"It plays into the very worst stereotypes of both men and women and it's insulting to everyone involved."

Last weekend a DJ on commercial radio said that all her female friends advised her to fire her cleaner because she was a gorgeous Swedish 20-something woman.

They were worried that an attractive younger woman bending over to mop the floor in hot pants would be too much of a temptation for her work-at-home husband.

I hate stories like this. It plays into the very worst stereotypes of both men and women and it's insulting to everyone involved. It implies that younger women are horny temptresses, older women are jealous and sexless, and men are no better than a Labrador that will indiscriminately hump anything in sight.

It also reinforces the belief that women are responsible for men's behaviour — that it's not the husband's responsibility to be faithful, but the wife's to manipulate his environment so he's not tempted.


But the evidence isn't good when it comes to affairs.

Sexual Health Australia reports that around 60 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women admit that an affair has occurred sometime in their marriage. And these are only the couples that are willing to admit to it. According to this research, 70 per cent of all marriages experience an affair.

'[A]ffairs happen in even good marriages,' says relationship counselor and author of After His Affair Meryn Callander. 'Most affairs are not premeditated. They often begin innocently as friendships, often at the workplace and as easily with a nanny, and develop insidiously into an affair.'

Callander continues: 'I don't think it's so much about men being fickle and opportunistic, though. Some men (and a growing number of women) will certainly be that, but it's more about unarticulated assumptions and expectations, and an absence of boundaries in the marriage.'

Callander says that the definition of infidelity varies enormously between couples and even within a couple, and that it's important for couples to discuss and agree upon what is acceptable in their relationship.

'When does flirty text messaging, or affectionate hugging and kissing overstep themark?' she says.

Call me a romantic but I'd be gutted if my husband started sexting our babysitter, not because I asked him not to, but because he wanted to in the first place.

Relationship counselor and author of Becoming Us Elly Taylor says that a person's tendency to cheat is influenced by their attachment style, the pattern of trust and security with our main caregivers when we were children.

'Those with a secure style are less likely to stray,' she says. 'Those with an anxious attachment style are more likely to seek reassurance of their desirability or want to boost self-esteem with a younger woman. Those who have an avoidant attachment style are more likely to have a "one foot in, one foot out" approach to intimate relationships and an affair is one way of mediating too-closeness,' she says.

If you married someone who falls into the high-risk category for affairs, the good news is that attachment styles can be worked on.

'We can create a more secure partnership through making it safe for our partner to be vulnerable, to share their anxieties and fears with us (and vice versa), to be intimate, not just on a sexual level, but on a thoughts and feelings level too. This way we create a partnership that bonds us on multiple levels, on friendship and mutual trust as much as it is on love,' says Taylor.

But aside from attachment styles, life events such as illness, death of a parent, retiring or even becoming a grandparent can make people more susceptible to infidelity.

'I think it says more about men of this age feeling insecure or vulnerable and wanting to boost feelings of virility, and perhaps not having the opportunity for addressing underlying fears or anxieties of aging,' Taylor says.

I would like to believe that I do not need to be strategic and manipulative to prevent my husband from having an affair. I also think that a truce in the older woman vs the younger woman war is long overdue.

Kasey Edwards is a writer and best-selling author. www.kaseyedwards.com





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