According to all the latest statistics, the workplace
has become the #1 place for married people who engage in infidelity
to meet the other person.
As women make advances everywhere in society, the old cliché
about the boss and the young secretary carrying on an affair has
been pushed aside by an increase in the number of men and women
who work together as equals becoming romantically involved. The
old separation of the sexes has passed and old boundaries to interaction
have been replaced by no boundaries. Hearing about the “guys
from work” or the “girls at the office” has transformed
in the “gang at work”.
As we all know, people begin to get to know one another well when
working together. The coed workplace offers lots of interaction,
team work, travel, projects and longer work hours, all of which
lead to members of the opposite sex who share many common attributes
growing close. Lets face it, they share the same boss, same work
stresses, same lunch hour, etc.
The unavoidable closeness, commonalities in life and the amount
of time together can lead to friendship. They end up spending a
great deal of time, on occasion more time than they spend at home,
with this new “friend” so the friendship can become
very deep. These friendships can quickly lead to strong emotional
attachments. Strong emotional attachments with the opposite sex
can often lead to romance. The most noticeable theme is that they
work together, grow to understand one another and “relate”
better to this co-worker than they do to their spouse. At home they
hear about bills, problems, chores, etc. The co-worker friend offers
someone who relates to talk with, someone who empathizes with them
and does not bring any of the stress that home often has, making
them all the more attractive.
What is most noticeable is the common idea shared by many
cheaters that they are an exception. They do not like the
thought of infidelity, cheating or hurting their spouse and family.
They relate the idea of infidelity to someone who has a cheap affair
for the sex, while they are truly convinced that they are not part
of anything like that. Instead they view the affair as unwittingly
falling into an romantic situation. They began by making a strong
friendship, something viewed as being very positive, which lead
to the emotional involvement.
For those cheaters who don’t view their current relationship
as being inappropriate, they too have a common theme: The friendship
slowly turned into more and often they do not realize how far things
have gone until sex came into play. This group truly believes that
this just fell in their laps and cannot explain how it came about.
They genuinely fail to realize how emotionally attached they are
to the other person. They also are quick to point out how many others
are involved in these workplace relationships and note that society
has come to accept these things as being everyday occurrences.
This does not mean that the thrill seeking types who do not hold
their relationships as sacred have disappeared. They are still just
a prevalent as ever, but the new workplace infidelity has taken
over an entirely new sector of the population and shows no signs
of stopping. The idea of sex in the work place, flirting while working
and having a secret from your co-workers is still a big part of
the problem.
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