What do you do when bored on a business trip?
Some travelers — it’s not known how many, of course — live a secret life of romance ranging from one-night stands on ongoing relationships that can last for years during return visits,” says USA Today.
“Business travel creates an opportunity to cheat away from prying eyes,” says infidelity expert Ruth Houston, author of Is he Cheating on You? 829 Telltale Signs.
“While no one has specifically studied business travel and infidelity, academics and therapists say cheating is probably more prevalent on the road than close to home,” the newspaper says.
And the heightened exposure of business travelers to the possibility of infidelity increases the prospects that they and their employers could be left to air the details of their affairs in the courts or in the press.
Affairs do not always end in happy innocence.
An affair led to the downfall of former Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher, who worked in Chicago and was asked to resign in 2005 after he had an extramarital affair with Debra Peabody, a Washington, D.C.-based vice president at the company. Both subsequently resigned.
Only a minority of companies have specific policies regulating workplace romance, says Mark Oldman, co-founder of Vault, a company specializing in career information. “Most employers don’t want to reach into the personal life of employees or give the perception of trying to do so.”
But some companies expressly prohibit romantic relationships between employees, said Peter Petesch, a lawyer at Ford & Harrison, a national firm specializing in labor and employment law.
Infidelity studies show that extramarital sex occurs in up to 25% of heterosexual marriages in the US.
Report by David Wilkening
