Infidelity & Violence

Question 1

what is infidelity?

Answer 1

• 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

Question 2

types of infidelity

Answer 2

• emotional only
• sexual only
• combined sexual and emotional
• cyber affair

Question 3

types of infidelity: emotional only

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

types of infidelity: sexual only

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

types of infidelity: combined sexual and emotional

Answer 5

Creates a secondary relationship → includes all the routines and expectations of a romantic relationship

Question 6

types of infidelity: cyber affair

Answer 6

Occurs online only (ie. sexting, texting, chatting or video chatting within a sexual context with someone other than your romantic partner)

Question 7

who is more likely to cheat?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

how does cheating influence divorce/separation rates?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

Omarzu study: why do people cheat? –> basics

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Omarzu study: why do people cheat? –> results

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

Omarzu study: why do people cheat? –> 8 categories of motivation for affairs

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

what can we do if we’ve cheated and we want to keep the relationship?

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

what can we do if we’ve cheated? –> reasons we don’t disclose

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

what can we do if we were cheated on?

Answer 14

• 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)

Question 15

Rethinking monogamy: Esther Perel’s findings

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

partner violence in Canada: general statistics

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

partner violence in Canada: common types of offenses

Answer 17

• 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

Question 18

partner violence in Canada: provincial stats

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

anger vs. abuse: what’s the difference?

Answer 19

• 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)

Question 20

3 different types of violence

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

5 other forms of control that often accompany intimate terrorism

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

violence in relationships: what kind? who does it?

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

4 factors that influence violence

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

Problems with current treatment models: PAR Program

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

re-thinking approaches to violence

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

Domestic Violence-Focused Couples Treatment

Answer 26

• 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

Question 27

Stith et al study: Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment –> basics

Answer 27

• 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

Question 28

Stith et al study: Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment –> results

Answer 28

• 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

Question 29

what can we do if couples therapy isn’t an option?

Answer 29

make use of community resources