WORKPLACE AFFAIRS

InvExperts say that over 70% of single employees will become romantically involved with someone on the job at some point in their career. Research shows that people are more likely to date a coworker than anyone else. Today’s workplace has become the new “singles bar.” The workplace has also become the #1 place for married men and women to meet affair partners and conduct extramarital affairs.

Please read the following words closely because this may be happening to you right now.
It happens like this: You’re spouse is working long hours on a project. The co-worker he or she is teamed up with is funny, smart and, well, yes, attractive. But you’re happily married with children, and straying is morally wrong and far from their thoughts.
Or is it? Instead of eating dinner at home, your spouse ends up grabbing a quick bit with their colleague. Instead of confiding in you their deepest fears about work, they talk to their co-worker. Then one day your spouse tells her or him that you’re drifting apart from your loved one. With work and tending to the children, you just don’t talk anymore. Their colleague is a good listener. And he or she knows how your souse feels. Your spouse wishes you could be more open like the colleague. It’s late. Their hands touch, and there is a spark. It might take days, weeks or even months, but your spouse slides from being “just” friends to becoming lovers. 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 souse. 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 at5ractive. According to research conducted 46 percent of unfaithful wives and 62 percent of unfaithful husbands had affairs with someone at work. And for women, the number of those having affairs has steadily grown – from 1982 to 1993, 38 percent of unfaithful wives had work affairs compared with 50 percent of cheating wives from 1991 and 2000.

Extramarital affairs have probably been around as long as marriage. But what has shifted over the last few decades is that women have frown up with greater sexual freedom, they hold positions of equal power with their male counterparts, and women are no longer financially dependent on their spouses. But don’t put the blame on working women. It takes two, and plenty of men are finding themselves sliding down that slippery slope, too. The current crop of cheating spouses has never strayed before. And the affairs weren’t necessarily happening because partners are trapped in horrible relationships. “What causes both men and women to get involved in workplace affairs is that so much of their energy and the best part of themselves is experienced at work. Then they come home depleted and have to give time to the children.