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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Turns out you might be the dense one. The context of that quote was the discussion of whether people in happy marriages cheat. More than 50% of cheating men describe their marriages as happy. There was no discussion about the fall-out - just the cause.[/quote]

NP here. I've seen that stat. The stats also say that people in the "not too happy" marriages are 3x more likely to cheat than those who are "pretty happy" or "very happy" in their marriages. And those who are "pretty happy" are still 2x more likely to cheat than those who are "very happy"

So, the more unhappy you are the more you are likely to cheat. Got it.

But ... what does "pretty happy" actually mean? It means you aren't fully miserable. Is that a glass-half-full outlook? Maybe. But to me it can be a wide wide range of things aren't going great, I'd like them to be better, I don't know how to fix them, but being married is better than having to do my own laundry.

Anecdotally, I actually think that men (and women) can ignore the problems in a marriage, they won't talk about it, they'll rug sweep it and try to deal with it without dealing with it. So they actually SAY they are happy (Food on the table! sex occasionally! love my kids! ooh, look, donuts!) (JK on the donuts), but there are still serious problems they aren't dealing with. I would have said I had a happy marriage ... but that is only because I didn't actually LOOK at what was going on. I was NOT introspective at all. Our marriage was happy. I'm sure I would have said that. But I was NOT. And, in reality, our marriage was mostly a shell of happiness. The thin candy coating was all that was left and the chocolate center had all disappeared. So we looked happy. But the substance wasn't there. And we weren't digging to discover what was actually going on.

So. Sure. Statistics say more than 50% of men who have affairs say their marriage is "pretty happy" or "very happy" but I think that is really a superficial test of what is actually going on in a marriage.

[/quote]

The study goes on though. Men that reported they were unhappy and had affairs and divorce later "admit" or "learn" that they are still unhappy, it has nothing to do with the woman they are with, they are just unhappy people. 95% of the time the AP makes them more unhappy. Of the 5% who stay with their AP, marry and divorce at the rate of 60%. Of the 2% that stay married to the an AP, 50% of them say they are unhappy but too tired and worn out to divorce. So 1% of the population, leave a marriage and report they are happier.

Yes, unhappy people who blame others for their problems are more likely to cheat. But you as a spouse can't do anything about an unhappy partner who won't get help.[/quote]

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