Of course. I didn't mean to imply that that's not the case.

I'm making light of the situation, but no, I'm not kidding. I also don't aim to generalize about all oil and gas workers, merely the ones that I know. My experience with oil and gas people is mainly from guys working rigs in Southeast Asia, but they came from all over and had diverse work placements prior to working SEA. It was mostly the younger guys who had the relationship problems I mentioned, but some of the older guys as well. A lot of guys who were happily married (according to them) also took on girlfriends while they were out there.

Money+Distance=Opportunity for adultery, no?

The typical Oily MO for where I lived was as follows:

-Go out at night, flashing wads of cash, buying everyone drinks, etc.

-Find the most beautiful women they could and then woo them with gifts like trips to nearby countries and/or new motorbikes, promises of marriage, financial security for their families, etc. etc.

-Generally act as if they owned the place

-Be shocked (shocked!) when those women took them to the cleaners and latched on to another Oily/someone else.

I have a few friends in oil & gas and honestly, one of the things that came up often was how hard it was for them to maintain their social lives the way they had before getting into the business. I also think that where we were all living contributed to that sense of isolation as there weren't many of us ex-pats around and given the schedule of their work, it was tough for them to learn the local language.

Hell, I was tasked to find a way to train some oil & gas guys from Vietnam in functional English, but their schedule made it tough. Many of them also expressed to me that there was pressure from their families to spend as much time with them as humanly possible in their shore time, so that made it even harder.

It's worth mentioning that a lot of English teachers I know over there had part-time girlfriends too, also on a three week on, three week off schedule, though opposite to the oil & gas guys.

So no, there is no direct connection, as in, "If you work in oil & gas, you will be cheated on" but where I was living and with that particular group of oil & gas guys that I had personal experience with, cheating (on both sides) was pretty common.