Is Email responsible for more affairs both EA and PA

[Frances]

Because of the internet people are conducting EA s more often. Before people would meet someone be attracted to them spend a short time with them and then say goodbye and not meet them again or at least not very often and no damage would happen to the marriage.

 

Now as what happened in my h EA, he met her at a conference nothing happened just friendly conversation and she confided some very personel information in him then they emailed each other, did not meet for another 3 years and the relationship continued over the years. In 11 years they only met up on 5 different occassions and still the relationship built up to a very strong EA which because of distance it never crossed over to a PA.

It did a lot of harm to our marriage even when I did not know about it. Since finding out I am not sure if our marriage will survive this EA.

 

So is email encouraging affairs which would not otherwise have happened?

[Trialbyfire]

I would say the whole ease and anonymity of cyberspace has caused people who might not have been as tempted in the past, to indulge their curiosity.

 

Whether it's email, myspace, dating sites or instant messaging, it's far too easy.

[Diamonds&Rust]

There's nothing anonymous about infidelity, though.

 

One could blame e-mail just as much as SMS, but people are responsible for affairs, not technology.

[Lizzie60]

These days, there is a computer in almost every single homes... so the easy access to porn, to dating sites, MSN, chat rooms has made it sooo much easier and so tempting that it definitely cause more infidelity.

 

Eveything is so much easier now... cell phone (which also make it easier to communicate) and computers at work...

[corazoncito]

I don't know the answer to this, but I have wondered if email and also personal cell phones give people more opportunities for contacts that they keep from the SO's.

 

I think that for some people having a private means to directly contact someone may encourage inappropriate relationships that would have never taken off if they could only contact them through the person's household phone/mailbox, at their office (and other employees were witness to this contact), or face-to-face.

 

Also, written correspondence, such as with email, can have a very intimate feel to it, sometimes quite different from how a person comes across in everyday conversation. It can also be saved, read and reread, and savored.

[Trimmer]

I think you'll get two answers to this question: the first, like Diamonds & Rust is that people are still primarily "responsible" for affairs. A computer won't create an affair with a person who is not already prone to it.

 

The other is that Email, cell phones, etc. have become "enabling technologies" as we call it in my business. They may have lowered the barrier, but then so did cars, telephones, women entering the workforce, etc. each in its own way.

 

In my case, for a long time, I had a real hateful relationship with the cell phone, as the bill was my first concrete evidence that something was going on. I came to realize that for months, my wife and her OM were basically connected, by their cell phones and their stupid little headsets, brain-to-brain at the push of a button, any time they wanted. But even if that enabled her to go do what ultimately happened, if you had taken that out of the equation, she would still have become dissatisfied, bored, whatever...

 

So it's a fact of modern life that the barriers are lower than they ever have been in the past. That means that we get to play out the dark sides of our nature with less resistance than before. I don't think the computers and the cell phones created (i.e. are "responsible" for) that dark side, though.

[silktricks]

Eveything is so much easier now... cell phone (which also make it easier to communicate) and computers at work...

I also say yes, definitely, but for a different reason. The problem is I think more the inreality of the electronic medium.

 

For example, Frances husband having a relationship with sorobe he only saw a couple times over the space of 11 years, or my husband also having a relationship with someone unseen.

 

When you don't see someone you can invest them with all of the good qualities that you want, but never need face the fact that this person will also have bad qualities. You can make them into anything and make their electronic correspondence reflect your desires instead of the reality that your so reflects.

 

Let's face it sometimes everyone wants to escape reality. The internet makes that escape easier!

[Lizzie60]

I also say yes, definitely, but for a different reason. The problem is I think more the inreality of the electronic medium.

 

For example, Frances husband having a relationship with sorobe he only saw a couple times over the space of 11 years, or my husband also having a relationship with someone unseen.

 

When you don't see someone you can invest them with all of the good qualities that you want, but never need face the fact that this person will also have bad qualities. You can make them into anything and make their electronic correspondence reflect your desires instead of the reality that your so reflects.

 

Let's face it sometimes everyone wants to escape reality. The internet makes that escape easier!

 

This is true.