Having an affair is akin to opening a window on an airplane halfway across the Atlantic, the results being almost identical.

But whereas most people understand the concept of being sucked out of an unexpected opening in a pressurized chamber 30,000 feet up, they don’t understand why affairs happen.

This is what you don’t know. 

1) “Happily married” couples are more likely to experience infidelity.

The reason husbands or wives are surprised when they find out their “loving” spouses have been cheating is because they thought they were a happily married couple.

What is really going on though is Mr. and Mrs. Average are in Happy Fantasy Land, not Happy Marriage Land.

Thinking that if you feel happily married then your spouse must feel the same is one of the most common mistakes people make on the road to the divorce court.

Just because you are enjoying a movie doesn’t mean your spouse is.

Of course, when it comes to a movie the solution is simple – ask! But when the movie is your marriage, asking is not going to help.

Why?

Because if they aren’t happy and they’re having an affair, what do you think they are going to say?

You got it. They are going to state in no uncertain terms how joyful they are about you and life – maybe even that you are their joy of life. Why?

Because they want to keep on with their affair.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find out if your spouse is really happy or not. And here is the simple and (generally) accurate way of figuring it out.

“Life isn’t fair” is about as common a complaint as, “get used to it” is an answer.

And both these bumper stickers are at the root to why people aren’t succeeding in life, love, business or anything for that matter.

You might say, “But everyone has these feelings!”

Which is not really accurate. It’s not everyone, it’s really 99% of everyone.

There is a small group of people who have figured out that you can’t find success in life and be resentful – you have to choose.

The mind works in such a way that to succeed in life, you must have a winning attitude. At best, you can have individual successes, and we all do. But to turn those successes into a consistent pattern called a great life, you have to have a winning attitude.

Let me explain.

In a recent Deseret News article titled "Good romantic partners are likely to be good parents," clear connections are made between how well people do in their marriage relationship and how good they are at parenting. The article references a British study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

"A father who has a good relationship with the mother of his children is more likely to be involved and to spend time with his children and to have children who are psychologically and emotionally healthier," said W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and one of that study's authors. "Indeed, the quality of the marriage relationship affects the parenting behavior of both parents."

It seems obvious when you think about it - someone who is good at one relationship is more likely to be good at others. But it is more than that.