See the signs: How to know if he’s straying

Where cheating men meet the other woman
Where does your husband pick up a new friend who could threaten your marriage? The number one place is the most obvious to me: work. Forty percent of the men in my research met the other woman at work. This suggests that you should keep very aware of who your husband is hanging out with at work. In my more than twenty years of helping couples, the identity of the mistress has rarely been a surprise to the wife when that mistress was met through work. That’s often because the husband would speak of the other woman at some point, raising an eyebrow for the wife no doubt.

Listen carefully when your husband tells you that he and what’s-her-name are working on a project together. The other woman’s name will pop up from time to time and you should take that opportunity to seriously consider where your marriage is. That’s the time not to delay any changes you’ve been wanting to make in your relationship.

Instead, you should go full throttle in doing so. And it probably requires an open conversation with your husband about the rules of your marriage. You don’t have to jump all over him and make him recoil from your distrust. You only need to use what’s-her-name as a catalyst for a clear discussion about what your husband will agree to do and not do — stay late for a meeting if it’s only the two of them, travel together to conferences, have dinners out to discuss a project, and so on.

Beyond that, be aware not to talk a lot about how you and your husband are going to get closer. Just keep the conversation to agreeing on some rules for this new relationship. Then take heed and discover what you can do to create the kind of positive changes you’ve discussed with as little conversation as possible.

Video   Why do men cheat? Sept. 22: TODAY’s Amy Robach talks to M. Gary Neuman, author of “The Truth About Cheating,” about why some married men are unfaithful. Today show

Thirty-two percent of the men met the other woman while engaging in some activity of personal interest. You might wonder if your husband has real passions that you have nothing to do with and ask yourself why. It could be because you have no interests in common (do I hear football?). But here’s the deal. If your husband has a passion for something outside of you, what will happen when he meets another woman who shares that same passion? Sometimes as spouses we think we’re being such good sports if we let our husbands spend time with their little-boy hobbies. But the men I interviewed are telling you that it’s a mistake to let him roam freely in the world of his personal interests. If it’s truly his time-consuming passion, be around now and then.

It’s not enough to regularly send your husband off into a world you know nothing about and expect all of his energy around it to just stay still. He may look for someone else to connect with about it, and that may be the first step toward trouble. Realistically, I’m not suggesting that you become a sports fanatic. However, don’t be so sure that you can’t learn something about your husband’s world that will at least allow you to talk with him about his interests. Should he always be going to professional sporting events without you because you just don’t enjoy them? It depends on how many of these events he’s going to. Consider these two factors:

• How often does this interest take him out of the house?
• How much does he discuss it with others?

For example, he watches football every Sunday at home with his two buddies while you pipe in now and then. Okay, he’s home and he’s not into it all week long, at least not beyond a comment here and there with his friends. Compare that with him going to a lot of games and having conversations throughout the week with buddies and listening to sports talk radio every chance he gets. He’s found something he’s passionate about and it absorbs a large part of him. Why wouldn’t you want to get in on that? Why not learn about it so that you can connect to him about it all? Let him teach you and you’ll spend quality time with him communicating with you about it. When you think about it that way, it sounds better than being forced to watch smelly men jump around and cheer at stupidity. If he keeps seeing another woman at the game and starts having fun discussions with her, even if he’s already met a woman at work and can have a great time talking sports with her, there’s a piece of him that you’re missing. You can reel in that piece of him and enjoy the process of connecting even if it’s about a topic that is uninteresting or silly to you.

Naturally, you’d like the same from him — a healthy desire to get involved with something that is of interest to you. And he should. You have a better chance of that if your marriage is one where you have shared your interests and moved in a direction to become involved in each other’s interests. Taking the first step will add to your fun time with your husband and encourage him to do the same for you. Even if he doesn’t reciprocate, you still gain the connection and protect your marriage more.

Seventeen percent of cheating men met the other woman in the neighborhood. Felipe was a cheater who met the other woman while they were doing charitable work together. “It was so pathetic how my wife kept pushing me into joining this neighborhood charitable group, thinking it would make me a better person, and that’s where I met her. It was true that I almost always thought about money and needed to get some perspective, but being pushed into something like that wasn’t going to work. My wife didn’t come with me, because she had friends who insisted that she was always leading me too much and I needed to learn to do good things on my own without her help. ”

One last noteworthy piece of information regarding where these husbands met the other woman: only 3 percent reported meeting the mistress on the Internet. Keep in mind that about half of the men in the study responded to the questionnaire online, meaning they were capable Internet people. Still, although many cases could be made for how the Internet disrupts marriages, it does not appear to pose the biggest problem of your husband meeting someone online and having that lead to sex.

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