[/caption]Carol Forsloff - They celebrated their birthdays together on the Today Show recently, as Kathie Lee Gifford and her once-philandering husband Frank prove once again there’s love after an affair, something folks wonder about and discuss their own potential ability to forgive and go on.
While divorce remains a frequent happening among American couples, infidelity is at the top of the issues people discuss as that awful something they wouldn’t do or abide in a spouse.
Research shows that since Alfred Kinsey’s sex research of 1953 the percentage of unfaithful husbands, found at the time to be one-half to two-thirds who had had at least one extramarital affair, hasn’t changed much. On the other hand, while Kinsey assessed women’s unfaithfulness at 6 percent to 16 percent, the figure now ranges from 21 percent to 54 percent.
Studies show that during the last 30 years, the percentage of men who have been unfaithful has remained steady: One-half to two-thirds indulged in at least one extramarital affair. The number of philandering females, however, is on the increase. In 1953 sex researcher Alfred Kinsey concluded that 6 percent to 26 percent of married women had been unfaithful. Now the figure is way up, ranging from 21 percent to 54 percent.
A movie entitled Heartburn starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson explored the world of cheating, through the lives of a couple where the wife learns her husband has been unfaithful. The film is based on a book by Nora Ephron, an account of a four-year marriage to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, who co-wrote All the President’s Men, that ended as a result of Bernstein’s affair with Margaret Jay, who at the time was married to Peter Jay, the British Ambassador to Washington. The heartbreak, accusations and sadness resulting from marital betrayal is played out in the bedrooms of America on a regular basis, often resulting in divorce.
A Gallup poll found in 2008 that 62% of those asked what they would do if their spouse had an affair said they would leave and get a divorce if they found they had been betrayed. 6% say they would publicly stand by their spouse, but according to additional statistics, this percentage reflects more women than men, as most men have trouble forgiving the sexual part of the adulterous relationship, while wives will be more interested in whether the husband loved the other woman or not. Apparently in the case of Kathie Lee, Frank’s pronouncements of continuing love have been enough to continue to share the marriage and a birthday celebration, theirs being an exception to what most couples do after an affair.
