See, by divorcing when that child is young, the news and impact are being woven into the life of a malleable child, an entity that can be worked with and influenced to heal. Further, that child at 7 or 9 exists within an existing framework of family, teachers, friends, friend’s parents, cousins perhaps, aunties and uncles, ritualized days with comforting patterns. That same child at 19, off at college or even just living at home while working their first job or going to tech school, now does not have the same batch of friends or normalized patterns, because everyone has scattered; doesn’t have those same intimate relationships with coaches and teachers, built over years; isn’t surrounded by aunts and uncles. Instead, that kid at college or in their first apartment is surrounded by their knucklehead brand new friends they go to the keg with on Friday nights and watch baseball with on Saturdays. They don’t have the same long-standing rituals and the comfort they bring, don’t have the well-established daily relationships, don’t have the immediacy of people they can talk to who truly know them and they can trust, and often feel like they don’t have anyone, especially now that they at times feel like they don’t have mom and dad, or dad and dad, mom/mom, etc. They’re f*cked!

Do you have any idea how little work it really takes to connect with a married person who has already allowed their eye to stray? As we explored in the previous chapter, co-cheaters don’t need to do much to “convince” the other person to have an affair. Quite honestly, the cheater will often do the work of pursuing someone else. It’s stunning, really. Sad, but stunning.

What we didn’t explore was the reason why it’s so easy for them to put thought to action, and I think the reason is sneakier than you might suspect. See, married people are already more relaxed around the opposite sex than they were when single. They’ve generally let down their fear of getting hit on and/or rejected, because they’re taken – and they have the ring to prove it. The ring on that finger makes them safe, or at least they thought it did, earlier in their marriage. Now, that sense of safety can breed a relaxation. The same ease that they’ve acquired over years of marriage becomes a potential cheating death trap, because it removes a normally formidable wall to befriending people who might be a love interest. Combine that with the innate belief that they are no longer as “desirable” to others as an unmarried would be and you’ve kicked the door wide open for an affair.