Why Women Ignore Their Husbands' Infidelity

While the world was stunned over Tiger Woods' admitted "transgressions" in his marriage, some say Elin Nordegren Woods may have been the least shocked of all.

"The more and more women that come forward, the more likely it is that she knew. ... It would seem to me the only way he could have done all that was with his wife's blessing," Jess, a commenter on the web site thehollywoodgossip.com, wrote.

Sound familiar? It should. Every time there's a major celebrity sex scandal, this theory gets passed around with the same smug certitude. We bet you have a friend who insists that Hillary Clinton "totally knew" about Bill Clinton's peccadilloes, or that Silda Spitzer "looked the other way" while former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer dallied with a prostitute. Read: My Boyfriend Cheated On Me With Hookers

But how often is this actually true?

"I often hear of women knowing and putting up with it, or suspecting and not investigating or confronting their husbands," says Tina B. Tessina, a California-based psychotherapist and author of Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting about the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage

"Many women decide there are larger considerations, understand that their husbands are players, and don't take the cheating personally. Others suffer silently. Some also have affairs. I also work with polyamorous couples, who are committed and openly non-monogamous. None of these things is easy." Discuss: Can Elin & Tiger's Marriage Be Saved?

On the other hand, Rona Subotnik, a California-based marriage and family therapist and author of the upcoming Why Does He Cheat on Me? said she doesn't encounter a lot of women willing to tolerate infidelity. 

"Not too many. The majority are furious and want to get to the bottom of it," she says.

But are women more likely to overlook affairs if their husband is famous or wealthy, or is this just a tired cliché? 

"I think that's a total cliché," says Peggy Vaughan, an infidelity expert who wrote The Monogamy Myth and hosts the Web site dearpeggy.com. "[Elin] doesn't have to stay to get money. In fact, women who are poor are even more likely to stay because they can't make it on their own or they can't support their children."

Why Women Ignore Affairs
When they do bite the bullet, Subotnik says, it's usually because of children. Tiger and Elin have two kids, a two-year-old daughter Sam and a 10-month-old son Charlie.

"Looking the other way is something that women do because they're trying to keep the family together," she says.

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Vaughan herself was in this exact position almost 37 years ago, when she learned her husband was having "multiple affairs, just like Tiger."

"I had suspected, but you dismiss and deny—a lot of people don't want to know. I didn't want to divorce, I had two young children," she says.

Now, after 54 years in a "wonderful marriage," Vaughan says "God yes," when asked if she's glad that she did the "hard work" necessary to move past the affair. And while you may be saying to yourself, "I would never stay with a man who cheated on me!" Vaughan says it's not quite that simple. Watch: How To Recover From Infidelity

"What you say you would do, once it's you, it's really different. You have shared history, you may have kids, you may still love that person, you many not find better, there may be other qualities of your spouse that you really appreciate," she says, adding that the decision to stay in a marriage after an affair is individual and certainly not right for everyone.

Betsey Stevenson, a professor at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania who studies marriage and divorce trends, says the data on infidelity isn't very good from a scientific perspective, so it's hard to know how many couples stay married in spite of affairs. Read: The Truth About Life After Infidelity

But in Vaughan's own 2002 survey of 1,084 people whose spouses were unfaithful, she found that 76 percent of both men and women were still married and living with that spouse years later.

Infidelity Isn't New
The decision to accept cheating as "part of life" is nothing new, says Jay Michaelson, a columnist for the Forward newspaper and Reality Sandwich magazine who writes about spirituality, sexuality, religion, and law.

"Truly traditional marriage, after all, is polygamy. This is what the Bible instructs, and it's been the dominant familial arrangement in the Western world for longer than any other form, including nuclear-family monogamy. Kings had their concubines, noblemen had their mistresses and kept women, and the rest of us—well, we had the world's oldest profession," he blogged recently for the Huffington Post.

And even today, other societies seem to have more realistic expectations about relationships, Tessina says. "American women, I believe, are the most unrealistic about men and sex. In Europe and Japan, infidelity is accepted to a degree, and there are social mores to accommodate it. It's certainly not impossible to have monogamy, but it's not easy and automatic, and other nationalities seem to understand this."

Though publicly shunned, infidelity is widespread in America. In 2008, The General Social Survey, widely considered the most reliable source for infidelity trends, found that in any given year, about 10 percent of married people—12 percent of men and 7 percent of women—say they have had sex outside their marriage. And a total of about 15 percent of people say they have stepped out on their spouse at least once in their lifetime. Other surveys report much higher infidelity rates.

What Should Elin Do?
With the number of Woods' alleged mistresses hitting 14 last week, the public consensus seems to be that Elin—who is young and gorgeous at 29 and sure to become a celebrity in her own right after this mess if she so chooses—would be making the right choice in initiating a divorce.

"The problem with the Tiger situation is the multiplicity of women [with whom he's allegedly been] involved, which alludes to the fact that fidelity may be a recurring issue or that he may even suffer from a sexual addiction," says Kimberly Dawn Neumann, author of The Real Reasons Men Commit: Why He Will—or Won't—Love, Honor and Marry You and founder of DatingDivaDaily.com.

"As someone who was once involved with and ultimately had to leave a man who had a coital compulsion, I can attest that the recidivism rate is high. Trust will be an ongoing issue for Elin even if she tried to repair their relationship with a ton of couple's therapy. And without trust, a relationship will not survive." Read: Could Couples Therapy Really Save Us?

Not every marriage survives an affair. Despite the Hillary Clintons and Silda Spitzers of yore, earlier this month, Jenny Sanford, wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, filed for divorce, citing infidelity.

At press time, Elin's own marital status is up in the air. Despite reports last week that a divorce is "100 percent on," the celebrity website TMZ reported Monday that Mrs. Woods is conflicted about ending her marriage.

It's impossible to know whether Elin was looking the other way while Tiger canoodled with his alleged tigresses. But experts agree that what she does now is a personal choice.

"The bottom line is as the public looking in you have no right to judge someone else’s decisions," Vaughan says. "They know more about their marriage."

Think your husband is having an affair?
Here's what you should do.

1. Don't confront him until you know what you'll do with the information, advises Vaughan. Do you really want to know the truth, or are you just hoping for reassurance?

2. Be open to the prospect of either staying or leaving, in order to make the best decision.

3. Don't make the decision to divorce too quickly, or you will forever second-guess yourself.

4. If you do decide to stay, it takes about two years for the marriage to recover if both partners are committed to working on it.

5. If you are interested in having an open relationship, says Tessina, both parties must be committed to knowing and sharing the truth. Portrait Of An Open Marriage