Mate Poaching

[OWoman]

In this thread http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t196574/ La Gazelle provided a link to a piece of research ("Nifty Ways to Leave Your Lover") on Mate Poaching which I found very interesting.

 

The study has clear limitations - the sample sizes were small, and the studies were conducted exclusively among undergraduate students - which the authors acknowledge, but nonetheless their findings may be of interest to both CS and BS.

 

Essentially, the study was looking into the wannabe-CS: how does someone who is taken, signal that they're open to being poached by someone else? And, how do they disguise this from their mate - and society in general?

 

CS may find it interesting to see what the study respondents thought was most effective (as a kind of "how to" guide...) and BS may find it interesting in a kind of "watch out for these signs of possible mate-straying" way.

 

The findings were that CHs signal to potential OWs that they're up for it by flashing resources around - as any man signals to any woman that they're up for a R (their claims, not mine) while CWs signal to potential OMs that they're up for it by showing of their beauty and hinting at the availability of sex - as any other woman signals to a man that she's interested in a R (again, their claim, not mine). But they also convey it in other ways - hinting that the M is not fulfilling, spending less time with their BS, etc. Not really rocket science.

 

On the "disguise" front, CHs hide their intentions from their BWs by being seen to invest more heavily in emotional commitment - having long talks and being "emotionally accessible" and spending quality time with them. They hide their intentions form the world-at-large by not speaking of the intended OW. OTOH, CWs hide their intentions from their BHs by being more sexually accessible to them (more sex, more romance) but also mainly by downplaying or disguising any investments in making themselves more beautiful (and thus more desirable to other men). Thus, if a woman has lost weight, she will pass it off as being for "health" reasons rather than to look better, say. (This is because, according to the authors, men are more "protective"/ proprietorial around women who are younger and more attractive, to watch out for potential poaching of their desirable mate, than they are around women who are plainer and / or older.) Also, topping women's strategies for disguise is: sticking to her usual routines.

 

So, not entirely sure how that helps a BH ("if your W is doing exactly what she always does, be suspicious...?") but for a CW, it may be interesting to note that variations in routine may arouse suspicion.

 

At least, that's what undergrads thought. I'm not sure that a 20 year old has enough life experience to be trusted on that kind of terrain, so I thought it would be interesting to post this here to see what real live BS and CS thought of those findings in the light of their own experience. Did the BS really use the strategies suggested above to lure an AP into an A? Did the BS pick up the behaviour suggested during the CS's attempt to hide the A? Or do the undergrads have it completely wrong?

[bentnotbroken]

I didn't read the info when first posted (finals) but I am interested in research and it's limitations. Will read.

[foreal]

Here's an article by a Clinical Psych/PhD from 2005:

 

http://www.relationshipmatters.com/index.php?/archives/2938-Mate-Poaching-is-an-unacceptable-way-to-meet-a-partner..html

 

an exerpt:

 

Psychologically, one may assume that people who are comfortable and even proud to talk of their mate stealing are insecure and needy individuals. However, the studies found that those who attempt to poach another’s partner described themselves as “especially extraverted, disagreeable, un-conscientious, unfaithful, and erotophilic” as well as assertive and un-empathetic. They were open and easily conversant about their sexual feelings. This was true of both genders.

 

These study findings may suggest that the conduct of mate poaching stems from a failure of values, poor boundaries, low level of compassion and being self-centered.

 

 

Honoring one’s friends is basic to a civilized society. People who disregard this human law violate the essence of the golden rule: “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. To honor another person also means to support and protect their right to their exclusive love relationship. Just because one may be able to attract his or her friend’s mate, does not entitle one to do so.

 

 

For some people, mate poaching is justified by the fact that the poached person’s partner was a stranger and thus they did not violate a friend. Moral behavior is based on principles, not on the level of acquaintance. Mate poachers did not seem to consider this rule.....

 

Compassion is the ability to experience another’s emotion. It is essential for connection between individuals. The capacity to feel another’s pain helps us avoid hurting others. People who score low on the compassion scale are more likely to inflict pain on others. In mate poaching, there is a disregard for the abandoned partner’s suffering. The joy of winning the love object seems to abdicate the consideration for the rejected lover.

 

Being accountable for our actions beyond the impulsive satisfaction of our hedonistic needs makes us responsible beings. Mate poaching individuals were found to be un-conscientious, unfaithful and narcissistic. The primary concern with their own pleasure may have blinded the mate poachers from personal introspection.

[NoIDidn't]

forreal, I would love to see the rest of the article that you gave the excerp from.

 

I agree with its findings as its easily witnessed by many on any forum you go to that covers infidelity. The lack of empathy is glaring in some posters.

[Reggie]

My roomate was watching "Saving Grace", a seies starring Holly Hunter as a very promiscuous detective who often slleps with married guys(or so he tells me).

Her friend burst into Holly's apartment, crying and tells her she can no longer associate with her, as the friend's husband has just cheated on her(not with Holly) , and now she understands the pain. She no longer wants to be associated with Holly, because she has no desire to be friends with a woman who inflicts this type of pain on other women.

My roomate(who serially cheated on his wife and kids in his youth) does not seem to fully undrstand the type of pain he inflicted. He likes the protaganist in the series, Hunter. I just commented that she seems like a sociopath.

Anyway, I agree. It seems affair partners are less compassionate or empathetic. More self centered.

On the signs given off, they seem to apply to my XWW. She lost weight and was focused on her appearance. Our sex life had been terrible for a long time, but she did make a couple of overtires, which I turned down after years of being rejected myself. That felt sort of good(how healthy, eh?).

All the stuff OWoman mentioned in the study sounds like the things I've read about in these posts over the years.

[foreal]

forreal, I would love to see the rest of the article that you gave the excerp from.

 

I agree with its findings as its easily witnessed by many on any forum you go to that covers infidelity. The lack of empathy is glaring in some posters.

 

 

The link is in my post but here it is again:

 

http://www.relationshipmatters.com/i...-partner..html

[OWoman]

The link is in my post but here it is again:

 

http://www.relationshipmatters.com/i...-partner..html

 

I couldn't let this pass without comment.

 

Not because of its content - which doesn't even warrant response, given its inherent vacuity, IMO - but because of the "status" that some have conferredon it.

 

It's a blog post. It has no more authority than any other blog post written by anyone else. It is neither scientific nor rigorous nor reliable nor authoritative. It has no more standing than something submitted to the letters page of "Hello" magazine.

 

The writer may have a PhD (or may not. It's a claim anyone can make on the internet.) He or she may even have a PhD in the field about which they are blogging (or it may be in something completely else, like Medieval Literature). That still does not lend the blog any authority.

 

For research - real research, not claimed research - to be have any authority, it needs to submit itself to the scrutiny of the scientific community, who will consider its claims, its methods, its sample, other aspects of its design and other relevant factors, and then pass judgment through a process of peer review (usually anonymous, and always involving several reviewers who pass judgment separately, without conferring with each other). Once it is published in a reputable journal, it is further open to challenge, refutation, comment etc through the publication of other studies with other findings - in an interative process that shifts the base of what we come to define as "knowledge".

 

A post on a blog is not science. It is merely opinion. Unless it references - correctly, in context - studies which have been peer reviewed and published and remain unrefuted or even supported by subsequent studies - its status is nothing more than the passing opinion of the garbage collector about the current state of international affairs. I have failed countless students for failing to draw this distinction, who get dazzled by seeing the word "research" in a blog post or by seeing the letters "PhD". Blog posts such as the one cited here have no more status than a post on LS - whether or not we assert our qualifications in our posts or not.

[NoIDidn't]

That's funny, OWoman.

 

So, are we to believe that your life is your research with which you are debunking him?

 

There is much truth in that blog. You might not agree, but that doesn't change the fact that some of us have agreed with it.

[pkn06002]

That's funny, OWoman.

 

So, are we to believe that your life is your research with which you are debunking him?

 

There is much truth in that blog. You might not agree, but that doesn't change the fact that some of us have agreed with it.

 

Wait let me see if I get this right.

 

Because you agree with the blog it makes it the "truth"?

[NoIDidn't]

Wait let me see if I get this right.

 

Because you agree with the blog it makes it the "truth"?

 

No, but apparently, because she disagrees with it makes it not true, huh?

 

Nice way to try to put words in my "mouth". I said that there was truth in the blog. I didn't say that it was the truth.

[schewter]

Whether scientific or not I agree totally with the article...describes the a-hole who tried to bed my wife to a T...narccissistic, no sense of empathy whatsoever, etc. But do we really need a study? Pretty much know going in that the kind of men and women who run around with married people and even try and steal another's mate would think of nobody but themselves.

[Reggie]

Whether scientific or not I agree totally with the article...describes the a-hole who tried to bed my wife to a T...narccissistic, no sense of empathy whatsoever, etc. But do we really need a study? Pretty much know going in that the kind of men and women who run around with married people and even try and steal another's mate would think of nobody but themselves.

 

I agree with this. I think many of us know people that have affairs. I know of no person that has affairs that is worthy of respect. The folks I know that are affair partners seem, to me, to be , in unscientific terms, a-hole. They really are in just about all the areas of their lives, as far as I can tell. These are just the folks I know, BTW.

[Gamine]

My experience with mate poaching involved a married OW who had previously tried to leave her husband but who could not afford to take care of herself. She did an internet search, found my husband, and with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel fed whatever sickness he exposed. She fed him whatever he needed for his ego and sickness, freely offered sex meet ups, encouraged his problem with internet porn... most of their telephone conversations fed into his psychological problems regarding sex (long story) that originated with childhood abuse and manifested in porn by mainly focusing on sexual acts, their descriptions, and with great imagery described in detail what she was planning for him sexually. According to him, this was always swiftly followed with demands that he move to where she lived and that they make a life together (mind you, this is before they ever 'consummated' their relationship. She was a serial cheater and used affairs as 'exit affairs' lining up her next paycheck. She would talk sex, then discuss that she couldn't afford x, y, or z. Then quickly start inquiring what he gave me, did with me, shared with me, etc... She literally believed and argued that he should be doing all of these things for her and not me and always... always... brought up her lack of funds.

 

In her last marriage, she had several affairs... separated... and found her present husband. She told my husband that she didn't love him but married him because he made a good living as a painting contractor. Then, she becomes unhappy and must (I suppose) find another mate to take care of her. My husband was found through the website for his consulting business.

 

She was looking for a way out of a marriage... not emotionally... but financially. She had left her husband a few months earlier but couldn't afford to live on her own... returned to her husband... looked up mine and began the poaching.

 

She basically told him whatever he wanted to hear. They met twice. (she lives 10 hours from us) Prior to their meetings she would talk in great detail about what she was going to do to him. He said that when it came down to it she didn't do any of the things she vividly spoke of. It was as if feeding him this stuff was meant to hook him. And, it always came back to him moving down there so she could leave her husband.

 

I believe she wanted to leave her husband and needed to do whatever she had to in order to set something up. My husband was screwed up to the max during that specific time period and hence... the perfect storm.

 

For her it wasn't so much about a genuine relationship because when she began this there wasn't one... she had a need that had to be filled and it was cash. She wanted my life. Period.

 

He was 'into it' hook line and sinker. When I found out it abruptly ended and I gave him the reaming of his life that lasted the better part of a year. She tried to initiate contact again several months later to no avail.

 

He was sick in the head at the time and in this case scenario she assessed his weaknesses and played them with precision. She wanted something in particular... a paycheck.

[Reggie]

I am all in favor of egg poaching(like them on toast, BTW). I will go on record as not being in favor of mate poaching.

[Thornton]

You can't poach someone who doesn't want to be poached. I think the person in the relationship is the one who is at fault, not the free and single person who is dating them.

[NoIDidn't]

You can't poach someone who doesn't want to be poached. I think the person in the relationship is the one who is at fault, not the free and single person who is dating them.

 

Not necessarily true. Lots of MP claim that they were totally happy in their marriages until they found "LOVE" and didn't know it could be like that.

 

I do feel that the person in the committed relationship is primarily to blame, but there are people out there (like the one Gamine mentions) that really are out to poach a mate.

[Reggie]

You can't poach someone who doesn't want to be poached. I think the person in the relationship is the one who is at fault, not the free and single person who is dating them.

 

This, I totally agree with. But, the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. There is a lot of dysfunction and dishonesty on both sides of this equation, the WS's and the affair partner's.

It never ceases to amaze me, this analysis that because someone has not said vows, he or she is not doing anything wrong. I have never vowed to return lost goods or to make my bank aware of errors in my favor. Yet, I clearly understand that I am wrong if I behave dishonestly.

There are cetain moral rules that do not require any affirmation.

[Impudent Oyster]

You can't poach someone who doesn't want to be poached. I think the person in the relationship is the one who is at fault, not the free and single person who is dating them.

 

They are BOTH at fault.

 

It's slimy to flirt with or worse, romantically pursue a married person. I wonder how these people were brought up that they can knowingly sleep with a married person and absolve themselves of any responsibility. IMO, that's sociopathic at worse and just plain wrong at best. I truly believe that there are people who pursue committed members of the opposite sex to try and prove that they can get them or because they want what someone else has.

 

This is especially true where the OP knows the BS. It's the ultimate passive aggressive ploy.

[Impudent Oyster]

.

 

I do feel that the person in the committed relationship is primarily to blame, but there are people out there (like the one Gamine mentions) that really are out to poach a mate.

 

 

They are BOTH to "blame" (or maybe I should just say they are both responsible), for their own choices.

 

The WS is responsible for their choice to cheat, and the OP is responsible for their choice to sleep with a married person. Both are 100% responsible for their choices.

 

I honestly don't understand how either side can justify or assign degrees of responsibility. From the time I was old enough to have a boyfriend I knew it was wrong to go out with another girls boyfriend (let alone husband), just as I knew it was wrong to steal or to cheat on a test.

 

What went wrong in someone's upbringing that they don't get that?

[NoIDidn't]

They are BOTH to "blame" (or maybe I should just say they are both responsible), for their own choices.

 

The WS is responsible for their choice to cheat, and the OP is responsible for their choice to sleep with a married person. Both are 100% responsible for their choices.

 

I honestly don't understand how either side can justify or assign degrees of responsibility. From the time I was old enough to have a boyfriend I knew it was wrong to go out with another girls boyfriend (let alone husband), just as I knew it was wrong to steal or to cheat on a test.

 

What went wrong in someone's upbringing that they don't get that?

 

Poor choice of words in my post. I don't assign blame to anyone. But I would expect that the married person knows that they are married and should behave accordingly. I totally agree that both are 100% responsible for their choices.

 

I don't support the idea shared among OPs that they didn't say any vows as if their participation in an affair (or attempt at mate poaching) is completely innocent. But the MP did say the vows and is responsible for upholding them, no matter what an attempted poacher offers.

 

You'll have to ask someone that's been in an affair what's wrong with their upbringing. I can't help you with that part.

[Impudent Oyster]

. But the MP did say the vows and is responsible for upholding them, no matter what an attempted poacher offers.

 

.

 

I agree.

 

Like I said, both are responsible for their choices, and you almost never see a WS not take responsibility.

 

The OP on the other hand, it's infuriating to hear so many of them shrug off their responsibility by claiming that they didn't take any vows.

[Gamine]

I agree.

 

Like I said, both are responsible for their choices, and you almost never see a WS not take responsibility.

 

The OP on the other hand, it's infuriating to hear so many of them shrug off their responsibility by claiming that they didn't take any vows.

 

The message I seem to get from many posters is "All is fair in love and war...."

[Reggie]

The message I seem to get from many posters is "All is fair in love and war...."

 

This is because they lack empathy and a sense of honor. Thes etypes of folks are best avoided in any partnership, business, romantic, friendship, etc. They seem to gravitate to one another, fortunately, as they need to reenforce their sense that they are normal by associating with like minded dishonorable people.

[Gamine]

This is because they lack empathy and a sense of honor. Thes etypes of folks are best avoided in any partnership, business, romantic, friendship, etc. They seem to gravitate to one another, fortunately, as they need to reenforce their sense that they are normal by associating with like minded dishonorable people.

 

 

The defiance, anger, resentment, jealousy, destructiveness, and seeming joy derived at 'getting the MM/MW' borders on an abomination.

 

I totally understand falling in love and wanting someone. I will never understand the gloating, mockery of wives and husbands... as if being married is something of a joke. It becomes sinister.

[OWoman]

That's funny, OWoman.

 

So, are we to believe that your life is your research with which you are debunking him?

 

There is much truth in that blog. You might not agree, but that doesn't change the fact that some of us have agreed with it.

 

NID, you must have misread my post. I was not "debunking" the blog post. I was demystifying it - stripping away the "authority" some people assigned to it by virtue of its author claiming to have a PhD. It's just a blog post. It has no more authority that that. That was my point in its entirety. Nowhere did I engage with its contents - I don't feel they're worthy of my time.