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Happy Valentine's Day Sweetheart! Oh by the way, I'm having an affair and I'm leaving you. Is your marriage in trouble? The facts are clear and the emotional costs are high. Despite the lack of consensus about the divorce rate in police families, there is nearly unanimous agreement that the job imposes considerable stress on the family unit. Perhaps the most significant stress described in the literature is the change in the policeman's self-disclosure and emotional involvement with his family. It appears that after being on the job for a short while, the police officer becomes more secretive (Parker & Roth 1973), more emotionally distant, and less involved with his wife and children (Reiser, 1974,1978; Stratton, 1975,1978; Hageman, 1978; Maynard & Maynard, 1980). Research shows two explanations: 1.) The family soon becomes less important to the male officer. He becomes afraid to express emotion to his family or anyone else. Compassion is subdued in favor of "macho" image maintenance. As a result, the police officer begins to enforce his own independent brand of law, both at home and on the street. 2.) For the police officer becoming emotionally detached from his family - the family cannot compete with the job in providing emotional gratification. Because the young officer tends to become overly immersed in his police officer role, communication at home may tend to break down. Distancing occurs between him and his wife as he feels compelled to spend more time with his peer group, to share his interests with them rather than with his wife. Sometimes the officer begins to search for excitement and change outside of the marriage and the uniform, badge and power can help with the need for something or someone different. With female officers on the department, a male officer may begin to express his feelings and grow close to his female partner ...giving the reason she understands him more than his wife. Infidelity rarely just happens. It's most likely to occur when you're dissatisfied with the current state of your relationship. Let's face facts. Everyone is tempted from time to time, in one way or another, to break moral law. It is the giving in to the temptation that effects not only you but everyone in your life...your wife, the kids, your parents, the in-laws and your job. It's one of the three things that can get us all into trouble...LUST, ANGER and GREED. Oh you say we didn't have sex. An affair is not always sexual. When you are investing more time in another relationship and taking time away from your spouse and family, you are cheating them of something they are deserving of ...your time. Oh who's going to find out? It will just be a onetime fling. Hey, I can get away with this. What my wife doesn't know won't hurt her! It's not a big deal, everyone else is doing it! I couldn't help myself, she's been chasing after me and it just happened. The next thing you know, you're spending more time with the other person and less time with your family. Here's some things to keep in mind if you're thinking of cheating on your spouse: After colds and flus, sexually transmitted diseases are the most common infections in the United States. Here's something to think about...there are more than 20 different infections that are known to be passed from person to person during sex. 12 Million Americans will be infected by a sexually transmitted disease this year. These infections affect people of all ages, all ethnicity's, all income levels. Oh that's right - you're the police nothing can happen to you! While most people state the reason for a divorce was because they "married young" or "grew apart", some clinicians and marriage counselors have found in their experience that 90% of all divorces involved infidelity. Nothing undermines a relationship faster than a lack of communication, suspicion, and distrust. We know that "extramarital affairs" have been going on since the advent of the socially sanctioned union. Our historical concern about affairs is evident in the inclusion of extramarital affairs as one of the sins mentioned in the Ten Commandments. The fact that affairs are wrong even considered to be a sin, has been ingrained into us through our social, cultural and religious upbringing. Yet despite the social and religious disapproval of them, they have been an ever present phenomenon for us to deal with. Types of Infidelity:
Accidental Infidelity: not expected, familiar, or predictable. Philandering: requires steady changing of
partners, has low self esteem, believed that people envy them, stereotype
genders. Romantic Affairs: occurs at transition periods,
escape from reality. Marital Arrangements: separations, open-ended
relationships. This is how it happens! You arrive home around 2 am after making a late arrest. The wife and kids are sound asleep. The house is quite but you're not ready for sleep yet. You reach in the icebox for a cold brew and sit down at the computer. After signing on, you drop in on one of those chat rooms. Before you know it you've been chatting with this 36 year old female by the cyber named of "Green Eyes" for two and a half hours and she says she lives on the west side of town. The following week you agree to meet for lunch. The following week you call her after working the 3 to 11 shift and you meet for a midnight drink. Nearly all affairs - yes, even yours-follows very specific patterns. They generally fall into four stages, according to several family researchers. Stage One: You develop a close emotional bond. This is the talking stage. Stage Two: You keep it a secret. You don't tell your spouse or your friends that you are attracted emotionally to this person. Fantasy and secrets are very powerful. They fuel the fire. Stage Three: You have lunch, meet after work for a drink, play tennis, take a walk in the park, etc. You start seeing each other, doing things together. You tell yourself this is just a friend or co-worker. Stage Four: You become engaged in an intense sexual and emotional liaison. By this time you are investing so much time into this new relationship, your family is being totally neglected. The Aftermath Falling out of love with a spouse-and in love with someone else often rekindles that early experience of romantic love. It's why lovers say "He or she made me feel young again." But sooner or later, lovers in an extramarital affair have to confront the dynamic nature of their relationship and move on to a deeper bond or sever the connection. A former police officer and his wife tried to repair their marriage, after going to a few counseling sessions they decided to have another baby thinking that would bring them closer together. A few years later, the wife had a short affair with someone she met on the Internet, and then another. Eventually she left her husband. The officer was so upset, he got drunk and killed himself. Affairs rock your world. Life is never the same again. All parties involved experience a profound sense of loss and pain. |
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