Whether you call it cheating, unfaithfulness, adultery, an affair, or marital infidelity, it causes devastating pain and major crises in marriages. Surprisingly, half of marriages survive infidelity and some even get better. Infidelity spurs 50% of couples who experience it to reassess their marriages and make changes, often with the help of counselors. About 15% of wives and 25% of husbands admit to cheating, while over 60% of relationships may have a cheating spouse during the course of a marriage.

Causes of Infidelity

The causes of infidelity are numerous and can be simple or complicated. Affairs occur in both happy and unhappy marriages. Usually, both spouses are responsible for the situation. The causes of infidelity include: a mid-life or pre-midlife crisis, low self-esteem, lack of love and attention given to a spouse, anger, boredom, marrying too young, peer pressure, the existence of an opportunity, disappointment in the marriage, sex addiction, as a way to leave the marriage, and even family expectations!

When it comes to relationships there is a common concept that there comes a point in terms of time when both individuals start to wonder what they are doing in the relationship. This is a difficult time for both of the people as individually, and especially for the two of them as a couple; fights break out incessantly and the temptation to cheat becomes a major player. This period of the relationship is commonly known in relationship-lore as the seven-year itch.

This is in fact a real phenomenon, although it affects every person and every couple differently and to different extents. Also, the “seven-year” designation isn’t terribly scientific, but it’s on-the-mark more often than you might expect. Another factor that will be specific to the couple involved is the time period. In fact, five years is probably a little more accurate, with the “itch” occurring most commonly between the fifth and seventh year of a given relationship — sometimes lasting the two years in between.

When you love someone and the relationship has to end in any reason that hurt you both, it has to end right at that moment and you have to accept it and let go. You don’t have to ask questions why it happened; you don’t have to look for answers because you will see none. Things could get ugly if you insist looking for it. Don’t try to change the course of fate, if it’s meant to end then it has to end and let go.

Respect whatever he thinks about you, no need to talk or settle things with him, it only makes you so cheap and get hurt more. Parting ways is painful but you have to take it. Don’t try to end it well if there’s no future to end it well. Just take the situation as it is and let go. You cannot patch the holes and loopholes that happened to both of you. There will always be grudges, blaming and comparison with each other. It’s the way it is; its how letting go is. There could never be a nicer way to do it, but to let go and accept it. If you are a person who wants to end everything in a nice way, this is not the time, only time could tell if all wounds have healed, things will fall in their right places at the right time. As the old adage goes “Time will heal all wounds” as old as it is, it is still true even to this time.

Reading body language to know if a person is lying applies not just to ordinary people but even to professionals, as well. The police use it to determine if the person is guilty of a certain wrongdoing or not, teachers employ it to find out if the child really has or hasn’t done his or her homework and parents apply it to find out if their teenagers really did go to a group study session as they said they would.

In the past, it seemed like reading body language to judge guilt may not have been in effect, at least in some cultures. Tribal groups of centuries back used to figure out if a native committed a crime using pain tests, such as dipping a hand in boiling water, walking on fiery coals, and others.

With the increasing use of the internet comes the risk of online infidelity which can lead to marital problems and can even cause a marriage to break down. These have become known as cyber-affairs.

Many people can become addicted to online chat rooms where they can indulge in sexually explicit chat in real-time with total strangers. A climate of permissiveness pervades many of these chat rooms and instant messages sent privately between two people allow them to engage in erotic chats without the risk of being caught by their spouse. Webcams can be viewed, voice chat can be turned on instead of typing in text, and pictures and files of a sexual or personal nature can be transferred secretly by linking peer-to-peer.