1
Q
what is infidelity?
A
- Unfaithfulness by being unreliable and cheating on a relationship partner that takes place despite a commitment to exclusiveness
- Sexual infidelity by a marriage partner has been referred to as cheating, an affair, adultery, or a philanderer
- Acts of infidelity vary within cultures and depends on the type of relationship between people
2
Q
types of infidelity
A
- emotional only
- sexual only
- combined sexual and emotional
- cyber affair
3
Q
types of infidelity: emotional only
A
- When one partner becomes emotionally attached to someone other than their romantic partner
- Great amount of time communicating, sharing deeply personal things, or having inside jokes
- ex. work relationship
4
Q
types of infidelity: sexual only
A
- Sexual relations, activities, or intercourse outside the romantic relationship
- No deep emotional attachment to the sexual partner
- Ex. one night stand, hiring a sex worker
5
Q
types of infidelity: combined sexual and emotional
A
Creates a secondary relationship → includes all the routines and expectations of a romantic relationship
6
Q
types of infidelity: cyber affair
A
Occurs online only (ie. sexting, texting, chatting or video chatting within a sexual context with someone other than your romantic partner)
7
Q
who is more likely to cheat?
A
- 20% of men and 13% of women reported they had sex with someone other than their spouse
- Infidelity for both men and women increases during middle ages
- Women in their 60s report highest infidelity rate while men in their 70s is the highest infidelity rate
8
Q
how does cheating influence divorce/separation rates?
A
- Married adults who have cheated on their spouses before: 40% currently divorced or separated
- Adults who were faithful to their spouse: only 17% got divorced/separated
- Half of cheaters are currently married, compared to 76% of those who haven’t cheated
9
Q
Omarzu study: why do people cheat? –> basics
A
77 participants (mostly women) completed a series of open-ended questionnaires about their definitions of an affair, length of relationship, who initiated it, how they planned their encounters, where they would meet, their reasons for beginning their affair, and the positive and negative emotions experienced
10
Q
Omarzu study: why do people cheat? –> results
A
- Met mainly in hotels or home of the affair partner, used telephones/cell phones to arrange meetings
- 50% indicated that the relationship was initiated mutually
- 8 categories of motivation for affairs
11
Q
Omarzu study: why do people cheat? –> 8 categories of motivation for affairs
A
- 2 were physical: lack of sexual satisfaction in primary relationship; desire for additional sexual partners
- 2 were emotional: lack of emotional satisfaction in primary relationship; desire for additional emotional connection/validation
- 2 were about love: falling out of love with primary partner; falling in love with person they were having the affair with
- Other 2: revenge sex (found out spouse had an affair, so you engage in one to hurt them); curiosity or sensation-seeking
12
Q
what can we do if we’ve cheated and we want to keep the relationship?
A
- Be honest: you need to tell your partner that you’re cheating (might need to use therapeutic assistance)
- Trust is important in a relationship:
- Trust is violated not only when we cheated, but when we lied and kept secrets about cheating
- Relationship does not go back to the way it was before infidelity → would you want it to? It didn’t work in the first place anyway, so use this as an opportunity to start fresh
- Rigorous honesty can improve the relationship → become accountable and share our feelings, not hide them
13
Q
what can we do if we’ve cheated? –> reasons we don’t disclose
A
- You and/or your partner don’t intend to repair and save the relationship
- Your partner says that they would rather not know about your actions
- Your partner is unwilling to let a professional assist you with disclosure
- Your partner is not emotionally or physically well enough to experience the process
- Your partner only wants the information so they can use it against you in court
14
Q
what can we do if we were cheated on?
A
- Address your physical and logistical needs: are you staying in the home, or is someone going elsewhere? Who will look after the pets and the kids?
- Self-care and doing the work: looking after yourself (sleep, relaxing, exercise, etc.); work to either save the relationship or your own therapy
- Plan communication: will it be at home or with a couples therapist? Meet in a neutral place? How will you know you’re ready to talk?
- Enlist your support network
- Avoid rash decisions and be mindful of your feelings (feelings can range from shock to denial to anger to guilt)
- Resist the urge for escalation or revenge
- Don’t assume you know the whole story until you do (even then, watch your assumptions → separate the facts from your guesses or suspicions)
15
Q
Rethinking monogamy: Esther Perel’s findings
A
- Monogamy is not the norm in Western culture (look at divorce rates)
- An affair could be the death of a relationship or an alarm call (end of the first marriage and beginning of a new one, with the same person or another person)
- Choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame (judged for still loving partner who cheated; “throw them out”)
- Rather than ask: “why did you do this to me?”, ask “what did this affair mean?”, “what were you able to express that you couldn’t express to me?”, “how did it feel to come home?”
- Less about sex and more about desire
16
Q
partner violence in Canada: general statistics
A
- In 2011, almost 100,000 reported victims of intimate partner violence
- Includes same and opposite sex partners
- ¼ of all police-reported violent crime
- 80% of victims were female
- Majority reported being physically assaulted by a current partner
- More common in dating relationships
- Highest rates for men and women in their late 20s and early 30s
- Rates decline with age but remain high for women regardless of age
17
Q
partner violence in Canada: common types of offenses
A
- Most common offense = common assault (an offence with little to no lasting injury to the victim)
- Majority used their own physical force to either threaten or cause injury
- Followed by threats and criminal harassment
18
Q
partner violence in Canada: provincial stats
A
- Saskatchewan and Manitoba record highest rates in Canada
- Saskatchewan was 30% higher than Manitoba
- This may be because SK and MB don’t have many big cities, and domestic violence is lower in big cities due to higher awareness
- Lowest rates in Ontario and Quebec
19
Q
anger vs. abuse: what’s the difference?
A
- Anger:
- Natural and healthy feeling
- Lash out or say things we don’t mean in a safe, controlled, non-violent way
- Occurs in all contexts of life
- Closure and opportunities for responsibility
- Abuse:
- Not natural and unhealthy
- Purposeful, strategic, and a choice → purpose = power; other person is always the problem
- Occurs in private
- Does not take responsibility (minimize, deny, blame, justify)
20
Q
3 different types of violence
A
- situational couple violence: mutual violence that erupts from specific angry arguments that get out of hand
- intimate terrorism: occurs when one partner uses violence as a tool to control and oppress the other
- violent resistance: one partner forcibly fights back against intimate terrorism
21
Q
5 other forms of control that often accompany intimate terrorism
A
- Isolation: controlling where they go, what they do, and who they see
- Intimidation: threatening, destroying property, abusing pets
- Economic abuse: taking their money, preventing employment
- Emotional abuse: humiliating, disregarding, blaming
- Minimizing: denying any abuse
22
Q
violence in relationships: what kind? who does it?
A
- When intimate partner violence occurs, it’s usually situational couple violence
- Occasionally intimate terrorism, sometimes violent resistance
- Men and women are equally likely to engage in situational couple violence
- Majority of men use intimate terrorism
- Men more likely to cause injuries
23
Q
4 factors that influence violence
A
- Distal: background influences (ex. Economic conditions, cultural norms, family experiences)
- Dispositional: personality traits and long-standing beliefs
- Relational: current state of the couple’s relationships
- Situational: current circumstances
24
Q
Problems with current treatment models: PAR Program
A
- PAR = Partner Assault Response (program in Ontario)
- Court-mandated program funded by the Ministry of the Attorney General; court-mandated and voluntary participants; teaches about healthy relationships
- Department of Justice study on PAR:
- Using questionnaires, they didn’t find a significant difference between pre- and post-knowledge of healthy and unhealthy relationship thoughts
- Did not include behavioural change or input from victimized partner
- Suggests PAR may not be effective
25
re-thinking approaches to violence
- Psychotherapy treats them as individuals, not as a couple (can’t treat as couple because of concern about endangering the victim)
- Movement towards treating as a couple (treat together for forms of violence that are amenable to couples work, specifically situational couples violence)
- Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment
26
Domestic Violence-Focused Couples Treatment
- Ongoing relationships with mild to moderate violence
- Partners want to remain together and end violence
- Treatment may not be suitable if:
- - Severe violence that resulted in need for medical care
- - Unwilling to remove firearms from home
- - Unwilling to sign a no-violence contract
- - Severe untreated pathology
27
Stith et al study: Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment --> basics
- Explored the outcomes of a domestic violence-focused treatment program for couples that choose to stay together after mild to moderate violence has occurred
44 couples assigned either to individual couple therapy or to a multi-couple group that met with 3 therapists; 9 couples were in control group
Therapeutic interventions: explored vision for healthy relationships, safety plans, types of abuse, escalation signals, anger management, mindfulness, and negotiated time-out
28
Stith et al study: Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment --> results
- Participants in the multi-couple group showed decreases in use of violence and increases in relationship satisfaction
- No significant changes for individual couple treatment or control group
- Female partner reports: men who participated in either of the couples treatment programs were less likely to relapse at both the 6 month and 2 year follow-up
- Any therapy was better than no therapy
29
what can we do if couples therapy isn't an option?
make use of community resources
FMST 314
flashcards
Decks in class (11)
# Cards
