# How the 'New Monogamy' Is Keeping Relationships Together



## changedbeliefs (Jun 13, 2014)

How the 'New Monogamy' Is Keeping Relationships Together | Alternet

It's an interesting read, from the standpoint of potentially busting some myths and providing some facts/statistics, and also just from the perspective of, acknowledging that there are some cultural shifts going on, and to hear this from a therapist, someone who sees the problems, in their various forms, and (ostensibly) finds the causes and influences, not just some random person who just hypothesized this based on a couple breakups or something.


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## John Lee (Mar 16, 2013)

Didn't finish because it starts from bad stats about infidelity that have been debunked:
How Common is Cheating & Infidelity Really? | World of Psychology


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

We've been living "The New Monogamy" for 15 years, and we've seen many other people adopting these views. However, while this trend is growing (we see it a lot amongst millennials we know), it's a long way from becoming prevalent. The old monogamy won't ever disappear, either. People just have more viable choices now.


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

I believe infidelity is rising and that women cheat equally if not more than men.

you can find sats on anything to prove your position. especially on the net.

my opinion is based on a variety of things 

the amount of friend that I have both men and women who have experienced infidelity.

a number of studies and articles I've read.

and just a common sense approach of thinking it through.

more women in the work force.
women don't need men to support them so risking being out of marriage isn't as scary.
social media and reconnecting.....
society view on cheating seems to be more accepting 
and last but not least.....

its far easier for a woman to cheat because most men would jump at banging a woman who was flirting and suggestion something. any woman can walk in a bar and be walking out of there in a few mins with someone to fvck. 


well maybe not any woman but any avg looking woman .

not so for guys.


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## seattle_stranger (Nov 4, 2014)

Interesting concept. I've always thought I could personally uphold commitment to my woman even if I had some "play" on the side from time to time, and how it might even draw me closer to my partner. The problem is, I know I could never handle knowing that she was intimate with someone else, and I would never expect her to be OK with it on my side either.


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## tacoma (May 1, 2011)

The "New" Monogamy isn't monogamy at all.

It's an ignorant title for this concept.

It completely fails to recognize human emotional/sexual leanings.


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## lonelyhusband321 (Feb 18, 2014)

New monogamy?

I think the title should be "Undefining CHEATING".

So many things have been "undefined" in our current society already - this is just another one of those.

Fifty years ago, men were men, and women were women. Now, there's talk of "gender mobility". What is that but undefining gender?

Our society is working it's butt off to eliminate black and white altogether and to create ONLY gray. 

Nothing is right, nothing wrong. Everything is subjective....


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## lonelyhusband321 (Feb 18, 2014)

John Lee said:


> Didn't finish because it starts from bad stats about infidelity that have been debunked:
> How Common is Cheating & Infidelity Really? | World of Psychology


A very good read, JL and a fantastic "de-bunk".

Keep the web address on the clipboard, because Im sure it will be neede again...and again...and again.


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## Cletus (Apr 27, 2012)

lonelyhusband321 said:


> A very good read, JL and a fantastic "de-bunk".
> 
> Keep the web address on the clipboard, because Im sure it will be neede again...and again...and again.


Just how much of a "debunk" do you find 1 in 4 over the course of a relationship to be?


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## Cletus (Apr 27, 2012)

lonelyhusband321 said:


> Nothing is right, nothing wrong. Everything is subjective....


You forget "get off my lawn".


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## lonelyhusband321 (Feb 18, 2014)

Cletus said:


> Just how much of a "debunk" do you find 1 in 4 over the course of a relationship to be?


I find it to be less than half of the statistic quoted in the original article...

BTW - I've used "get off my lawn" twice in the last 20 years


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## Marriedwithdogs (Jan 29, 2015)

What's the point of getting married if you're gonna have an open relationship? Kinda contradicts the vows about forsaking all others!


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## lonelyhusband321 (Feb 18, 2014)

Marriedwithdogs said:


> What's the point of getting married if you're gonna have an open relationship? Kinda contradicts the vows about forsaking all others!


:iagree:


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

intheory said:


> For what it's worth, fellas; this is actually scary sounding to me (an average looking woman).
> 
> And I'll venture to say that for most women; it's a very, very, unappealing scenario.


Its the truth. Scary or not. My point being is the ease at which women can find someone to have an affair with.


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

lonelyhusband321 said:


> Our society is working it's butt off to eliminate black and white altogether and to create ONLY gray.
> 
> Nothing is right, nothing wrong. Everything is subjective....


Meh. This one is too easy for most people to grasp. Right is that which effects a good outcome. Wrong is what effects a bad outcome. The problem is when people cannot see outcomes and get hung up on the rules.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

lonelyhusband321 said:


> I find it to be less than half of the statistic quoted in the original article...
> 
> BTW - I've used "get off my lawn" twice in the last 20 years


Cherry picked studies and statistics, reported in someone's blog. Hmmm. Perhaps their agenda is showing? However, I am skeptical of the 50%+ numbers, but I also think the low 20% numbers are understated. The reality is hard to pin down, given the sensitivity of the topic and variations in the ways studies are conducted, and the definitions used.

From the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy: 

Percent of marriages where one or both spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional 41% 

Percent of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had 57% 

Percentage of women who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had 54% 

Etc.

Infidelity Statistics | Statistic Brain

Anyway, that's cheating. The OP's article is mostly talking about consensual non-monogamy (or situations which develop to that), which is a different topic.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*Call me a little bit "old fashioned" if you will, but this so-called "New Monogamy" sounds so self-justifying and offers little more than being a "cake-eaters paradise!"

What's even sadder is the fact that the MC's are already fastly subscribing to it!

I can already hear it now! Mrs.Arb No. 3 comes in to tell me, 

"I'm going out again with Harry tonight, Hon! Just thought that you'd appreciate my honesty and candor in letting you know ahead of time, since that makes all the difference in the world in our loving relationship! I'm still a little bit PO'd at him because he still hasn't let his wife and kids know that they'll have to put off their family trip by a day, but they'll get over it! Oh, and since Harry doesn't have a vasectomy and absolutely hates to wear condoms, well, if I should get pregnant, then Harry's agreed to raise the kid for us! Isn't that so sweet of him?

And since you're not going to be doing anything tonight, you ought to call your friend, Mary up, and if she's not already doing something with her husband, then you two can hook up and she can teach you some more of those splendid oral techniques that you can try later on me!

Oh and by the way, we both have a doctor's appointment next week to get checked out for STDs. But I don't really think that he'll find anything! At least he didn't last month!

Oh, I forgot to tell you that I visited with our Pastor just the other day, and introduced Harry to him, and he gave his wholehearted approval of my extracurricular relationship with him, so all is good there! I might even invite him to come and sit with us in Service so he can hear Pastor's wonderful sermon, too!"

Sorry, but I think that dogs have higher moral standards!

But at least dogs do know how to show loyalty!

And to quote John Wesley: And it's so very sad to hear ~*


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## woundedwarrior (Dec 9, 2011)

New monogamy= no monogamy. It is impossible to have black and white, light and dark at the same time. Society is eliminating what is right or wrong and leaving it to personal preference. I'll stick to my "old school" thinking, marriage is between a man and woman and cheating is cheating.


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## KingwoodKev (Jan 15, 2015)

The real story behind concepts like "New Monogamy" which, in reality, isn't monogamy at all is that western culture is crumbling under its own decadence.

What is really happening is that a growing percentage of people have much lower moral character than generations prior. This lack of character makes it "harder" for them to live up to any decent set of standards so their solution is just to change the standard. Articles like this are people trying to justify, even scientifically, why they are weak, pathetic individuals with low moral character.

Rome went through the same cultural evolution before they crumbled under the weight of their own decadence. It's a shame people choose to squander their existence in such shallow ways.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Monogamy means one marriage. It has commonly come to mean only one sexual partner, but that's not the origin of the word. There are several "monogamies": social, sexual, legal, and emotional, for example. Most people conflate them all into one monolithic concept. We practice social and legal monogamy. The rest are open to negotiation.


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## wmn1 (Aug 27, 2014)

Tammy nelson has been pushing open marriage in other writings she has done so she is an advocate for the cause, not an independent thinker on the subject. She has an agenda.

Further, Alternet is a far leftist site that advocates some out of the mainstream thoughts and viewpoints.

Keep in mind, OP, there are many good therapists, there are many junk ones and sometimes that 'random' person you speak about is more credible than some of these so called therapists.


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## wmn1 (Aug 27, 2014)

I agree Kingwood and Arb.

The one thing that always gets me in these arguments is that the 'new mongamy' people seem to justify the concept because of the number of people who commit infidelity in their marriages but ignore both the high divorce rates and the fact that even those who commit infidelity don't accept it, they violate their own rules and screw up. 

Now Marriedbuthappy posted this link 

However, if you look at the stats, whether these are accurate or not, there is a dramatic dropoff in infidelity once people get married. Not that any infidelity is good. 

As Infidelity Statistics | Statistic Brain

As Arbitrators said, this is a cake eaters paradise. Sounds like stirring the pot by the infamous Tammy Nelson. 

On a final note, about 5% of the married couples are swingers. That number in and of itself shows that,despite how many people that cheat, such actions are mostly frowned upon or not accepted.


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## KingwoodKev (Jan 15, 2015)

wmn1 said:


> I agree Kingwood and Arb.
> 
> The one thing that always gets me in these arguments is that the 'new mongamy' people seem to justify the concept because of the number of people who commit infidelity in their marriages but ignore both the high divorce rates and the fact that even those who commit infidelity don't accept it, they violate their own rules and screw up.
> 
> ...


As a software engineer I've spent thousands of hours in my career analyzing data and deriving information from it. I know how you can make whatever argument you want depending on the angle you look at the data. Take the divorce rate. Over half of all marriages end in divorce. That sounds really bad. The problem is that doesn't tell you the complete picture. The reality is that number is badly skewed by serial divorcers. The real number is that 80% of people who get married stay married for life. The divorce rate doesn't take into account people with multiple divorces. The people using that divorce rate argument to justify non-monogamy or swinging do that on purpose. Serial divorcers are the 20% that are really skewing the rate.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Cheating is frowned up, and rightly so. As you say, even by people who do so (but often not enough to stop them). Consensual non-monogamy isn't cheating, and does work for some people. I'd much rather people feel they can at least discuss their options and perhaps resolve any issues instead of succumbing to cheating.


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## wmn1 (Aug 27, 2014)

Kingwood,

your last two posts are spot on and the first one, i should frame because I couldn't have said it any better myself. Regarding stats, they can be bent any which way but I will say, based on my own experience regarding people I know, "The New Monogamy" has destroyed many lives all for greed.

I know you disagree MBH but I do appreciate your respectfulness.


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## KingwoodKev (Jan 15, 2015)

wmn1 said:


> Kingwood,
> 
> your last two posts are spot on and the first one, i should frame because I couldn't have said it any better myself. Regarding stats, they can be bent any which way but I will say, based on my own experience regarding people I know, "The New Monogamy" has destroyed many lives all for greed.
> 
> I know you disagree MBH but I do appreciate your respectfulness.


Of course it's going to destroy lives. Human beings have evolved and very complex emotional psyches. They are not wired to screw like wild animals that lack all capacity for intuitive thinking and exist solely on instinctive thinking.

Whenever someone says that they and their spouse sleep with multiple partners and nothing bad has happened, I always reply with "yet." It's going to.

I have known a few swingers and open marriage couples in my life. They're all divorced but will quote the divorce stats when trying to claim that their "lifestyle" had nothing to do with it. One man that actually told me the story said they had fun swinging with other couples but with one couple the OM kept telling his wife, as he was screwing her, that she deserved better. That he only let his wife do this because he doesn't really love her. That if she was his woman he'd never want to swing because he'd love her so much and couldn't stand the thought of her with another man. Subsequently she left her husband for this OM and two marriages ended. These types of things are always going to happen. Always. If they haven't happened yet to a swinging couple, they will.


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

bottom line is some people are just one woman/one man type of people 

if your not don't marry one that is.

don't rationalize that because of this or that or because its more accepted now I can and then say well its the in thing right now what's the big deal. 

everybody dose it and as long as my partner don't find out who's it hurting.

communicate that you want an open relationship and if your partner ain't on board the dissolve your marriage.

but this rug sweeping and secret acceptance of it is pure bull in my opinion.

the French have been doing it since forever same with a lot of European countries its just kinda accepted as the status quo.


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## frankman (Sep 23, 2014)

I don't buy the low numbers of cheating.

Its not half of everone.

Defining cheating as something involving manual, oral or regular sex. I would guess about a third of each sex. IE 2/3 don't.

BUT
2/3 x 2/3 = 4/9. So it does affect roughly half of marriages.


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## Cletus (Apr 27, 2012)

wmn1 said:


> your last two posts are spot on and the first one, i should frame because I couldn't have said it any better myself. Regarding stats, they can be bent any which way but I will say, based on my own experience regarding people I know, "The New Monogamy" has destroyed many lives all for greed.


"Stats" can't be bent at all, provided there's no deceit in their creation. But they only answer the specific question asked. 

Neither "50% of marriages end in divorce" or "80% of people stay married for life", assuming both statements are true, is bending stats. It takes the trained observer to understand what the statistic is saying. Both statements are true. To say that the "real" divorce rate is lower than 50% is to be interpreting the actual result to suit an agenda as well - you can't just ignore the people who don't do marriage the way you would like them to. They are part of the sample population too.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

chillymorn said:


> Bottom line is some people are just one woman/one man type of people
> 
> if your not don't marry one that is.


*And how easy is that going to be? Are all of our potential mates that are out there going to volunteer that information to us in the dating process? I really don't think so! That being the case, they're in the dating field, deceptively representing themselves to be monogomous and for the personal security that monogamy provides!

Then we fall in love with them, marry them; then that polygamous trait of theirs covertly surfaces, they act on it only until they're outed, either through their very own laziness or stupidity; and the BS is left holding the bag and pays the ultimate price for our partners sexual yearnings, all for the sake of a little thrilling "strange" to add to their sexual resume'.*


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

arbitrator said:


> *And how easy is that going to be? Are all of our potential mates that are out there going to volunteer that information to us in the dating process? I really don't think so! That being the case, they're in the dating field, deceptively representing themselves to be monogomous and for the personal security that monogamy provides!
> 
> Then we fall in love with them, marry them; then that polygamous trait of theirs covertly surfaces, they act on it only until they're outed, either through their very own laziness or stupidity; and the BS is left holding the bag and pays the ultimate price for our partners sexual yearnings, all for the sake of a little thrilling "strange" to add to their sexual resume'.*


if you can't beat them join them?

I think that's what happens a lot of the time. and then it degrades to a marriage of convince. 

yuck I don't like that at all.


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## KingwoodKev (Jan 15, 2015)

chillymorn said:


> if you can't beat them join them?
> 
> I think that's what happens a lot of the time. and then it degrades to a marriage of convince.
> 
> yuck I don't like that at all.


I say it all the time but western culture is adopting an unofficial motto "If you can't live up to a standard then just lower the standard." I believe that whole-heartedly. We'll pay for that when we crumble under the weight of our own decadence.


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## wmn1 (Aug 27, 2014)

Per Cletus

"Stats" can't be bent at all, provided there's no deceit in their creation. But they only answer the specific question asked.



****** They can be bent easily. And deceit or not, sample pools, the way the question is posed or the region where the questions are asked, or deeper analysis can turn a stat on it's head. 

Neither "50% of marriages end in divorce" or "80% of people stay married for life", assuming both statements are true, is bending stats. It takes the trained observer to understand what the statistic is saying. Both statements are true. To say that the "real" divorce rate is lower than 50% is to be interpreting the actual result to suit an agenda as well - you can't just ignore the people who don't do marriage the way you would like them to. They are part of the sample population too.

***** 

The Use - and Misuse - of Statistics: How and Why Numbers Are So Easily Manipulated - [email protected]

Misuse of statistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## KingwoodKev (Jan 15, 2015)

wmn1 said:


> Per Cletus
> 
> "Stats" can't be bent at all, provided there's no deceit in their creation. But they only answer the specific question asked.
> 
> ...



I've worked in the business intelligence field so long that you can give me any stat you want and I'll find an angle to make a completely false argument and support it with this stat. It's about manipulating or creating correlation that doesn't really exist. Political parties are masters of this.

To give you an example:
-90% of bank robberies are done by men. That's a fact.
-90% of men wear blue jeans at least semi-regularly. That's also a fact.

Therefore, we can conclude that wearing blue jeans can lead to bank robbery. That's a ridiculous argument but I can support it with facts.


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## Cletus (Apr 27, 2012)

KingwoodKev said:


> Therefore, we can conclude that wearing blue jeans can lead to bank robbery. That's a ridiculous argument but I can support it with facts.


No you can't, not to anyone who understands that correlation does not imply causation.

That stat's aren't lying. The stats are TRUE. YOU lied when you derived an unsupported connection between two factual statements. Stats can be used this way because the general population doesn't understand the math. But the underlying statistic, assuming all the necessary prerequisites - that it was measured from a large enough random sample population truly representative of the whole, or in fact from the entire population - is still good. 

I understand stats as much as anyone on this forum. I've also written multivariate analysis and taxometric algorithms for teasing out effect sizes in populations differing by less than a tenth of a standard deviation across multiple measures. 

PEOPLE lie with statistics because other people are not sophisticated enough to understand the lie.


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## KingwoodKev (Jan 15, 2015)

Cletus said:


> No you can't, not to anyone who understands that correlation does not imply causation.
> 
> That stat's aren't lying. The stats are TRUE. YOU lied when you derived an unsupported connection between two factual statements. Stats can be used this way because the general population doesn't understand the math. But the underlying statistic, assuming all the necessary prerequisites - that it was measured from a large enough random sample population truly representative of the whole, or in fact from the entire population - is still good.
> 
> ...


I completely agree. I'm making the point to expose the lies of stats. Like stats used to justify cheating, swinging, non-monogamy, etc.


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## changedbeliefs (Jun 13, 2014)

lonelyhusband321 said:


> Everything is subjective....


Well, isn't it? Ok, not everything, but I think it's disingenuous to declare something objective when it clearly isn't. Even "that blanket is blue" has nuances. Someone mentions that this woman may just be that "one crazy" therapist, or however they stated it, but isn't there an opposing view that says, maybe all the "traditional monogamy" advocates, or whatever you'd call them, are just stuck in tradition, taking a widely-accepted stance because that's just what they've always been told, because it's not controversial, and this one woman is "thinking outside the box"? I'm playing moderator here, I don't have an agenda, I put it out because it's a different take, it's discussing something that (the article purports) is a growing issue in society.

Is it debatable or not, that not everyone desires, can maintain, or is required, to have a traditionally monogamous relationship? Is it also debatable or not, that type of situation is always best? We've got one person in here vehemently declaring this is just a sign of people's devolving moral character, another that it's just a "cake-eater's justifications." People act so ****-sure of "right" and "wrong," where as another poster said, it really comes down to simple outcomes, what is favorable to the parties involved and what isn't. To ignore the possibility that two people could be emotionally monogamous, yet not sexually monogamous, and live happily....we'll write them off as just morally bankrupt cheaters? It's so judgmental, and it is certainly not surprising to me that one of those stances comes from an oft vocally religious member.

In ancient history, people believed sacrficing animals, or even their first borns, would stave off the wrath of the gods. Two hundred years ago, people happily kept slaves, bought and sold them, beat them, treated human beings like so many slabs of meat. Seventy years ago, white people wouldn't bring themselves to share a water fountain with a black person. Currently, large factions of people still don't believe it's moral to allow gay people to get married. Those ideologies, these biases, are all evidence of how ignorant a society can be, how inflexible, and incorrect, ideas of "right and "wrong" can be. To purport that the concept of absolute, strict monogamy couldn't also fall to reasoned, rational thinking, in at least some cases, without being amoral, or detrimental, is just close-minded.

I honestly have no personal conclusion, I didn't post this, or read it, with the intent of, like, showing to my wife and saying, "A-ha!!! See??!? Ok, I'm going out to find a waitress to bang, don't wait up!!" Sure, the notion, of a simple, permitted, tryst of my choosing has its attraction, and I would venture that few married men could honestly say otherwise, but are all parties really ok with it? Can you really stay emotionally committed to your spouse and not so with the other person? I certainly couldn't say, I found it an interesting read if only to hear how some people are solving their problems, and if they do solve them, I'm not one to tell them it's wrong if I can't definitively demonstrate what harm it's causing.

edit: if the stats are wrong, that's dishonest, but not everyone who quotes a statistic is, in fact, wrong, or is intentionally using it to "justify" something. I'm not purporting that the stats themselves make the argument. Like someone alluded, the stats may not be precise, but what they said their statistics indicate hasn't been wholly proven wrong, either. You can play with infidelity rates and divorce rates all you want to craft special versions of each argument; you're not going to end up at "infidelity doesn't exist" or "divorce is rare." At that point, though, the stats have to stop being the sole perspective, and an intelligent discussion should take place.


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## Cletus (Apr 27, 2012)

Ok, from the rebuttal cited:

"In general, based on the above data, we can conclude that over the course of married, heterosexual relationships in the United States, EM sex occurs in less than 25% of committed relationships, and more men than women appear to be engaging in infidelity (Laumann et al., 1994; Wiederman, 1997). Further, these rates are significantly lower in any given year. […] (Blow & Hartnett, 2005) "

The author doesn't tell us how that conclusion is reached, as most of his citations are for infidelity over the past 12 months.

Ok, let's take a back-of-the-napkin computation. The rate of infidelity in any given year looks, by their numbers, to be about 3%. Under the COMPLETELY UNSUPPORTABLE assumption that a person's chance of infidelity is uncorrelated from year to year (this is just a discussion, bear with me), we can compute the mean time to a 50% likelihood of infidelity for either partner in a marriage as about 22 years - 0.5 = 0.97^n. After that time, more than half of all marriages have had at least one unfaithful partner.

The calculation is deeply flawed for the reasons I stated, but it's a starting point. How did the author go from 3% a year to a 25% likelihood over the entire relationship? How long is a relationship? The simple computation above is satisfied if most relationships end at about the 9 year mark. 

I do not disbelieve the author, as the long term studies suggest he's probably closer to the truth. But I also don't know how he got to the answer of 1 in 4 marriages are likely to have been touched by infidelity and what that implies. Serial cheaters skewing the stats for some but not most marriages? Quite likely. Short marriages? Marriages that end in divorce have a median duration of 8 years in the US, which is perfectly in line with the expectations of my simplistic model. They're not married long enough to have had a larger chance of infidelity, especially if infidelity increases with the length of the marriage (as I am wont to believe, up to a point). 

I don't know the real answer, and I'm certainly not hostile to the results whatever they may be, but that article raised with me at least as many questions as it answered.


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## changedbeliefs (Jun 13, 2014)

KingwoodKev said:


> To give you an example:
> -90% of bank robberies are done by men. That's a fact.
> -90% of men wear blue jeans at least semi-regularly. That's also a fact.
> 
> Therefore, we can conclude that wearing blue jeans can lead to bank robbery. That's a ridiculous argument but I can support it with facts.


Ok, I'll play; I'm an actuary, I have some expertise in statistics, correlations and causations.

I get what you're saying, it's like this project, "spurious correlations":

Deaths by Swimming Pool Drowning vs. Nicholas Cage Films and Other Spurious Correlations - On The Media










But these things are, in fact, restrained by our basic intelligence. I won't bother with the obvious statistical flaws in your example, but there would easily be a point where no one would draw a line between blue jeans and bank robbery, just like bedsheet deaths and skiing revenue wouldn't be connected. The critique that divorce rates may include one person's multiple divorces is valid enough, but if you're interested in the number of relationships that end in divorce, it's still valid. If you somehow think that the quality of having relationships that end in divorce is particular to an individual, then adjustment may be needed. Since there are almost certainly countless examples of divorced individuals subsequently marrying quite happily, that suggests it's the relationship itself that is the "incident" you want to measure, NOT the person.

I won't go on and on, my point is, if the statistic that is quoted, that is analyzed, strikes a chord as a reasonable causal relationship, and it seems the stats may indicate a predominance towards either your a priori expectation, or away from it, then it's worth discussing, discovering the true definition and validity of it. That's the journey, and the real benefit. There is seldom anything that I'd advocate should or could be settled merely by presenting a number.


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## changedbeliefs (Jun 13, 2014)

Very reasonable and insightful post, Cletus!


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

stats are manipulated to the maximum in my opinion misused and abused 

gun control studies add people up age 21 as children so the stats are more alarming when printing studies this many children dies at the hands of guns everyday!

you can't go by any studies unless you really know what your reading and even then your at the mercy of the author on some important info that could make a huge difference statistically speaking.

how about a good old fashion common sense approach.

count all your friends that are divorce.

count all your friends that were cheated on. 
keep track if the man or woman was the cheater.

its not perfect and is a small sample size but I'd bet you would be in the ball park.

I know sometimes you don't know who was the cheater or why they got divorced.

but sometimes you do. 


out of 7 married couples I know that were married for over 15yrs 

6 are divorced because of the wife cheating
1 was because of the husband cheating

again I don't claim to be some sort of mathematical genius.

I just find it interesting that in my personal life the numbers I experience are so out of line with this men cheat more bull crap.


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## yeah_right (Oct 23, 2013)

chillymorn said:


> out of 7 married couples I know that were married for over 15yrs
> 
> 6 are divorced because of the wife cheating
> 1 was because of the husband cheating


Were the 6 women cheating with single men? Was the one man cheating with a single woman? Because you potentially have an equal number of cheaters of each sex, assuming none were gay affairs. None of them cheated alone.


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## Pooh Bear (Dec 28, 2014)

I couldn't do that. I am pretty monogomous. But as long as people are honest with each other and on board with having an open relationship, that is their business.


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## Trickster (Nov 19, 2011)

Cletus said:


> "Stats" can't be bent at all, provided there's no deceit in their creation. But they only answer the specific question asked.
> 
> Neither "50% of marriages end in divorce" or "80% of people stay married for life", assuming both statements are true, is bending stats. It takes the trained observer to understand what the statistic is saying. Both statements are true. To say that the "real" divorce rate is lower than 50% is to be interpreting the actual result to suit an agenda as well - you can't just ignore the people who don't do marriage the way you would like them to. They are part of the sample population too.



Single adults now outnumber married adults | New York Post

This data skews things even more. It does reveal less people are getting married. 

It just tracks single non married adults from 16 on up. This is still not true because people may be an unmarried couple living together.

The divorce rate is dropping and people are staying married longer. Is that true? Not really. People are just waiting much longer before getting married. Less people are having children.

What about serial monogamy. They stay monogamous for X number of years, never cheat, then divorce when they get bored, and find a new love to do it all over again and divorce when they want a new partner again.

All while NEVER cheating and waiting until they are divorced before looking for their new love interest.


If the average man could have sex as easy as the average woman, what percentage of men would have affairs?

Don't think we will ever know.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

chillymorn said:


> Its the truth. Scary or not. My point being is the ease at which women can find someone to have an affair with.


How did this thread become an indictment of cheating women? Who are they cheating with? For the reasons you outlined, infidelity has become more common among women. Women are as tempted by opportunity as men, no more no less. 

I read somewhere that cheating stats for men is stable or decreasing and increasing for women. That's the reason that the prevalence is close to equal. But, this might be positive in a sense. Since both genders need to worry, we might finally come to a mutual decision, cheating is destructive to relationships. No one wants to look the other way when they have an equal chance of being deceived.


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