How Our Brains Keep Us From Straying

In the pursuit of happily-ever-after, the odds seem to be stacked against us.

Men and women reap huge benefits when they stick around with a good partner -- staying happier and healthier, living longer and passing along more genes. But the sticking-around part is a challenge. We don't get long-term relationship payoffs right away. And until then -- between the once-upon-a-time and the happily-ever-after -- plenty of temptations can beckon.

Not that it's wrong to shop around before settling down. But there always will be enticing alternative mates -- whether heart-grabbing or merely eye-catching. So researchers wonder: With so many attractive alternatives, how do humans manage to maintain relationships at all?

The brain appears to have some tricks up its neural sleeve. A new line of research is exploring how automatic psychological mechanisms kick into action when the eye starts to wander, helping resist temptation and strengthening the relationship -- even without us being aware of it.

Here's a sample from some recently published experiments (all on heterosexual men and women in committed monogamous relationships) that show how our brain keeps us connected to -- and, yes, even happy with -- the old ball and chain.

COLUMBUS INVESTIGATOR CATCHES CHEATING SPOUSES

Brad Kelly, a private investigator who has spied on thousands of cheating spouses, says its not just men who sneak around on their spouses.
Kelly has busted everyone, from a newlywed to a man who has been married for 35 years, 10TV's Maureen Kocot reported.
According to Kelly, when suspicious spouses see the proof caught on videotape, they always ask the same question, "Why?"
"A lot of it, they're saying they don't get enough attention at home - the spouse is not talking to them anymore - and they're constantly finding ways to be out of the house," Kelly said.
Marriage counselors warn that relationships can diminish as gradually as grains of sans through an hourglass, Kocot reported.
"We often give our marriages the leftovers in life," said Robert Mathis, a counselor. "We give it a quick weekend here or there if we're lucky."
Mathis calls it the "closeness distance dance." The more distance that takes place in the marriage, the more likely a partner will turn to an outsider to fill the emotional void.
"It takes two people to do that dance, not just one," Mathis said.
Kelly said that there are signs of a cheating spouse. Either their sex life has dwindled or their spouse is never home.
"By the time they come to us, the suspicion is so great that they know they just need to see it," Kelly said.
Another red flag for suspicious spouses is an excuse to slip away on the holidays, especially Christmas and New Year's.
For a reality check to find out where spouses are in the closeness distance dance," counselors suggest taking a week's vacation alone to find out very quickly how much conversation takes place.

STRAYING MATE? HIS GENES MAY BE TO BLAME

Men are more likely to be devoted and loyal husbands when they lack a particular variant of a gene that influences brain activity, researchers reported this week.

The finding is striking because it not only links the gene variant, or allele, with the risk of marital discord and divorce, but also appears to predict whether women involved with these men are likely to say their partners are emotionally close and available, or distant and disagreeable, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Two of every five men carry the allele, according to the report.

"Men with two copies of the allele had twice the risk of experiencing marital dysfunction, with a threat of divorce during the last year, compared to men carrying one or no copies," said Hasse Walum, a behavioral geneticist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who led the study.

"Women married to men with one or two copies of the allele scored lower on average on how satisfied they were with the relationship compared to women married to men with no copies."


About 15% of the men without the allele reported serious marital discord in the past year, compared with 34% of men with two copies of the allele. The allele that Walum and a team of scientists studied in a sample of more than 1,000 heterosexual couples regulates the activity of a hormone in the brain known as vasopressin. It dictates how and where vasopressin receptors are situated in the brain.

Japan's New Professional Seducers

Case 1: Mr A and Kyoko

3.30pm. Mr A is outside a bank in a busy part of Ikebukuro, a faintly seedy area of Tokyo, waiting for his date. He beams as she teeters across the road on high heels. Kyoko, 20, is half his age. She has a mane of black hair, sloe eyes, a fetching smile and a cute giggle. Her blouse is open to reveal her cleavage and she has on a short skirt and sheer black tights. Mr A is a bald 40-year-old salesman in a crumpled grey suit and glasses.

Mr A met Kyoko by chance in the street; the first time she asked him for directions, then they bumped into each other again, and since then they have been exchanging flirtatious texts.

They stop off at a cigarette machine, then go to a cheap basement restaurant for spaghetti. He has bought her moisturiser and cleanser. She giggles coyly: “Next time, why don’t you give me a ring?” At 4.30 they’re outside a pawnbroker’s, looking at rings. Their shoulders touch, then they reach for each other’s hands.

They head for north Ikebukuro, an area of love hotels with velvet-covered walls, mirrored ceilings and sexy videos that rent rooms for two-hour periods. At 4.45 they go into one. They take a picture of the two of them on her mobile. At 6.07 they leave. At the station Mr A gives Kyoko a furtive goodbye kiss. Next time, he says, he’ll take her somewhere nice – a hot-spring resort maybe, or Tokyo Disneyland. Then he goes back to the office and, later, home to his wife.

Mr A doesn’t know that a team of private investigators is recording his every move. The boss, the ebullient Mr Tomiya, lurks behind a lamppost on the other side of the road and takes photographs as Kyoko meets Mr A. Tomiya’s equipment includes a packet of cigarettes and a pen, both of which are actually cameras. Shimizu, a heavy-set man with a bullet head and cropped hair, carries a black bag. It contains a camera with which he films continuously through a tiny hole in the bag. A third man acts as a lookout. They follow the couple down the street, dodging the crowds and sprinting across red lights, keeping far enough behind so as not to arouse suspicion but close enough so that Shimizu can film.

Mr A, who has been married for 20 years and has a son of 19 at university, is prone to violence and beats his wife. She confided in a male friend, whom she then fell for, but when she suggested divorce to Mr A, he simply hit her. In desperation she turned to the internet, where she found Tomiya and his company, GNC.

Netizens Wreak Havoc On Cheating Husband

Ever since his extramarital affair was exposed, Beijinger Wang Fei's life has been a living hell.

He does not even know the thousands of people who are making him pay for his deed.

It all started with the diary Wang's wife, Jiang Yan, left online before leaping to her death from their 24th floor apartment last December.

Jiang wrote of her misery after discovering her husband's adultery two months earlier.

Once word of that got out, the cyber-hunt for her cheating husband began.

Wang, in his 20s, soon found himself on top of a "most-wanted list" on the Internet. Net users sniffed out and placed his photos, addresses and phone numbers on major portals for all to see and abuse.

Expletives were painted on the door of his parents' home, accusing them of killing Wang's wife. Strangers contacted the company where Wang and his lover worked. The company later suspended the couple and they were reportedly forced to resign.

Half a year later, Wang still cannot find work. Most employers turn the man away, said his lawyer, Zhang Yanfeng.

"This has seriously hindered my life," Wang said.

The Beijinger is just one of many suffering the onslaught of the cyber-manhunt. The Internet phenomenon is known in Chinese as "renrou sousuo", or "the search for human flesh".

The cyber-manhunt usually starts with thousands of individuals on the Net self-mobilizing with one goal in mind - digging out the personal information of targeted individuals.

Has Technology Made It Impossible to Have an Affair?

What could be more family-friendly than a Nintendo Wii, a games console replete with motion-sensing technology and gleaming white purity? Just look at the marketing; the families bounding around the living room, gurning with unbridled joy as they compete with each other at video tennis and baseball.

The message is clear; a Wii is the new social hub, it coaxes gloomy teenagers out of their bedrooms and weans them off Grand Theft Auto. Wii players don't buy trench coats and shoot up the local burger bar. A Wii does not warp fragile young minds. In the Wii family, if little Johnny gets tetchy he can always give Daddy a working over on electronic boxing, no harm done. Wii stands for wholesome, healthy family values. It's even got brain training and fitness applications.

So the recent stories about the man in the United States who reportedly filed for divorce, citing his Wii as a catalyst for his wife's infidelity, would have had Nintendo's marketing Svengalis frothing at the mouth.

Returning from a blood-and-guts deployment in Iraq, the unnamed soldier is said to have plugged in his console, no doubt for some light relief, and uncovered evidence that while he was fighting the insurgency, his wife had been conducting her own secret manoeuvres. You see, a Wii has a gizmo that allows a player to store his or her personal profile, called a Mii. The soldier discovered that his wife's Mii had spent long evenings virtual bowling with another Mii. When he confronted her, she admitted that the mystery Mii was actually a lover. It probably never entered her mind that the games console could be anything but inert.

However, as more and more philanderers are discovering, modern technology has an increasingly unpleasant ability to trip us up, even the whiter-than-white Wii.

Long Deployments Can Fray Faithful Times

The crowd starts to build around 11 p.m. at the Big Apple. It's still early, in singles time.

Women wear low-cut shirts; guys wear short-sleeved shirts that showcase their muscles.

They eye each other, buy a drink and approach.

The scene is a part of American culture.

But here, about a mile from the entrance to Fort Bragg, there's baggage attached to the pickup game. At every table, it's a safe bet that someone has a connection to the Army. That might mean a husband or wife overseas.

The atmosphere -- good-looking people and absent spouses -- creates a place where people will be tempted to cheat. It's up to individuals to decide whether they'll act on those temptations, patrons say.

Infidelity isn't new to our society. It isn't new to our city. And it isn't new to the Army. But as many Soldiers and their families deal with multiple deployments, maintaining a military marriage is getting more difficult.

Despite the Army's efforts to provide therapy and programs, cheating continues. But therapists, chaplains and other experts say it isn't more prevalent in the Army than in any other segment of our community.

"We can look at it as an Army command issue," said Dr. Jerry Powell, a retired Army chaplain who runs a family life center off post, "but it really comes down to a husband-and-wife issue."

Those issues vary, depending on the husbands and wives.

In the Web of a Political Sex Scandal

The latest sex scandal to rock the Capitol has the usual elements -- salacious e-mails and marital infidelity -- but it is also a cautionary tale of take-no-prisoners political warfare, fought in the messy, even lawless, world of the blogosphere.

It began with a few e-mails posted on a western New York Web site, www.politicsny.net, that allegedly documented affairs between Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, and women who were described as Capitol interns. The initial blog post came with a threat -- "Everyday we will publish another e-mail if Hoyt has not resigned the race."

Hoyt admitted Tuesday to "breaking my marriage vows," according to The Buffalo News. But he insists that he has broken no laws or the Assembly's rules banning fraternization between lawmakers and interns. The revelation brought quick action from the Assembly Ethics Committee, which launched an investigation less than 24 hours after the story broke.

State records show that the women believed to have been involved were not interns during the alleged romances, according to the News.

At the center of this story is Joseph Illuzzi, the man who posted the e-mails that started the storm.

Lawyer's Affair Costs $1.5 Million

A Mississippi attorney must pay $1.5 million for having an affair with a former client's wife.

Affirming a jury verdict in Rankin County Circuit Court, the Supreme Court of Mississippi found Ronald Henry Pierce liable to his former client, Ernest Allan Cook, who, along with his wife Kathleen Shorkey Cook, had hired Pierce to represent them and their son in a medical malpractice action.

The appellate court found Pierce, a solo practitioner, liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and alienation of affection.

Pierce began having an affair with Kathleen Cook in September 2000 after her husband had moved to California to pursue a film career. Ernest Cook discovered the affair and hired a private investigator.

So What Did You Do Last Night? The Economics of Infidelity

Anyone married to an unhappy 55-year-old man who lives in the city could think about being suspicious that their husband may be having an affair.

Likewise, for anyone married to an unhappy 45-year-old woman who doesn't have a college education and regularly skips church may need to raise the question, according to a recently released University of New Hampshire study.

Those composite descriptions are based on a slew of demographic and economic factors that determine the likelihood someone will have an affair, the study found.

Bruce Elmslie, an economics professor at the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics, and Edinaldo Tebaldi, assistant professor of economics at Bryant University, jointly compiled the study, titled "So What Did You Do Last Night? The Economics of Infidelity."

Caught Cheating? What's Next?

Elizabeth Blackney says her heart goes out to Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards, because she's been there, too.

Blackney was just 22 and pregnant when she found out in 1995 her husband had been having an extramarital affair.

"It occurred to me that I hadn't seen the phone bill come in the mail for a while," says the now 36-year-old mother in Bend, Oregon. A quick call to the phone company confirmed that her husband had requested the bills be sent to a post office box that she was unaware of.

After Blackney had the bills rerouted to their home address, she discovered what he was hiding: a long-distance relationship with another woman. When Blackney called the woman's number to investigate, she found out that her husband not only had a mistress, but that he'd told the other woman that Blackney had died in childbirth.

Are Men or Women More Likely to Cheat?

John Edwards was supposed to be one of the good guys – he seemed like the kind of husband who’d clean up around the house and take his wife to chemo. But it turns out he was yet another married man lying about an affair (with Rielle Hunter, a woman who produced his campaign videos) and he only came clean after being cornered by the media. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, already knew about his mistress when the news broke and she has stuck by his side throughout the scandal. Why is it that we so often hear about high profile men cheating, but we rarely hear about women doing so? Perhaps it’s because societal structure combined with differing motivations for infidelity mean it’s simply easier for men to cheat.

Despite knowing that men stray, not to mention the oft-repeated statistic that most marriages end in divorce, women still put time and energy into making relationships work, especially when compared with men. There’s no doubt that dudes today are more invested in their relationships than they were in cavemen times, but their commitment doesn’t create mega-hits like Sex and the City, a show about four women talking about men, or reading articles like “The Secret Girlfriend Weapon,” which details psychological tricks to improve your couple bond, or “How To Emerge From a Fight More in Love,” actual articles from Cosmopolitan.com, whose print version is the top-seller on newsstands. By putting so much of their time and energy into the fairy-tale idea that relationships can be perfect, women set themselves up to be disappointed–or to at least look like big losers–when their man has an affair.

A-Rod: Marriage Over, Affairs Claims Irrelevant

Alex Rodriguez said he agrees with his wife on two things: Their marriage is over, and she's a good mother to their two daughters. But A-Rod said allegations of infidelity shouldn't bear on their divorce.

The New York Yankees' All-Star third baseman said in papers filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court that his five-year marriage to Cynthia Rodriguez is "irretrievably broken." But because Florida is a no-fault divorce state, Rodriguez contends that his wife's claims of affairs are "immaterial and impertinent."

In her divorce petition filed July 7, Cynthia Rodriguez accused her husband of "marital misconduct" including infidelity. She didn't mention any names, but A-Rod has been linked to pop superstar Madonna — both deny an affair — and a number of other women. A New York tabloid once labeled him "Stray-Rod."

Most Paternity Tests Show Doubter is Father

Suspicious blokes who request paternity tests are mostly wrong and about 80 per cent are found to be the real father, new Queensland research suggests.

While some 80 per cent of men who ask for a test find out they are in fact the father, only just over half had actually expected that result.

And the research, conducted by Andrea Hayward, the director of Queensland's only registered DNA testing facility, DNA Qld, shows when a woman asks for a test she often gets the result she predicted.

Couples Take Up High-Tech Spying

Couples are spying on each other in record numbers using the latest high-tech equipment to check if partners are cheating.

Two of the most popular gadgets on the market are a device that recovers deleted text messages from mobile phones and a chemical test kit to detect traces of semen on underwear.

OzSpy's SIM Card Data Recovery Pro works by placing the SIM card into the gadget and then plugging it into a computer to download the stored information, which includes deleted text messages. And the CheckMate 5-Minute Infidelity Test Kit works in a similar way to a home pregnancy test.

The company claims to be selling more than 100 of each device a month nationwide — more than twice the number sold six months ago.

"What It Means to Be Faithful" Blurred In Modern World

We used to know what infidelity was: sex with someone other than your mate.

But the 21st century seems to have blurred those clear-cut lines. Is having lunch every day with an opposite-sex work friend a breach of marital trust? What about a flirtation online? If there's no sex, is it really cheating?

Such questions arise as societal and psychological pressures challenge deep-rooted ideas about the nature of infidelity. "We are as a society finally coming to grips with what it means to be faithful," says Douglas Snyder, a psychologist at Texas A&M University-College Station. "It doesn't just mean to have sex with someone else."

The Damage of Financial Infidelity

Do you splurge on high-priced designer sandals and stash them where your husband won't see them?

How about the $5,000 Vegas gambling tab that you hope to hide from your wife?

Those are examples of financial infidelity, which can unravel a relationship just as easily as sexual infidelity, according to a new book by a New York psychologist.

Bonnie Eaker Weil's book, “Financial Infidelity: Seven Steps to Conquering the #1 Relationship Wrecker,” is a talker. It made me think about the ways people use money and power in relationships.

Infidelity Questioning Ends With Injuries

A wife and two friends went to Newman Avenue to confront her husband about "possible infidelity," lawmen say. The confrontation didn't end peacefully.

The husband, 50-year-old Jackie Odom of Godfrey Street, is charged with domestic battery, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office. The wife and her friends said he responded to their questions by grabbing the wife by the head and shoving one of her friends to the ground.

Bug's Life a Busy One as Lovers Get Suspicious

Sydney is in the grip of an infidelity epidemic, with more than 1000 people a month wanting to monitor their partner's every word and move. At least, that's what private investigators would have you believe.

According to one, Luke Athens, suspicious spouses are spending thousands of dollars to have tracking boxes fitted under cars, their partner's deleted text messages read and gifts delivered with cameras and listening devices hidden inside. He said yesterday he cannot keep up with demand. "I don't know what is going on out there, but business is absolutely booming."

His company, Heartbreakers, carries out sweeps for listening devices on Sydney homes every week and says one in five come up positive. He says people are buying bugs on eBay for as little as $120 and hiding them behind powerpoint covers or in light fittings. It is not illegal to buy or own bugs but it is illegal to use them without the consent of the person being bugged.

Cheating on Your Spouse? Beware Someone is Watching

Two weeks ago the CEO of a blue-chip Nairobi-based company told his wife that he was flying to Mombasa on company business.

Instead of heading for the airport, the man drove to Kitengela where he rendezvoused with his girlfriend. They spent the rest of the day and the night drinking and canoodling.

His suspicious wife contacted a private eye firm to track down and expose the man. It did not take them long to compile a dossier on the philanderer.