebook Infidelity: Cheating Spouses Go Online

Facebook has apparently become the new “lipstick on your collar.”

Twenty percent of divorces involve Facebook and 80 percent of divorce lawyers have reported a spike in the number of cases that use social media for evidence, according to a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

It’s so common that there’s a website dedicated to Facebook cheating.

FacebookCheating.com’s founder says he started the site after his now ex-wife had an affair with an old flame she re-ignited on Facebook.

The site is an outlet that gives tips on how to catch a cheating spouse in the age of social networks and heartbreaks across the Web.

“Facebook has ruined my marriage of almost 20 years,” a man wrote on another support group website, marriagehelper.com. “My wife ‘reconnected’ with old boy friends and even started innocently flirting with a stranger.”

Stories of infidelity posted on such websites illustrate how the social media network has helped to reconnect former lovers.

Even celebrities are not immune.

Actress Eva Longoria has said that husband Tony Parker strayed with a woman he kept in touch with on Facebook early in their marriage.

Indeed, real-life desperate housewives have discovered that opportunities to cheat aren’t sitting at the next barstool but a keystroke away.

Couples Led Astray

Marriage counselor Terry Real said he believes that Facebook can provide a sort of fantasy for a cheating spouse.

“There is nothing more seductive than the ‘one that got away’ fantasy is always better than someone who’s up to her eyeballs in bills and diapers,” he said.

The Rev. Cedric Miller, a pastor in New Jersey, made headlines recently when he called Facebook a “portal to infidelity” and told his parishioners to delete their accounts after 20 couples confessed that Facebook led them astray.

Miller himself took a leave of absence because of his own (non-Facebook) sexual transgressions. He later admitted to having a three-way sexual relationship in the past.

A connection is made and it starts out platonic and can later turn into something more. But such connections cannot solely be blamed on Facebook, therapists say.

“Before it was e-mail, then before that it was the phone,” Real said. “The problem is not Facebook, it is the loss of love in your marriage.”

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Suspicion, dishonesty, and fear of deception can overwhelm a person’s psyche. He even tells you that you’re crazy and have nothing to worry about, but your womanly intuitions say that this guy is a sneaky, cheating, little prick. She reassures that the handsome guy from work is just a friend, but you know men well enough to know that he is just trying to get a piece of your honey. Are your accusations spot on or are they slowly killing your relationship? Like a magicians secrets revealed, here are the tell tale signs that your partner is cheating….

7 Jealousy and Insecurity

You reap what you sow. Those who find the slightest suspicion in the most obscure places are usually guilty themselves.

6 Remnants of Another Person

You’ve seen those CSI shows, look for traces left behind i.e. hair, make-up, perfume, cologne, hair clips, bobby pins, socks, dishes. I’m no forensic scientist, but strands of hair that appear in your bed, car, or on your clothing that isn’t mine, is sketchy.

5 Disinterest, Distant, and Distracted

General disinterest in intimacy may mean that they are being fulfilled elsewhere. If your partner seems distant or distracted, they may have that other person on their mind.

4 Atypical Nitpicking

If you notice your partner starting arguments over issues that are out of the ordinary, chances are that they are looking for excuses to leave you by projecting their guilt from cheating on to you.

3 Emphasis on Social Life

Having a social life outside of your relationship is absolutely encouraged, but when that social life becomes repeatingly more important than spending alone time together then that separate social life turns into a separate secret life.

2 Unhappiness

If there are no severe issues in your relationship, and your partner isn’t happy, then somebody else is making them happy. Simple as that.

1 The Confidential Cellphone

If your partner conceals the content of their cellphone like they are a top-secret, international spy, then most likely there are hints of an extracurricular relationship within that phone. Your are not apart of the CIA, relax.

I know its difficult to distinguish between insecurity and legitimate acts of infidelity, but make sure you choose a side. Constantly badgering your partner with accusations and suspicion gets exhausting. Either you believe your partner 100% or get to steppin’. Life is too short for the inbetween. Trust issues are difficult to overcome; take a step back and assess if these suspicions are a result of your own jaded past or if your partner is a cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater. Take it or leave it.

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Beware, cheating husbands and wives.  The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today. Based on the battle of a divorcing New Jersey couple, the decision helps clarify the rules governing GPS technology increasingly employed by suspicious spouses – many of whom hire private investigators. “For the appellate division to say that it’s not an invasion of privacy is a wonderful thing for private investigation business,” said Lisa Reed, owner of LSR Investigations in Flemington. It’s been something we’ve been haggling over for some period of time.”

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