The structure of the military contributes in many ways to cheating. Being in close quarters with members of the opposite sex, while miles away from home and your spouse is a sure start for trouble. Day after day on the same vessel or in the same camp has its challenges. That kind of familiarity brings temptations.
It is one thing to be miles away from your spouse for long periods of time. Being in close quarters with members of the opposite sex while so far from home for long periods intensifies the temptation. Each branch of military service has its own temptations built in. On board ships, the many hours with little to do has its own dangers. When someone wrote that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, they probably served some time as a sailor. The whole life of a sailor becomes a pressure cooker with some temptations being on board the ship and some being in the ports of call. When people joke about people ‘cussing like a sailor’, they are only scratching the surface of what lies in a sailor’s mind and heart after those many days at sea.
There are also the dangers that come with being in combat and on the front. The intensity of events is such that you only feel alive when you are ‘on the edge’. Living ‘on the edge’ brings with it the temptation to do things that keep you on the edge, including affairs. The more dangerous, the greater the thrill and adrenaline rush. In such cases, it is more about wanting the rush, than about temptations. There are also the challenges of being powerless to do anything about your spouse back at home. You miss them and are powerless to keep them from temptations at home. The only thing you can control is your own surroundings. Since you can’t control them, you face the temptation of loosing control yourself. The danger of loosing control is that it reduces your stress. Time for R&R carries with it the risk of letting go of self-control as well.
There are also the commanders who encourage those under their command to act our sexually. They are of the thinking that good sex leads to good fighters. They encourage those serving under them to be passionate about all that they do. Their intentions are to remind them what they are fighting for. Encouraging sex as a way of reminding them of what they are fighting for often creates more problems than it solves. In such cases, you have the combination of the desire for a thrill, combined with peer pressure that put pressure of the soldiers serving abroad.
Since affairs are often frowned upon in military circles, there are often secrets about the affairs that do occur. Keeping secrets has its own form of excitement. The keeping of secrets makes people more vulnerable to being hooked into more secrets.
This list is by no means exhaustive. There are other temptations unique to the military. Understanding the pressures that they are under will help you make your way through such situations. Military affairs are not the same as hooking up with someone at the local bar or sneaking off during a business trip. The pressures are different, which means that you will have to handle them differently than those other types of affairs.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
