40% of cheating on spouses in Israel involves high-tech workers or their spouse at home, according to a study by Adv. Ronen Dlayahu, a divorce lawyer and chairman of the Israel Bar Association Tel Aviv District family committee. He says that the proportion of cheating on spouses among high-tech workers is well above the 15% rate among workers in low-technology industries, such as farming, construction, and manufacturing.
Dlayahu said that long hours in the high-tech industry have become the norm and contribute to crises in family relationships. "Mostly men work long hours, but there are also many women who only return home late at night. The feeling of neglect by the spouse waiting at home, combined with frustration at the success of the other spouse while they abandoned a dream of a career lead at the end to cheating."
Dlayahu added that the long hours at work do not leave enough time to invest in spousal and family relationships, and the nature of the job makes it hard to separate family and work life. "The worker experiences difficulty, because spousal and family relationships also require investment, which does not fit in with the demands at work. All this is fertile ground for spousal conflict, in which the spouse often feels that he has no partner and is bearing the home and family burden alone."
Ophir Marom, chief of investigations at Moked Investigations Services (1999) Company says that many cheaters use their mobile phones and dialing cards because they do not have owners' details. "Despite the sophistication among employees of high-tech companies, the cheater often recharges the device by credit card, without giving thought to the fact that payment by credit card can easily expose the cheating."
Maron adds, "There have been quite a few cases in which high-tech workers believed that their wives could not find incriminating evidence deleted from the computer, and were mistaken. Today, it's possible to recover nearly every file or information that has been erased from Messenger, ICQ, e-mail, or DiskonKey."
Changing patterns of mobile phone use can also uncover a cheating spouse, says Marom. "I handled a case in which a high-tech employee who cheated on her husband took her phone to bed and put it under the blanket, fearing that her husband would read the message to a tryst that she had received. The change in patterns of use is what betrayed her, and caused her husband to suspect that she was cheating on him."
Technological progress makes both cheating and catching the cheater easier.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 23, 2009
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