Can having an affair be a good thing?
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6 Kinds of adultery and how having an affair can be a positive thing for your marriage
Some affairs are emotionally beneficial. That’s right. Sleeping with someone else can help you to pull out of a negative or dreadful marriage that’s past the point of regeneration.
Have affairs turned out to be part of the ‘new normal?’ It certainly seems that way: Barely a day goes by without discovering that someone in the public eye — or even someone you know — has been having an illicit sexual encounter. Online sites for people seeking affairs, such as Ashley Madison and illicit affairs have gone mainstream and who would have predicted that just a few years ago.
Of course people enjoy seeing stories about the affairs of celebrities, sporting personalities and other people in public life, particularly when double standards are exposed. But social attitudes have visibly shifted towards greater acceptance of affairs, and being open to them.
Looking back on an e-mail we received from John (not his real name), who had contacted us about how to deal with the ‘practicalities’ his most recent affair had created. ‘She was standing alone and looking lost’, George said. ‘As I walked past, our eyes met and I felt an unexpected surge of emotion, a real connection. All of a sudden we found ourselves chatting, it was like we’d known each other for years.’ The affair ‘just happened.’
That’s a familiar account of the kind of stories we hear these days. Another one — sounding a bit more ‘strategic’ — came from Sally, a 43 year-old accountant. She called her affair a ‘marriage stabiliser, safe and cautious, an ideal solution for me.’ She decided it was a sensible option to the disruption of divorce.
People more and more see an affair as being a life-style choice; an option for men and women who want to put some excitement and thrills into their life when intimacy is lacking or has dulled in their marriage. Given that realism, it’s worth appreciating the psychology of affairs — their significance and their consequences — from a non-judgemental point of view.
We can identify six different sorts of affairs in today’s society. Understanding what they are can help individuals deal with them with greater awareness and responsibility. Here they are:
- The Lust Affair. The most widespread, it’s predominantly about sex. It can feel really passionate, but tends to be the quickest to burn out. John from Sheffield and Kim from Nottingham met at a party, and felt a powerful physical magnetism. John was married; Kim, separated. They felt powerless to resist the pull. ‘It was unavoidable. We ended up in bed, as well as a lot of other places! It was amazing,’ Kim added, with a big grin. The energizing and gripping feeling from this kind of affair, though, may hide emotional conflicts.
A case in point is the person who’s able to feel sexually alive and free only in a secret liaison, concealed from the imagined floating, inhibiting eye of one’s parent – which the person may experience involuntarily with his or her spouse. The lust affair is often fleeting, and infatuation can slide downhill pretty fast as the thrill declines or underground emotional issues rise again. It can also grow fainter if the lovers find out that there wasn’t much connecting them beyond sex. As Kim told us, ‘As great as the sex was, we didn’t really have much in common so eventually it became a turn-off.
- The I’ll Teach You a Lesson Affair. Jayne began realising the intensity of her anger and hatred towards her husband after years of an unhappy marriage. She had long felt used, uncared for, and overlooked by him. His stubborn refusal to go to marriage guidance pushed her into acting upon her resentment. Jayne told us that a prior psychoanalysis had helped her identify her complicity in becoming so inferior in the marriage. But she couldn’t find an answer, nor understand how to deal with her wish for vengeance.
She knew that getting back at her husband by having an affair wasn’t going to produce empowerment or heal their marriage, but nevertheless began a doomed affair. She then discovered that the man was only concerned in a self-absorbed conquest, and he quickly ended the affair. Ultimately, she realised that underneath her fury was a wish for a man who would really appreciate her for who she is, someone who could see her, as her husband didn’t. But before that awakening occurred, she suffered, and she had to deal with her marriage and discover how to heal her own pain.
- The Just In Your Head Affair. Can you call it an affair if you don’t have sex? Consider Steve and Jenny. They became very close working together on a new business venture. Steve was divorced, and Linda was single but living with a boyfriend. They discovered that they had a great deal in common — a similar outlook on life and they enjoyed doing pretty much the same things as well. They enjoyed chatting and looked forward to being together. They spoke on the phone regularly and lingered around after working on the project. Soon they became aware that a very personal and emotional closeness had developed. It undeniably felt like much more than just work colleagues.
So why didn’t they have sex? Because neither of them wanted to disrupt or leave their principal relationships, or risk messing it up. So they made both a conscious decision to keep things nonphysical. That level of closeness and intensity makes it an affair of the mind; it’s more than just a friendship but there’s no physical sex involved. People in this kind of affair find something in each other that’s lacking in their real relationship, and they’re not dealing with that. Apart from the challenge of remaining on the faithful side of the sexual frontier, such lovers must hope that their principal partners carry on believing they’re telling the truth. And there’s a risk that what they’re not finding in their principal relationship will become ever more unsettling to it.
- The All In The Family Affair. George considered this was fail-safe, as he felt no one would suspect. He and his wife’s sister ultimately had sex after years of mutual, erotic teasing. All of a sudden they were in the middle of an affair that neither sought to end. They believed they could keep it a secret; that neither would make any demands on the other and it would be entirely safe. If you think that was naive, it was. Most family affairs are interwoven with family dysfunctions and hidden resentments. Neither George nor Karen, his sister-in-law, looked seriously at the problems in their individual marriages or inter-connected families; or even how hazardous it was. Addendum: One of their spouses ultimately exposed some incriminating texts, and the family affair rapidly twisted into a family nightmare.
- The It’s Not Really An Affair. We humans are experts at creating illusions for ourselves. In this affair one party is available but the other isn’t. The available partner believes that the other person will leave his or her spouse, given sufficient time and persistence. Helen, divorced for several years, began seeing a married man. She believed passionately, ‘it’s not an affair! It’s a relationship! But that takes two likewise available and committed people. We’ve heard from many women over the years who really believed their lovers would leave their spouses. Ninety percent of the time it never happens. Helen finally accepted that her lover never had any intention of leaving his wife and children. In fact, he had had numerous affairs all through his marriage.
- The Mind Body Affair. Here’s the most hazardous one of all for the lovers’ existing relationships. It’s so potent as it feels so inclusive emotionally, sexually, mentally and morally. Dave and Emma, who met through work, almost immediately felt a strong, common bond. ‘If I believed in reincarnation,’ Matt said, ‘I would say that we were together in a previous life. We feel like ‘soul-mates’. ‘I never felt a relationship could feel like this,’ said Emma. The mind-body affair is extremely threatening to a marriage because it feels so right. Of course, the couple may try to end it or turn it into a’ just in the head affair’, but that hardly ever works. Of all the different affairs, this kind most commonly leads to divorce and remarriage. The advantage is that the new relationship often proves to be the right match for the couple. However, it generates the mixed consequences that all affairs produce, particularly when there are children involved.
Learning From Affairs
You may believe that you can separate your affair from the rest of your life. Or, you might not give much thought to its consequences. Both are mistakes. If you’re considering an affair or in the midst of one, consider the following:
- Some affairs are mentally healthy. That’s right. An affair can help persuade you out of a negative or insensitive relationship that’s past the point of rekindling. The encouraging feelings of confirmation and restored liveliness generated by an affair can set off the bravery to leave a marriage when doing so is healthiest decision for both yourself and your partner. Both men and women develop into mentally better people through an affair. It can springboard you into greater emotional honesty and mature action. Of course, you have to be honest with yourself, here, and not lessen yourself into having the affair while postponing necessary action.
- An affair can help renovate your relationship with your existing partner. An affair can urge you to tackle what you really want from your existing partner and inspire you to try creating it. Mandy, a finance director, had an affair for nearly three years. After a quarrel with her lover one day, she realised she was starting to feel much of the same frustrations and sexual tedium that she felt towards her husband. ‘This is pretty messed-up,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to do something.’ As she thought about what she really wanted and valued she recognised her own role in avoiding long-standing issues in her marriage. She saw that she wanted to experience what she did during the affair, but with her husband. ‘I want my husband and lover to be the same person,’ she said. Mandy began to tackle, with her husband’s input, the real problems in their relationship and the steps it would take to restore it.
- There’s always a reason for starting an affair, and it relates to some problem in your existing relationship. It’s far better to face and resolve that first. You don’t just ‘find’ yourself having an affair, or ‘end up’ in bed with someone. It’s your decision, but it can be brilliantly explained. So take a look at what’s missing or unfulfilling in your relationship, why that is, and whether you want to do something about changing things for the better. It’s preferable to try renewing your relationship, or end it with shared respect.
By accepting that an affair means that you’re living a lie, you will have a greater opportunity to deal with the emotional and practical consequences of the affair in a productive way. And there are potential a lot of consequences for all concerned. But if you fool yourself about the reasons for your affair and what it may set in motion, you can throw away irreplaceable years, trapped within illusions and rationalisations. When it all comes crashing down, loneliness and emptiness may be all that remains.
That’s why we advocate awareness at the outset: You can become more aware of your conduct, and use that knowledge to deal wisely with any consequences. Or yes, you can remain unaware….but then you still have to deal with the consequences!
Note: All names and identifying details have been changed.