There Is Nothing Adult About Adultery

If you think about it, adultery is a very unusual term to describe this specific action. After all, if you break it down, the word "adult" actually conveys a much more mature picture in your mind, doesn't it? After all, if we are told that we are supposed to behave like an adult when we are a child who has misbehaved, then this implies that we should be upstanding and do nothing wrong. Yet when a sexual relationship takes place between two people, at least one of whom is married, it is referred to as adultery. Surely, this kind of behavior is as far from being mature as it could possibly be.

Adultery really is a dirty word in our society. It's frowned upon in virtually every culture across the world and is one of the most heinous acts that any lawfully married individually could impose upon his or her partner. As wrong as it is and as much as it is frowned upon in cultural and religious circles, it is unfortunately quite prevalent.

If we want to look at statistics, we can see that as many as one in four men and maybe one in six women have engaged in an adulterous affair of some kind. Many relationship experts suspect that those figures are in fact understated and that the scale of the problem is far greater. One study pointed to an indication that as many as one in two people in a relationship could have strayed.

If adultery is so widespread, why is this? What does it say about relationships in general? While you could say that it seems to imply that the two individuals don't really understand what they're getting themselves into, the sad reality is that it reflects on the complications of life and the many distractions and restrictions that we have to face as we go through it.

However, we cannot accept any of these external influences as being a green light for us to behave in an adulterous fashion. Once it becomes apparent that this is going on, we have to get to the bottom of it. This usually involves some form of confrontation and it's very difficult not to be angry if you are the aggrieved party. Expect to be angry, as underneath the surface there will be a lot of disappointment, self-doubt, insecurity and worry involved as well.

Before any progress can be made as you seek to, hopefully, fix the relationship, you have to talk with the other person and help to reveal the path that led to this situation in the first place. Only then can you hope to rectify everything and try and move on.

You don't have to go through this on your own. There are many resources available to you to help you unravel your complicated thoughts and feelings and to help you to plan for a brighter future. Maybe you can't help what has already happened, but you can try and be positive about the future.