Love Affair: A Psychological Perspective on Extramarital Affairs

Chapter 4 Definition of Extramarital Affairs (4)
Of course, some people neither have the urge to polygamous or polyandrous nor find themselves guilty of fanciful infidelity.These people include a small number of people who are absolutely happy and satisfied in marriage, and most of them are firmly controlled by their conscience. Not only are their detailed imaginations clear, but even their lust itself is blocked by their consciousness.But such people are in the minority, and most couples, whether only occasionally or often, fantasize about having sex or being in love with someone other than their spouse.

Our survey shows that three-quarters of the husbands and more than one-quarter of the wives in the white-collar class admit that they have the desire to have sex outside of marriage, some occasionally, some almost always have this desire.

The reveries produced by such desires vary in type and content.Gao Tian's reverie is just one type of it.Other genres range from episodic to detailed, from pure fantasy to outright romantic, depending on one's desire for polygamy or polyandry and the strength of one's morality.

Some people indulge in sudden reveries only occasionally and involuntarily, while others fantasize regularly every day as a daily activity.Some people concentrate on daydreaming about the emotional aspect of an encounter, avoiding the actual sexual venting; some still fantasize about physical behavior, ignoring the cause and effect of the story; some people also want to create an ideal extramarital partner; Real objects to construct reverie content.

The following examples outline some of the different types:

A research physicist, after four years of a happy marriage, has become inexplicably unhappy, bewildered and troubled. "I was always tormented by a dissatisfaction I didn't know why. She handled everything in an orderly manner, the children were well behaved, and I was earning a decent income for the first time. I really can't understand my emotions. Now , two years after the divorce, he realized that his own interests had grown while his wife was not experiencing the same, and that he was beginning to value sexual and erotic expressions while she remained devout, repressed, and averse to sex and emotion. expression. As my dissatisfaction grew, I began to fantasize about what it would be like to be with another type of woman. And just like that, I became habitually daydreaming on the drive to and from the office. I yearned for it, as if To meet the ones I love. Sometimes, I even excuse myself to go to bed early so that I can fantasize about being alone. In bed, I will create a woman who is different from my wife and has all the qualities I desire, and then continue for many days. Every day I fantasize about having an affair with her. After that, I will abandon her and create a new object. Each new object is a chance encounter in the office, and then slowly evolves into a romantic relationship. The two meet and do a lot of things together. things: hiking, skiing, watching the sunrise, having a nice dinner, kissing tenderly, lying in each other's arms."

A 22-year-old, lanky young man with hair dyed the most popular blond hair in today's society, a little delayed in school, still in college, but has been married to a local TV host for two years.Her vivacity and success created tension in the relationship and gave him a sense of inferiority.For several months, his way of comforting himself was to go home after class in the afternoon and take a two-hour nap while she was still at work.In fact, he let himself fantasize about being a successful architect, and his career involved traveling to the big cities where some of the girls he knew in high school now lived.He called them, and although they were all married, each of them managed to meet him, have dinner, catch up.Each ended up having an affair with him, but never anything to break the marriage.

A 42-year-old university teacher said that he had various sexual fantasies since he was a teenager, and the fantasies were accompanied by masturbation.The marriage temporarily interrupted his fantasy life, but after five years or so of marriage, he found himself occasionally replaying old movies in his head, or creating some new fantasy complexes.

"When I was a kid, it was a desire; in recent years, it's the boredom and the sameness of married life. But the fantasies are pretty much the same. I always fantasize about some very sensual girl and fantasize about what I'm doing to her, What she did to me. But I fantasize about more than sex. I've always been a romantic, and even though I like my wife very much, I always fantasize about meeting a sweet girl, having crazy sex with her, and slowly It developed into a lifelong love affair. Even though I was a middle-aged man who had been married for many years and my hair was falling out, I couldn't help having sexual fantasies."

polygamous animals
People who study human sex, like Freud and Kinsey, have different opinions, but they all agree that human beings are biologically polygamous animals, and monogamy is an artifact caused by upbringing and social norms , is not a human instinct.In our country, for the sake of the stability of the family and even the whole society, people have been indoctrinated with ideas completely opposite to the above-mentioned biological views for decades.

Even if extramarital sex occurs, they will look for rationalized reasons for the extramarital affair from another angle, so as to minimize their guilt and guilt.Their reasons are familiar, such as: spouse's frigidity or diminished attractiveness, spouse's excessive preoccupation with career, family rearing or community activities, long-term separation due to business or illness, various emotional conflicts (nagging, power struggle, etc.) dwarfing, dominating, irritating habits, dull speech, silence).In short, everything from the unavoidable troubles of life to the artificial mistakes of a spouse.Roughly speaking, these reasons are "rationalizations" for extramarital affairs, and they temporarily appease the fantasizer, once his or her boredom or wandering longings have passed, he or she will see that his or her claims are unfair , will discard these excuses until the next time it comes up again.

Indeed, the more a person fantasizes about an affair, the more likely it is that he or she has a reason.Clinical evidence on daydreaming shows that the number of times a person fantasizes about a particular time of gratification correlates directly with the degree to which he or she is deprived of that gratification.For example, Dr. Jerome Singer of the City University of New York found that people who are socioeconomically deprived and have unstable incomes fantasize about food or money much more frequently than rich people.From our interviews, we can find that husbands or wives who are sexually deprived and emotionally insecure fantasize about extramarital relationships much more frequently than those who just feel bored.

Sexual fantasy is not a cure for what is missing in life, but it can be a mild pain reliever, a vicarious gratification.In cases of severe deprivation of married life, it can even be a stimulant for corrective behaviour.Occasional sexual fantasies are usually nothing more than a normal human desire to seek innovation, and sexual fantasies can partially satisfy this desire.Persistent fantasies about cheating are more likely to show serious setbacks and serious dissatisfaction in married life.Although sexual fantasies cannot eliminate these emotions, they can at least express them.

Of course, unsatisfactory married life and emotional deprivation are not necessarily the cause of disturbing, provocative fantasies of infidelity.Cheating fantasies require nothing more than our polyamorous instincts to kick in and deepen over time.Satisfied married life, even truly happy people are not immune.Most people grow tired of the things they have, and want new things that will bring them that same joy and satisfaction, even if those things brought them joy and satisfaction in the past.

"Ah, who in this world is happy?" wrote Thackeray, a famous British novelist who criticized the realism novel "Vanity Fair" in the [-]th century.

We no longer pay attention to the painting that has been hanging on the wall for more than ten years; the intoxicated love that happened a long time ago has long been a thing of the past, and we feel boring; The touch, the obsessive one, ends up being just comforting, like omelets and milk in the morning.For a while, this feeling may be bearable, but as the years pass, people may still want to regain the lost enthusiasm, so a sense of despair arises spontaneously: Is this all in the future?Will I be old?Have you never experienced anything else?The woman looking at herself in the mirror and pitying herself found another wrinkle on the corner of her mouth, and couldn't help but lament.The gray-haired, slightly fat man saw a cute girl passing by on his way to work, and suddenly had a whimsical thought in his mind, thinking that being with her could rekindle the flame of life.He secretly scolded himself for not thinking about this kind of thing, but if he could never experience that feeling again, how would he spend the rest of his life.

Sexual delusion may not only be due to the adult awareness of the passing of years, the immutability of life, and the imperfection of human nature, but may have a more fundamental biological reason that exists in the neural structure of primitive animals.Male rats, monkeys, and cows have been observed to mate continuously until exhaustion, limited to one mate.Given a new female companion at this time, the exhausted male will remarkably regain his strength, and begin to mate with the new mate with almost as much enthusiasm and excitement as he did at first.

With the development of gene research, scientists gradually believe that many human behaviors are caused by genes. According to a new Australian study, genes have a strong influence on women's sexual affairs. On the contrary, although men are naturally romantic, some men Will be genetically influenced to be faithful to a partner.

American psychologist Berry conducted a study on [-] pairs of Australian twins and found that, in general, men are more willing to have extramarital affairs than women, because scientists generally believe that men are genetically driven to have as many sexual partners as possible to reproduce the next generation .On the contrary, women who are afraid of losing the support of their partners, women who have a family and children will show loyalty to their husbands.

But new research has found that men, like women, have a tendency to have relationships with people they don't know well.Berry, who teaches at Northwestern University in Illinois, said in a study published in Personality and Social Psychology: 'If the opportunity for extramarital affairs is so favorable to men, why do some men say no? ''If extramarital affairs hurt women so much, why do some women accept or even seek the opportunity to have an affair? ' He thinks genes and environment may be partly to blame.

He and several Australian researchers surveyed the 59 pairs of twins, recorded their sex life and the lives of their parents, and compared the genetically identical and different ones.They found that 78 percent of the women and 6 percent of the men listed as the most likely to have an affair would want to have sex on the day they met.In the group that is least expected to have an extramarital affair, only 12% of women and [-]% of men would have the idea of ​​having an affair on the day they met, showing that there is actually not much difference between women and men in this regard.

New research by scientists has found that only about 10 percent of birds and mammals that live in pairs for life are able to devote themselves to their sexual partners.Biological urges fuel some forms of deception, experts say.New research using genetic testing proves that even the most seemingly single-minded animal couples often "fuck" their relationship, going to a nearby den or colony to find a stranger of the opposite sex.As with birds, so with apes.The findings suggest that animals may confer population-important genetic advantages to offspring by heterosexually mating with other than their mates before they reproduce.Experts say that female animals seek to have affairs in order to make their offspring obtain as good genes as possible, while male animals have affairs in order to have as many offspring as possible.

In fact, true monogamous relationships are extremely rare among animals.The one-female-male sociological meaning means that animals form a mate and raise offspring together; while the one-female-male one in the genetic sense means that animals remain faithful to their sexual partners.The one-female-male relationship in the sociological sense is relatively common, while the one-female-male relationship in the genetic sense is rare.Among primates, only two species of monkeys -- the marmoset and the tamarin -- are truly consistent.And other animals, including apes and monkeys, often enjoy intercourse with nonmates.In fact, most primates do not claim to be faithful to their mates throughout their lives, so it is difficult to be sure that male animals know which youngsters in the group are their offspring.

For many years, it was thought that loyalty to a mate was widespread in birds.Some birds, such as the eastern bluerobin, are even considered symbols of devotion to love.However, in fact, the relationship between the eastern bluebird and the opposite sex is very complicated.Twenty percent of the offspring raised by a pair of eastern bluebirds that live together are not the male's biological offspring.Of the more than 20 species of monogamous birds, only about 180 percent only have sex with a mate.

The reason why female birds and mammals seek partners of the opposite sex other than their mates may be a biological law at work: to produce the best possible offspring.In one case, female animals seek to mate with higher-status, better-quality males.In this way, they can produce better quality offspring.Whether these conjectures are correct still needs many studies to be verified.Now, several studies have shown that females who mate with high-quality males do not have affairs.Such females believe they already have the best mates and ask for nothing more.

Some researchers point out that male animals are driven by biological laws to mate around in order to enable as many members of the next generation as possible to obtain their own genetic genes.In animals such as lions, orangutans, and grizzlies, dominant males kill or even eat young rivals of the same sex, driven by a biological urge to influence the genetic traits of their offspring.

One of the most devoted animals to a mate is the California brown rat.Genetic testing has shown that both male and female California brown rats are blind to sexual temptations from outside the nest.The reason why California brown rats have no mates may be because the small brown rats need the careful care of both parents throughout the winter after birth.For the pups to survive, parents must hold them in their arms and warm their bodies.If the male rat runs away, the female rat will kill or abandon the mouse.If the female rat runs away, the mouse will starve to death.

The results of such experiments, as well as those of anthropological research, show that the impulse to polygamy is originally hidden in the neural structure of mammals.Humans are no exception.In fact, if it were not for social constraints, men would definitely engage in more polymarriage.

As for women, the reason why the tendency to polygamy is weaker is that the traditional society suppresses women's psychology, rather than instinctive nature.American scholars Fort and Baech provided strong evidence for this point.After studying 185 social sexual patterns, they concluded that as long as there is no double standard on sexual issues and extramarital relationships are allowed, women are as eager and willing to change their tastes as men.

The desire to like the new and dislike the old and to change tastes is obviously rooted in our bodies. It is not a natural human need to be alone, but an artificially designed one that is restricted by social culture.We are polygamous animals by nature, but we are monogamous animals by nurture, and so we are constantly at war with ourselves through the years.And that's why so many married people, even the happy ones, sometimes have extramarital fantasies, in order to revive the already dull and numb palate, relish the vitality and style of the new love, and relieve some of the lingering emotions that have swept through the years. Longing, longing to experience another, finer love before it's too late.

(End of this chapter)