I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe to this notion that, if a partner is not 'providing' sex then the man/woman has a 'license' to cheat. How shallow, how pressurised! So you mean to tell me that if a person is going through a difficult time, and are not at all in the mood for sex, then they should expect their partner will be looking elsewhere? I have known friends to have sex with their partners when they weren't in the mood, because they said they feared that if they didn't, their partners might cheat on them. Surely relationships are comprised of more than this. I believe strongly in honesty: if someone is unhappy then they should just leave, and not live a double life which actually makes them a coward.

I think something that is often overlooked in the 'cheating game' is the risk to the other person's health. I used to work in a sexual health clinic, and once I had to ring a man's wife and ask her to come in for an HIV test because her husband was diagnosed with it. She came in, got tested, and it was found she had the disease which her husband contracted through an affair. Can you imagine how this poor woman felt?! This is an issue that is too often ignored in cases of infidelity.

No no no guys, please do not get me wrong here. I in no way condone cheating nor do I entertain the use of the lack of attention, sex etc in a relationship as an excuse to cheat. Perharps I should clarify by saying that in an event where a partner is discovered to have cheated or confessed to cheating and the other party wishes to forgive and give the relationship another shot or indeed head for an end in the relationship, it might be useful to learn during the course of their discussion about the situation, why the partner decided to cheat.

Although i am saying that it is entirely their fault for cheating despite the difficulties that may be faced in the relationship, that for the sake of moving on with the relationship (if that what they want) to know why and learn to communicate more and tackle it before it develops into something that neither can handle.

This is the same case in any situation or difficulty in a marriage.

this has developed into quite a discussion!
i agree that if you are trying to pull together a partnership/marriage after a crisis such as cheating, it would be well worth thinking/talking about what has been going wrong in the relationship. well if nothing has been going wrong and still one person cheated, then there is little point in working on issues unless you are happy with polyamory. but it could be that the cheating is a symptom of something else (though that is not an excuse!) so i am imagining if my partner cheated and then said he was very sorry, but also that he felt he wasn't getting enough sex. would that mean that i would "provide" more sex if i wanted the relationship to go on? no way. but it might mean that we talked about our needs and wishes, and perhaps thought about why we were having less sex than we used to and discuss what we could both do to make our relationship happy again...

Smilodon - well I am a curious person But sorry if I overstepped any lines. I wish this site had a private message system.

I was curious as to - are there still people out there who keep trying "naturally" and leave it up to "fate" if making a baby does not work out after a while?
- can PhD students afford IVF?
- do some PhD students plan for babies so specifically as that they won't just stop birth-control but will actively take steps to help them get pregnant?
My curiosity stems from many things - one, i want to have children and am worried it won't work out, two, my research is concerned with reproductive medicine, three, i think "babies and PhD" reveal that PhD students are confronted with some of the worst social insecurity existing in the West...
Ok this is just for explaining myself, no need to reply if you don't want to. (if you do, it could give this discussion a whole new twist )

Lots of interesting and valid views but until something like this happens to you, you don't know how you will react. My marriage broke down because of lack of sex. Three years without it - and unlike all the articles, problem pages etc it wasn't me the wife who always had a headache! So it was difficult to try to deal with the problem I triared to talk to my husband. He was drinking a lot at the time and doesn't eat well and smokes (I tried to encourage him to be more healthy). He would not go to the doctor to get checked out, he would not go to relate and was happy not to try anything to rectify the situation. There were other problems too and all in all after a number of years I just felt that he didn't respect me enough to want to change to save the marriage.
I wanted to leave but kept hoping we could sort things out. I couldn't afford to leave though. Day to day we were friends but I needed more than that. Not just sex, but respect, and reliability.

I had been in touch with an old boyfriend for a couple of years, just e-mail and occasional drinks, even with my husband as well. It was just a friendship. But when we met again last year I felt that my marriage was over and there was something between me and this other man so I began to have an affair. But I felt I should respect my hiusband even if he didn't me, and I knew I wanted to be with this other man, so told my husband very soon into the affair. I could not have carried on doing something in secret and it wasn't a case of having something as well as marriage. I knew I had to choose and I did. Yes I was unfaithful but I hope I did the best thing in a bad situation and didn't deceive my husband for any longer than I had to.

I haven't been through it myself but I have seen many marraiges go through infeldelity and quite a few through Pam's situation. Some survive infeldility, some don't - it really depends on the particular circumstances (a drunken one nighter, a long term affair, multiple simultaneous affairs etc). I've never personally seen a marriage survive Pams situation - it may take a while - but those marriages all ended at some point.

Shani - I'm a mature student and my husband has a pretty good job. We paid for fertility treatment from savings we had made overseas, then borrowing on the equity of our house. In all, we spent around 30,000 pounds, so know, it's not something the average PhD student could probably manage.

Most of the women I meet professionally don't have children - some clearly by choice. It really is not a profession that is very compatible with parenting. My husband has a heavy-weight job involving frequent travel and I really don't want us both to have jobs with long hours while my daughter is young. I will try and negotiate my postdoc hours, but since I can't move I will be dam lucky to get a postdoc at all and not sure how negotiable it will be. It's a major worry for me.

I didn't wait 8 years and spend all that money so that I could have my daughter in childcare 12 hours/day. Some other women I know have had husbands with more flexible hours or other family close by - but I do not have those options. I'm trying to sqeak through using minimum childcare (3 days/week) and it is really tough.

'Most of the women I meet professionally don't have children - some clearly by choice. It really is not a profession that is very compatible with parenting'

-- This is true in my company. In the IT industry many of the female managers don't have children and I do wonder would they have got to where they are today if they did? It would also be interesting to know *why* they don't have kids - obviously it's their right / choice not to have kids.. but I wonder if they got where they are by making a concious decision not to have kids BECAUSE of their career... or decided not to have kids BECAUSE they didn't want kids and therefore were able to devote more time and effort to their career?

I've seen it in other professions too and I think it's a bit of both. All the straight male managers have a wifey and kids though. I'm very lucky that my dept is unusually child-friendly - but that will count for little if I can't churn the papers out.

I can understand how you feel Smilodon--why have a child and then have them raised in a child care centre and you never see them? This was a major sticking point when I was married in discussion on hypothetical parenting--I did not want to work when my hypothetical child was small--certainly not full time--and there was no need for two incomes. I realize that sometimes a parent does not have a choice about working, it is an economic necessity. I would have gladly stepped off the career treadmill to stay home and be with a small child, perhaps going back to work part time or more once the child was of school age.

I can't say having or not having children have impacted my career that much up until now--what had a lot of impact was a personal choice to work in access to justice/poverty law sort of settings where the pay would never be large, but the work satisfaction would be. Sometimes I think I would not be doing the PhD if I had had children--but its hard to know that for sure, either. The same values that made me make the career choices I did would have also informed my parenting--so I am not sure I have had any advantage ( so to speak) in career by not having children.