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Why Men Cheat: Public Lives and Private Shame.
By: Norman Fried
June 26, 2008
The recent attention and controversy surrounding same-sex marriages in California have caused many of us to focus on our own definition of ”family values;” and have forced others to look more closely at the marital bond in particular. The question of fidelity in marriage has now become forefront in the minds of many journalists, clergymen and psychologists alike.
In his May 26 article in New York Magazine, entitled The Secret Lives Of Married Men, Philip Weiss attempts an answer to the question of infidelity and the “affairs” of men, many of them in the public eye. Citing the “outings” of Elliot Spitzer, Governor David Paterson, and New York Congressman Vito Fosella (who recently admitted to having two families); and after collecting opinions from anonymous men that he questioned for his article, Weiss deduces that men’s hunger for sexual variety is a “basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse.”
Weiss’ qualitative findings provide us with an interesting socio-biological, but limited, interpretation for the controversy of male infidelity, and they beg the question: Is sexual impulse alone the driving force behind men who have extra-marital affairs? Researchers in the fields of clinical psychology and marriage and family therapy argue differently, as they assert that the wounding actions of an affair are often rooted in deeper, more unconscious origins. Marriage therapists suggest that people often choose a spouse based on their own (sometimes negative) parental models; and they, in turn, re-enact within the marriage the “dramas” which they experienced in their families-of-origin. This recapitulation of earlier, more primitive themes, often renders each member of the couple at risk for ”acting out” behaviors; behaviors that may reach their apogee in an affair.
When a marriage is converted to the unconscious mission of rescuing its protagonists from an “unjust” history, and restoring them with a second chance to “make it right,” married men may find themselves trapped in a web of bad feelings that grows with time and insidiously replaces what was once promising and positive with despair and negativity.
Were the actions that caused Elliot Spitzer to replace his public identity as Governor with that of Client #9 the result of unresolved negative conflicts from his family of origin? Did New Jersey’s Ex-Governor McGreavey’s extramarital affairs have their psychological roots in unfulfilled aspects of his inner psyche? We on the outside will never know. But it is prudent for us to consider that marital discord subsumes a complex network of emotional states, which include breakdowns in communication, conflicts in values, financial stressors, unreal expectations and projective distortions on the part of each spouse. Considering these contributing factors places “irresistible impulses and the need for sexual variety” quite low on the proverbial list.
The Lessons of Father's Day During Wartime.
By: Norman Fried
June 15, 2008
In the five years since the start of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, many newspapers have published articles about the men who lost their lives in battle. In reading their stories, I am moved by a common theme that runs throughout: Many of the fallen soldiers were fathers who left little children behind. Some war widows have re-married; many children have inherited new father-figures. But their connection to the past, and to the men who dreamt of raising them and guiding them through life, remains altered still, and forevermore.
 The approach of Father's Day invokes a host of emotions for which many are unprepared. For some, it leaves us anxious, as we recall the man who couldn’t be there when we needed him, or the man who is not here now when we need him the most. For others, it stimulates feelings of gratitude as we honor the times we had with our father by our side. There are some among us who never knew our father; others who have not yet separated and, thus, never had to learn to say goodbye. Regardless of our own individual story, we are, all of us, reminded at this time every year just how important fatherhood is; how lives are shaped, and paths are forged, through the direction and guidance of a man older and wiser.
As children, we follow in the footsteps of our fathers, our teachers, and our earliest heroes. As adolescents and young adults we struggle to find our own path, to reach a place that is wholly “ours,” new and unmarked. And when we arrive as fully grown adults to this new place, we sometimes discover that we’ve been here before. We learn that projections from the past are often being replayed in the present, like tapes of our earlier, more primitive selves. And on these tapes, the voices of our fathers, our earliest teachers and guides, quietly resound, surreptitiously guiding us through the generations.
Fatherhood is a gift filled with paradox. It can teach us about the power of love while it surprises us with the pain of loss. It is a challenge that some of us accept through careful planning, a burden that others endure through time and trial. But when we allow ourselves to learn the lessons that this journey is trying to teach - about family, and friendship, and honor and fear; about sensuality and sorrow, and supplication and love - then, even in the pain of its absence in our lives, we can say thank you. For we have felt the love of another - someone wiser and stronger; or perhaps someone younger and more needful - and we can never be the same again.
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