Coping with Unfaithful Partners

In a report by Salwa Nadhim about the reasons for unfaithful behaviour, psychiatrist Jasim Shendi said that people who betray their partners care about neither morality nor traditional values. Zahida Mardan, a prosecutor at a court for adolescents, said men tend to seek extramarital partners either because they have wealth and leisure, or because their relationship with their wife has gone cold.



In a vox pop from Basra, men and women described how they would react if they discovered their partners had been unfaithful to them. Jasim Hamid, 28, said he would immediately consider divorcing his wife if he found out she had been having an affair. Civil servant Alia Mohammed Baqir said it would make her think there was something wrong with her to force her husband into another relationship. Mohammed Jasim Mohammed, also a civil servant, said he would kill his wife if that happened.



The show also interviewed two women whose reactions to their husbands' betrayal were very different.



Thuraya Jamil, a 40-year mother of three, had married for love and was very happy until recently, when she observed a change in her husband's behaviour and was shocked to discover he was having an affair. She could not stand living with him any more, so she left him.



Widad Khalil, 35, was shocked, angry and bitter when she caught her husband in bed with another woman. However, she was unable to leave him because her parents forced her to stay and give him another chance. Now, however, she lives in a permanent state of uncertainty as she suspects every move her husband makes.