Sometimes even the best relationships have hiccups. As couples go through their ups-and-downs, it’s important not to let our ‘downs’ become disastrous. Here are a few tips to smooth the ride and avoid a breakup-worthy disaster:
1. Recognize that work can be a danger zone.
- Don’t have lunch or take coffee breaks frequently with the same person.
- Don’t get into discussions around the water cooler with co-workers that you find attractive.
- When you travel with a co-worker, meet in public, not in a room with a bed.
- At the office party, pretend the coworker who’s flirting with you has gonorrhea, then talk about your happy relationship, or better yet, talk to someone else.
2. Minimize your alcohol and drug intake when you’re not with your significant other.
Skip that third beer when you’re out with the guys, or the second martini with work colleagues. Mistakes happen more frequently when you’re not thinking clearly. We all know that unintended hookups happen when alcohol is involved. Bad ideas somehow become irresistible, and in the morning you’ll have to deal with the damaging consequences.
3. Avoid emotional intimacy with attractive alternatives to your committed relationship.
Resist the desire to rescue an unhappy soul who pours their heart out to you. Emotional disclosures are the first step to building an inappropriate emotional bond that could end up in an affair. Most affairs aren’t planned, and they’re often with people less physically attractive than their spouse.
4. Protect your marriage by discussing relationship issues at home.
If you do need to talk to someone else about your marriage, be sure that person is a friend of the marriage, and not someone you find attractive. If the friend is knocking marriage in general, respond with something positive about your own relationship.
Cheaters say the danger developed because emotional intimacy grew over time with someone they worked with.
5. Don’t go over the line when you’re on-line with Internet friends.
Discuss your online friendships with your partner and show him/her your email if they’re interested. Invite them to join in your correspondence so your Internet friends won’t get any wrong ideas. And definitely don’t exchange sexual fantasies online (i.e., don’t be an Anthony Weiner!).
6. Keep old flames from reigniting.
If a former lover is coming to the class reunion, invite your partner to come along. If you value your marriage, think twice about having lunch with an old flame.
7. Make sure your friends are supportive of your marriage.
Surround yourself with friends who are happily married and who don’t believe in fooling around.
Communication is the key to any relationship. It can save a lot of relationships more than you think.
I’m going to agree that these situations can really increase the chances of cheating. But I don’t think the prevention tips here can really stop someone from doing it.
Not to rain on everybody’s parade, but if you’re here as a woman and you’re trying to tell your husband all that’s inside this article so that he can avoid being tempted to cheat, I think you’re going to end up like a paranoid wife that’s going to go crazy over false accusations. While it’s good to check all the possible signs of cheating here and there, it’s not always good to cloud your judgment because of the things that you’ve read online. It’s a lot like scouring the internet for all the symptoms you’ve been feeling– like searching google for the causes of a simple headache, only to read that you might have a tumor and you go crazy about it. Chances are, you just really have a headache and it’s all curable by Advil.
CHEATING is not an accident, it’s a choice. You don’t tell your partner that “Oh, it’s just an accident we fuck each other.” You know who you’re fucking!!!
What if he/she is under the influence of alcohol, and it’s really an accident?
Cheating can never be a solution, you’re making things worse for allowing someone else to complicate the relationship. Talk to each other about what is going up in your relationship, and solve it together.
You don’t even need emotional intimacy for cheating to happen.
Being horny does the trick, right? ?
It’s crazy how I’m not even supposed to talk to people I find attractive. Isn’t it normal for us men to find women attractive but the fact that we don’t want to do something about it isn’t cheating at all?
This is why I never let my man go out for “colleague drinks”. It all starts with one drink until nobody is sober enough to think clearly.
Ladies, I’m a loyal man and I would never cheat on my girl regardless of all the temptations and situation that I’ll found myself in.
Don’t hate on me with what I’m going to share, but I was in a relationship until today with this man for more than 4 years already. Things are just getting a little rocky but I can say that we do love each other still and the damage is repairable. But I met a guy just recently and we just had this chemistry and sexual tension between us. He was in a relationship just like me. I tried avoiding him but it just made me think about him more. I felt like he was doing the same. We would sometimes even go for days and weeks without talking but it just made us both feel like we wanted each other more. It’s not love. It’s just that it made us both feel alive. Like it was a different path than the usual boring one. Was that cheating? We never touched. We just knew we had feelings for each other but we ignored it because we knew we had someone else.