I hesitated to write this article, because I also work with people of the opposite sex and did not want to insinuate that such a thing was occurring in our workplace. I was, however, inspired to write this article due to a friend losing her marriage to an affair in the workplace. It is a topic that should be addressed and is commonly overlooked and deemed normal by some. Many times real topics of interest will step on toes, but the outcome usually outweighs it all.
Dear readers, the time has come for us to take charge of our lives, our marriages and our families.
We are faced with many challenges we cannot control, but there are many things that we can control. Our emotions sometimes take us to places we would rather not to be. Many families are torn apart year after year because of the carelessness of a married person sharing too much personal information with a coworker and crosses a boundary. Marital concerns should only be shared with your mate or a licensed therapist.
Having an extramarital affair not only can hurt a marriage, but also the children and family. The percentage of those having an affair with a co-worker has increased. According to a marriage and family therapist, it was found in her practice over the last three decades that a whopping 65% of unfaithful wives and 80% of unfaithful husbands had affairs with someone at work.
An extramarital affair may happen when there is frequent interaction with coworkers through interest or pressure over a project, and there is also a physical attraction. If they start to share more of themselves when alone with each other, emotional intimacy may develop and lead to an affair. When people have an affair, they no longer spend time working on their marriage.
Extramarital affairs can eventually destroy a marriage, even a good marriage. The following are some tips for preventing affairs in the workplace.
• Keep open communication with your spouse. Make a commitment to honesty and have ongoing open communication about things that impact your relationship. Make sure you have couple time and dates regularly. Time with your spouse alone every day can be a time for reconnecting and recharging your emotional batteries and intimacy, which can decrease the chances of a spouse seeking intimacy outside of the marriage.
• Keep commitment to your marriage. Commitment is the foundation that holds your marital relationship together. With a commitment to each other, a couple’s dedication, trust and loyalty can grow. Studies show that couples who commit to one another think less often about being with someone else. Keeping your marriage strong needs investment and commitment. It is like taking care of your own lawn. You need to water and to trim your lawn to make it healthy; your marriage needs the same.
• Keep your marriage in mind and a high priority. Control your thoughts and keep your thoughts on a professional level. Your thoughts may not become an action. Thinking about intimacy with your coworker or physical attraction, however, may increase the chances of acting on those thoughts when there is an opportunity.
• Establish clear boundaries for work. If your coworkers know more about your personal information than your spouse, and when there’s more companionship and intellectual sharing and understanding at work than in the marriage, that’s a warning sign.
• Avoid being alone with coworkers of the opposite sex. Being alone with each other may create a chance of having an affair. This does not mean that if you are alone with coworkers of the opposite sex, you will have an affair with a coworker. But the more you do activities together alone, the more likely it is that you may form an intimate bond, which could lead to an affair.
• Keep conversation with coworkers of the opposite sex on work-related topics. When the conversation moves to a more personal level, you need to stop and make a quick exit. The more you open up to each other emotionally, the more vulnerable you are to develop an emotional intimacy and withdraw emotionally from your spouse. Emotional intimacy is similar to physical intimacy. Emotional intimacy with a coworker can be dangerous and cause more harm to your marriage than a one-night stand.
I strongly believe in marriage and all it has to offer. I believe it is vital to the well-being of our community and families that marriages be built on a strong solid foundation.
Something must be done to stop the epidemic of divorce. Let us start today by encouraging married couples to spend quality time together. We should strive to remember why we got married in the first place.
For more information, do not hesitate to contact me at 334-2669 or jtb20@msstate.edu.
• Jennifer Russell is the county coordinator and a child and family development Extension agent for the Washington County MSU Extension Service Office in Greenville. You may contact her at 662-334-2669 or jtb20@msstate.edu.
