The Changing Landscape of Infidelity & Print / Surviving Financial and other Storms - 10/29/08

[Smartmarriages]

- THE CHANGING NEWSPAPER LANDSCAPE
- LOVE, SEX AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF INFIDELITY
- SURVIVING THE STORMS (FINANCIAL AND OTHERWISE)
- FINANCIAL LITERACY

Tonight's post is about sex and finance and as I ponder the preponderance of
conference submissions on sex I have to wonder - hmmmm.... the financial
crisis raises anxiety - and sex lowers it.  In any case, we'll definitely
have the sexuality/infidelity territory covered in Orlando. In fact we have
three sex Institutes on Sunday - forget about "Never on Sunday".  Bring your
spouse to Orlando.  I'm still looking for good financial programs.  Send
suggestions.  All I've been getting are emails from people - some saying
things like with the stockmarket up and gas prices down, things are looking
better and others saying things like "I don't want to be hanging around in
four years when the bailout bills come due around the same time as the
boomers start retiring". Hmmmmm.....  If not hanging around, I wonder where
he'll be.   Also, I'm leading off this morning with this other changing
landscape/finacial news. The Christian Science Monitor's screaming Sign of
the Times......   -  diane

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- THE CHANGING NEWSPAPER LANDSCAPE

Christian Science Paper to End Daily Print Edition
Stephanie Clifford/ Oct 28/2008

After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor
will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher
announced Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure makes The Monitor the first
national newspaper to largely give up on print.

John Yemma, editor of The Monitor, said it WAS "MAKING A LEAP THAT MOST
NEWSPAPERS WILL HAVE TO MAKE IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS."

The paper is currently published Monday through Friday, and will move to
online only in April, although it will also introduce a weekend magazine.
John Yemma, The Monitor¹s editor, said that moving to a Web focus will mean
it can keep its eight foreign bureaus open.

The Monitor is an anomaly in journalism, a nonprofit financed by a church
and delivered through the mail. But with seven Pulitzer Prizes and a
reputation for thoughtful writing and strong international coverage, it long
maintained an outsize influence in the publishing world. . . .

>From the NY Times on this changing print landscape reports that on the same
day: 

> Time Inc., the Olympian home of Time magazine, Fortune, People and Sports
> Illustrated, announced that it was cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing its
> staff. And Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, compounded
> the grimness by announcing it was laying off 10 percent of its work force ‹ up
> to 3,000 people.
> 
> Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left
> to cover it.

#########################################

- LOVE, SEX AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF INFIDELITY

Love, Sex and the Changing Landscape of Infidelity
The New York Times 
October 28, 2008
By TARA PARKER-POPE

> . . . new studies suggest surprising changes in the marital landscape.
> Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young
> couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap: younger women
> appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men. . .

>  Among older people, a host of newer drugs and treatments are making it easier
> to be sexual, and in some cases unfaithful ‹ Viagra and other remedies for
> erectile dysfunction, estrogen and testosterone supplements to maintain
> women¹s sex drive and vaginal health, even advances like better hip
> replacements. . . .

> In younger couples, the increasing availability of pornography on the
> Internet, which has been shown to affect sexual attitudes and perceptions of
> ³normal² behavior, may be playing a role in rising infidelity. . . .

> . . .some encouraging trends. . . .
> One notable shift is that couples appear to be spending slightly more time
> together. And MARRIED men and women also appear to have the most active sex
> lives, reporting sex with their spouse 58 times a year, a little more than
> once a week.


If you cheated on your spouse, would you admit it to a researcher?

That question is one of the biggest challenges in the scientific study of
marriage, and it helps explain why different studies produce different
estimates of infidelity rates in the United States.

Surveys conducted in person are likely to underestimate the real rate of
adultery, because people are reluctant to admit such behavior not just to
their spouses but to anyone.

In a study published last summer in The Journal of Family Psychology, for
example, researchers from the University of Colorado and Texas A&M surveyed
4,884 married women, using face-to-face interviews and anonymous computer
questionnaires. In the interviews, only 1 percent of women said they had
been unfaithful to their husbands in the past year; on the computer
questionnaire, more than 6 percent did.

At the same time, experts say that surveys appearing in sources like women¹s
magazines may overstate the adultery rate, because they suffer from what
pollsters call selection bias: the respondents select themselves and may be
more likely to report infidelity.

But a handful of new studies suggest surprising changes in the marital
landscape. Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older
men and young couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap:
younger women appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men.

³If you just ask whether infidelity is going up, you don¹t see really
impressive changes,² said David C. Atkins, research associate professor at
the University of Washington Center for the Study of Health and Risk
Behaviors. ³But if you magnify the picture and you start looking at specific
gender and age cohorts, we do start to see some pretty significant changes.²

The most consistent data on infidelity come from the General Social Survey,
sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of
Chicago, which has used a national representative sample to track the
opinions and social behaviors of Americans since 1972. The survey data show
that in any given year, about 10 percent of married people ‹ 12 percent of
men and 7 percent of women ‹ say they have had sex outside their marriage.

But detailed analysis of the data from 1991 to 2006, to be presented next
month by Dr. Atkins at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive
Therapies conference in Orlando, show some surprising shifts. University of
Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for
men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991. For
women over 60, the increase is more striking: to 15 percent, up from 5
percent in 1991.

The researchers also see big changes in relatively new marriages. About 20
percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 say they have ever been
unfaithful, up from about 15 and 12 percent respectively.

Theories vary about why more people appear to be cheating. Among older
people, a host of newer drugs and treatments are making it easier to be
sexual, and in some cases unfaithful ‹ Viagra and other remedies for
erectile dysfunction, estrogen and testosterone supplements to maintain
women¹s sex drive and vaginal health, even advances like better hip
replacements.

³They¹ve got the physical health to express their sexuality into old age,²
said Helen E. Fisher, research professor of anthropology at Rutgers and the
author of several books on the biological and evolutionary basis of love and
sex.

In younger couples, the increasing availability of pornography on the
Internet, which has been shown to affect sexual attitudes and perceptions of
³normal² behavior, may be playing a role in rising infidelity.

But it is the apparent change in women¹s fidelity that has sparked the most
interest among relationship researchers. It is not entirely clear if the
historical gap between men and women is real or if women have just been more
likely to lie about it.

³Is it that men are bragging about it and women are lying to everybody
including themselves?² Dr. Fisher asked. ³Men want to think women don¹t
cheat, and women want men to think they don¹t cheat, and therefore the sexes
have been playing a little psychological game with each other.²

Dr. Fisher notes that infidelity is common across cultures, and that in
hunting and gathering societies, there is no evidence that women are any
less adulterous than men. The fidelity gap may be explained more by cultural
pressures than any real difference in sex drives between men and women. Men
with multiple partners typically are viewed as virile, while women are
considered promiscuous. And historically, women have been isolated on farms
or at home with children, giving them fewer opportunities to be unfaithful.

But today, married women are more likely to spend late hours at the office
and travel on business. And even for women who stay home, cellphones, e-mail
and instant messaging appear to be allowing them to form more intimate
relationships, marriage therapists say. Dr. Frank Pittman, an Atlanta
psychiatrist who specializes in family crisis and couples therapy, says he
has noticed more women talking about affairs centered on ³electronic²
contact.

³I see a changing landscape in which the emphasis is less on the sex than it
is on the openness and intimacy and the revelation of secrets,² said Dr.
Pittman, the author of ³Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of
Intimacy² (Norton, 1990). ³Everybody talks by cellphone and the relationship
evolves because you become increasingly distant from whomever you lie to,
and you become increasingly close to whomever you tell the truth to.²

While infidelity rates do appear to be rising, a vast majority of people
still say adultery is wrong, and most men and women do not appear to be
unfaithful. Another problem with the data is that it fails to discern when
respondents cheat: in a troubled time in the marriage, or at the end of a
failing relationship.

³It¹s certainly plausible that women might have increased their relative
rate of infidelity over time,² said Edward O. Laumann, professor of
sociology at the University of Chicago. ³But it isn¹t going to be a huge
number. The real thing to talk about is where are they in terms of their
relationship and the marital bond.²

The General Social Survey data also show some encouraging trends, said John
P. Robinson, professor of sociology and director of the Americans¹ Use of
Time project at the University of Maryland. One notable shift is that
couples appear to be spending slightly more time together. And married men
and women also appear to have the most active sex lives, reporting sex with
their spouse 58 times a year, a little more than once a week.

³We¹ve looked at that as good news,² Dr. Robinson said.


- SURVIVING THE STORMS (FINANCIAL AND OTHERWISE)

Aaron Larson at the National Healthy Marriage Institute has released another
pamphlet in their very affordable, practical, helpful Healthy Marriage
Pamphlet Series: Surviving the Storms of Life: Growing Closer as a Couple
Before, During and After the Storms of Life. It teaches couple the
importance of preparing their marriage for the inevitable storms, tips on
how to weather them, and ideas for how their marriages can come out even
stronger through the process.

While the pamphlet wasn't written specifically for financial storms the
principles are general and apply to any crisis including the current
financial storms battering couples today.

Read the pamphlet at http://www.healthymarriagetips.com/storms.htm or if
you'd like a free pdf file of the pamphlet that you can print
and distribute email aaron at healthymarriage.org

(Yes, that is Aaron singing the song he wrote Walking Down the Road of
Bittersweet about the storm he and his wife, Elizabeth, survived this year.)

######################################
- FINANCIAL LITERACY

Here's another email from one of our Smart Marriage presenters, Chris
Gersten, who developed the Lasting Love curriculum which has a section
dedicated to Financial Literacy.  This post is from his famli-us
e-newsletter.  
 

> Almost everyone is hurting financially right now and stresses about money put
> enormous pressure on our marriages and relationships.
> 
> The poor are having a hard time paying the rent and filling their gas tanks..
> Construction workers are sitting at home waiting for the housing market to
> return or taking minimum wage jobs. Jobs are being cut and new ones are more
> and more difficult to find. Even the near-wealthy are having a hard time.
> Homes can't sell, stock portfolios have been slashed and people can't borrow.
> I believe the economy will turn around in 2009, but we need to take steps
> right now to reduce the stress of financial hardship.
> 
> So I have decided that this Christmas season, I will not accept any gifts that
> my grown children buy for me. I am 60 years old and, if I don't already own
> it, I don¹t need it.
> 
> I have asked my kids and grandchildren to give me something more special than
> buying me gifts this year. I have asked them to give me gifts that they make,
> or that my grandchildren make.
> 
> This includes any gifts that start with photographs of grandchildren. I would
> love to get a calendar with a picture of one or more of my eight grandchildren
> on each page or a huge poster blow-up of one or more of the kids. I would
> enjoy a book of photos of each of my sons¹ families. I love to get a tee-shirt
> or coffee mug with a child's photograph or drawing on it.
> 
> You can discover all the ways to turn your digital photos into wonderful gifts
> by Googling "photo gifts" or go to kodak.com and look at their gift selection.
> 
> I have also asked my kids to give me kid¹s art. A child¹s drawing, nicely
> framed, is a wonderful gift.
> 
> Three of my grandchildren play musical instruments and I am blessed to have
> all of them nearby. I will ask each of them to perform for me as a special
> Holiday gift.
> 
> My wife and I have agreed to give each other something homemade as well. I
> have asked her to cook me three special meals. Last year, she learned how to
> cook Moroccan Lamb and cooked me five different dishes. This year, she will
> learn how to cook Indian dishes with hot curries. These are gifts that keep on
> giving. We eat better all year long and go out to eat less frequently, saving
> money beyond the Holiday season.
> 
> I will do something corny like write her a poem. I will also compose a tune
> for her and play it on my cello. I know I get the better part of the deal
> since she will continue to cook the Indian dishes after she learns how.
> 
> I have told my children that I am giving each of them something I already own.
> My mother-in-law has been giving away her best jewelry to my wife for years.
> Now it is our turn. My wife is giving away some of her jewelry to our
> daughters-in-law. We will give away books, art, rugs, furniture, and athletic
> equipment that we never use. We will also give my kids overnight babysitting
> five times a year so that they can enjoy weekends on their own.
> 
> These gifts not only save a lot of money, they bring us closer together as a
> family. They represent time invested in thinking about and creating very
> personal gifts. 
> 
> Go to www.lastingloveskills.com to read my Financial Literacy curriculum.
> 
> Chris Gersten
> FAMLI Chairman
> 
#############################################

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