SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been thinking about this for a while and thought i'd see what others thought.

When i read here and think about my past it seems that the internet, texting etc, which to be honest is a fairly recent thing is very enabling of infidelity.

I do not think without online chat that i would have moved down the infidelity road like i did (i won't die in a ditch over this statement, maybe i would have, but....) - i'm way too reserved in person, can't even imagine how you get into a conversation that would end in infidelity just cold - ie without the false intimacy that being online or texting brings...am i making any sense at all??

I just wondered if others are the same, a constant theme on here is about mobile phones, seriously we need some sort of 'potential for infidelity' test and if you flunk it you aren't allowed a mobile phone!

And maybe there is a difference between men and women - maybe men find it easier to 'get things started' in person? And lets be honest infidelity has been around centuries longer than cell phones and the interwebz...anyway i'm rambling.....

Recently heard an infidelity expert (forgot her name, she's french, gave a TED talk on the subject) say "never in history has it been easier to cheat, and never in history has it been easier to get caught". And I think that's exactly right. Technology works both ways.

She's from Belgium, not France Her name is Esther Perel (wrote "mating in captivity")

Off course the initial contact is far easier now with smartphones/internet/apps. But as you say, things happened with the mailman or the poolboy LOOOOOONG before technology took over.

110%. Mine NEVER would have happened without technology.

Tech can be positively or negatively life altering. It's not technology that determines, it's us. It's the choices we make. Computers and cellphones are just tools.

But knowing how easy technology makes affairs should be a warning to everyone in every marriage. Especially the good ones involving spouses who do not use any caution because they do not believe they could EVER be pursuaded to consent to a relationship outside their happy marriage.

I would say the cell phone was the game changer. My WS was called by the OW for almost a year before the affair started. She would not have been able to do this had it not been for #1 him taking the calls and for# 2 cell phones in the first place. She would have not been able to contact him like that on a home or work phone. It was a helpful affair tool. Flip side was it showed me who called who, how long etc

Technology and the cell phone certainly feed the affair. Instant access to your lover? A way to set up meetings? Connecting any place, any time, even while working or at home with your spouse? That can be hidden? Are you kidding me!?

There were days when the AP and I exchanged over 100 texts, all of which were flirty, positive reinforcers of the dopamine. In his phone, he had me set to look like a buddy. Once his wife caught hold of a thread and wrote it off as "inappropriate stuff" coming from Bill.

This affair would have never come about if a) AP had not taken a job where I worked and b) would not have advanced as quickly as it did without technology.

AP bought me a BlackBerry and added me to his family plan. To this day, there's a certain ping I might overhear on a BlackBerry that instantly triggers me.

Since my WH cousin explained sexting, and how it worked, I certainly blame technology. Now, with all the ways to hide it....

He didn't have any trouble hiding it in 2007, I just assume I would never find out now. I don't even bother to look.

I specifically stayed far,far away from electronic communication. I knew how easy it was to get caught. I would call them from the landline at the office. So no. Tech didn't enable me.

It can make it easier for some, but certainly not "make" someone do it. Tech has made it much easier for child pornographers to access/distribute material. Does that mean anyone with a computer is looking at child porn? Well no. You either have the capacity or you don't.

It was 100% enabling. Text feels unreal in a way that other communication doesn't. I used Hangouts with video to chat with AP a few (once or twice?) times before anything overtly sexual was communicated, but while we would flirt in text, we did not "face to face". And even after sexting in text, a phone call was very different -- I think it was too "real" with voice and would have been extremely uncomfortable. The same way that buying things with a credit card feels different from using cash, I think there's an element of removal in text that you don't get with more genuine, voice or face-based communication. There's no way my A would have gone as far as it did without texting or messenger. We had emailed previously, and even that was different. I think there's something about the impersonal medium of text combined with the immediacy of a response that makes it incredibly easy to say things you'd never say in person.

[This message edited by HopeFromTheBottom at 9:40 PM, June 2nd (Friday)]

The cell phone made it easier. It still would have happened because we worked at the same place and could have arranged to meet in the course of communication at work, but the cell phone increased the amount of communication possible.

No, no, no....technology does not make you cheat no more than owning a gun makes you murder someone. Fact: I was addicted to Internet forums for oh TWELVE years before I had an online EA. What changed in year 12? I gave up on my marriage. It was in that moment that I became vulnerable and yep 3 months later I met the OM.

Technology makes it easier to cheat yes but it does not MAKE you cheat that's on you.

For me I believe I would still be a faithful spouse today if not for Facebook. My AP was an old girlfriend (surprise surprise) who contacted me and that's how it all started.

ETA To be clear, it certainly didn't make me cheat. That's all on me.

[This message edited by ff4152 at 10:26 AM, June 2nd (Friday)]

I don't think any (or at least, most) are saying that technology *made* them cheat, just that it made it a heck of a lot easier. I genuinely think mine wouldn't have gone as far if it weren't for messaging, though. It would still have been an EA, but there wouldn't have been the sexual component for sure.

Technology provided the means to carry it out, but the motivation and the choices that were made are still 100% on the cheater. The method by which it was carried out is a minor detail. The real damage is done by that person using a tool. If you kill someone with a rock versus a gun, does it make them any less murdered ?

This sounds like a first round attempt at finding a why. Dig deeper.

People with technology still have agency to stay faithful. I have never seen a cell phone, "cause," infidelity.

Much enabling. It's not that I did not have all the mental machinery in place to let me make the choice to get my needs met at other people's expense. I did, and I had already used it in a technology free fashion.

But. Infidelity in my marriage to BS started with the internet. From playing an online roleplaying game where my "character" had fictional romantic encounters (of which AP was one of several), to messaging software like AIM to talking on the phone on my cell phone (which BS did not have access to) to texting on my smartphone when I finally obtained one to a physical encounter when AP and I finally met in person to a full on physical affair when he moved to our area.

I was definitely capable of infidelity before technology, but the ease with which I slid right on down that slippery slope was ratcheted up by the early stages of it being a game (it's not really me, it's my character) and separated by distance (we'll never meet so this isn't unsafe). That was made possible by technology.

$.02 from this EvolvingSoul

Root and numb&dumb NO NO NO - technology does not cause you to cheat, that's not what i was saying - hence the word enabling....

the potential is there with waywards - its just how much easier it is to then act on it....

EvolvingSoul - your slippery slope is a mirror image of mine....thanks for explaining it so well....

I think it enabled my WW a little bit ...

But it 100% enabled me to bust her. Without the incriminating emails - never would have been able to pin her down.

I can say with 100% confidence that I would not have not done what I did if the internet did not exist. I never was drawn nor did I ever have an affair. I did the asian amp thing because it was a quick and easy high coupled with my lack of empathy and selfishness...and if it wasn't for the internet, I would have never got into porn. Porn eventually led me to dark places...no pun intended.

[This message edited by DownFallofEden at 3:10 PM, June 7th (Wednesday)]

Before my WW's A, we both spent a weekend at a couple's retreat which was designed to strengthen marriages. It was called "A weekend to remember." The key note speaker during the very first session said some prophetic words when he said "Half of all affairs will start through social media like FB" and made a point to warn us all of how prevalent it is nowadays for A's to come as a result of inappropriate use of social media.

Ironically, about a year later my wife started receiving IM's on FB from the son of a family friend who lives half way across the country. This led to a long distance EA which led to a weekend long PA.

Her A would have never happened without modern technology.