Wives of athletes face "adultery ...

The wives of the athletes face "adultery culture"

Corvallis, OR - Many women male professional athletes should infidelity of their husbands, especially during a long season with many trips. How can you vary anxiety and stress and can work on your motivation for marriage, a study suggests.

A "culture of adultery" permeates professional sports today, said Steven M. Ortiz, assistant professor of sociology at Oregon State University. Ortiz presented the results of his research on little known technique survival of female athletes at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association on Monday, August 20 at Anaheim, California

"Professional athletes are at home and especially in the manner in which these athletes boredom, peer pressure, team loyalty, the opportunity, the feeling of self-importance, and the availability of women face seems irresistibly attracted," said Ortiz. "It seems clear that a "fast-food sex mentality among professional athletes. "

And the possibility of adultery - Although media accounts of the sexual exploits of the athletes are not new, little has been like women, written to respond adultery about. Ortiz led the study as a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley in the 1990s, where he saw Arlie Russell Hochschild with researchers and Harry Edwards. Football, baseball, basketball and hockey - In this study, over a period of four years, he has women from 47 different professional athletes in the four major team sports surveyed.

Emerging from these interviews were adaptive profiles, as women have coping strategies that have often developed over time. The women who were interviewed also identified a group of women who are attracted more for glamor and money for love or money from the wedding.

"It may be that women who marry," athlete "instead of" you "tend to be more receptive to the affairs of their husbands," said Ortiz. "Not only fear losing financial security and luxurious lifestyle, which often have low self-esteem."

Including most of the women surveyed - - Women who are married before their husbands professional athletes was long-term extramarital affairs not tolerate, even though many have been forced if your spouse "adventure confronted one night."

Ortiz was a big difference between the new wives and women who had married an athlete from 10 to 15 years.

"Most new brides really do not know what they were getting into it," Ortiz said, "and often have the tricks of women veterans to learn. 'S wife of a baseball player who was married League" For 15 years can be very hard. Saw or heard it. "

And when she learns that her husband had an affair, Ortiz said she has to make a decision - to face or to dissolve the marriage. Most gives the man the benefit of the doubt, he said that if the women are going to use the incident to establish some ground rules.

"One thing that I have learned from these interviews is that these women are strong," Ortiz said. "If they do not know what is life, learn fast. And then develop strategies to manage this constant stress. Strategies depending on the comparison of the" possibility "of marital infidelity and the possibility is still there, but infidelity can not be.

"Some women with humor, while others change the boundaries of the relationship of trust," he added. "Regardless of the strategies they are based continue to manage family life. Most women are strong, intelligent and strong. Thats why men they married in the first place."

Ortiz said strategies to manage the stress of infidelity can have negative consequences. Some women are in denial and do not want to talk. Others recognize the problem permanently and it can feel like they are pushing their men to be quiet.

"Many professional female athletes involved in" suspicious management, "says Ortiz," is in its approach to the question Some women look for signs that your spouse has been unfaithful .. Others can the opportunity to refuse to completely avoid the problem son different strategies to deal with the same fears. ".

The sex lives of professional athletes is an area that most management teams would be to ignore it, and usually do, Ortiz said. , Media control, however, overcomes the issue of confidentiality in cases such as the Gold Club racketeering trial and Public Affairs of star athletes suffered.

Outsiders tend to see these incidents as the tip of an iceberg, and Ortiz said that the presentation may be accurate. There is a culture of adultery, he says, managers and coaches tend to ignore other players can often encourage, and that women must make.

"These men spend a lot of time together on exercise, work and travel, very close," said Ortiz. "I would say, in some ways, closer to their teammates that they are with their wives and families, many of them are. Nevertheless, women who is the support system, without which many men could not survive it.

"I spoke with a woman who has learned on the radio that her husband is traded to a team in the country. Did not call you because he tried an airplane, however, that should be his new team on board. There are women pack furniture, children out of school, sell the house and move the family. And what is very common in the world, as it is in other career-dominated marriages. "

Ortiz, who recently joined the faculty of the University of Oregon, after he taught at the same time on the Sonoma State University and the University of California-Berkeley, specializes in marital relations professional athletes. He works working on a book about weddings sports.

As former athletes, coaches and sports fan, confesses an old curiosity about the private lives of ordinary husbands.

"As a society, we love our sports heroes," said Ortiz. "Like other celebrities, athletes want to put on a pedestal stars. And if we want them to have feet of clay, we throw down. Females, but it anyway."

--- American Sociological Association

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