Affairs

When we have an affair, we are spending time in sexual or intimate closeness with a separate person outside our main significant relationship.  The main relationship can be a traditional marriage, or any kind of relationship structure acting as a sanctuary for sexual or intimate activity.  An affair is outside that prior relationship, and tends to have its own microclimate.

REASONS FOR AFFAIRS

People seek different things in affairs.  Affairs can bring a boost to self-esteem if we feel someone is attracted to us.  They can feed an urge to seek additional sexual or intimate experience.  Psychologically, they can bring a bundle of additional attention, respect or support.  Or, if we need the opposite, they can bring an escape from the need to care and be cared for.  They can also bring adventure and variety.

For some, an affair can be an escape from a difficult or abusive situation.  If we feel pressured by life, affairs can be an expression of freedom, relief, resistance, anger, retaliation.  At times of crisis and change, an affair can bring release and exploration.  An affair can be a catalyst for personal change, or a wake-up call for an existing relationship.

HARMS

A big problem is that, in many cases, affairs require secrecy.  This can cause dysfunctional behaviour, because hiding the truth is inconsistent with traditional ideas of what a good relationship means in terms of honesty and openness.

Humans need to be able to trust one another.  If I partner up with someone, then it helps greatly if we can clearly understand and predict each other’s behaviour.  Affairs, if conducted without consent and in secret, can cause severe damage to trust, a crisis of confidence in the relationship.  It means that the person cannot be relied upon to conduct themselves honourably. It also means that the relationship will start to feature unexplained behaviours and moods, with their true motivation hidden, damaging trust further.

Reputational damage can be huge if a person is discovered to have had a secret affair.  This is partly because our society builds a lot of security on faithful, reliable behaviour, and open agreement, and it therefore becomes very worrying to witness a person undermining that helpful system, which relies on 100% cooperation for its success.

Even if not discovered, an affair, or contemplated affair, can damage trust.  We humans are sensitive beings.  We kind of know when something is wrong.  We are particularly attentive to the emotional presence of those we invest in emotionally.  If they seem absent, we can become unnerved and watchful.  Because we are built with a degree of social paranoia or watchfulness, we should understand that becoming emotionally absent can be as damaging as an actual affair itself.

When they happen, affairs can cause feelings of guilt.  Most humans have a social conscience, and become painfully aware when they are acting against it.  Guilt, being a largely hidden emotion, can then eat away inside, or sometimes be projected outwards towards our partners in the guise of finding false fault.  Although this blaming behaviour acts as a temporary diversion from our own behaviour, it does not resolve the inner guilt, which will still eat away inside, and may get worse because it is now compounded by the awareness that we are being nasty.

Affairs can cause enormous emotional disorientation, particularly when they create a dichotomy between a faithful relationship and a secret relationship.  People who would normally defend a betrayed friend, become the betrayer themselves.  This causes immense strain on one’s inner value system, and the confusion often feeds back in to the affair in an addictive, on-off cycle, and into the primary relationship in avoidant, on-off behaviour.

LACK OF OPENNESS IN THE PRIMARY RELATIONSHIP

Sometimes affairs are a sign of a lack of openness in a primary relationship.  We need three types of openness in most relationships: emotional, intellectual, and physical.  In other words, a good relationship means we can share our feelings, our thoughts, and our bodies.  If this is not working right, one partner can start to discuss their feelings and thoughts elsewhere, or even start sharing their body elsewhere.

It is also true that no one person can be a perfect receptacle for all our emotions and thoughts, nor a perfect supplier for our physical needs.  But the extent to which we can reach outside our priority relationships needs negotiation in order to preserve everybody’s trust and self-esteem.

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

For some, an outside affair can signal an end to the priority relationship.  This may be because the object of the affair is considered a possible future partner, or because the affair formed part of an awakening to new possibilities outside the priority relationship.  Sometimes rediscovered joy in life or self-esteem can give someone the confidence to move on from a difficult existing relationship which is felt as a trap.

For others, an affair can provide a break, or inspiration for change, but not be an incentive to leave the priority relationship.  This can be because the priority relationship is considered a source of something positive despite what it may lack.  It can also be because a person lacks the strength to cope with the end of the priority relationship, which may involve a formal separation of assets, and making arrangements as to how children are catered for.

Sometimes an affair can go on for a long time, being a way of having another life without confronting or changing the priority relationship.  This has its own difficulties, including the need for continued secrecy, and the possible enactment of vicious circles where the affair restarts and ends again several times.

DECEPTION AND INTEGRITY

It’s worth making a final note about deception and integrity.

Some people don’t need life to make sense, and are perfectly capable of living inconsistently without it giving them psychological problems.  They are able to maintain different behaviours in different situations without experiencing pangs of conscience.  Used to being different with different people, they may find it easier to have affairs without worry.  Deception may be experienced as broadly OK, as long as no one gets hurt.

On the other hand, some people have an urge to live consistently in all situations. They may find it tiresome to live different lives, compromising honesty and trust.  Instead of selectively hiding parts of their life and thought from others, they prefer to become like a stick of seaside rock, with the same message written throughout their being for all people to see.

A SOCIAL DIMENSION

To an extent, we live strategically.  If, therefore, we live in a society where our relational preferences are punished, and we are forced by society into relationships we don’t want, then secret affairs can be a strategic way of fulfilling our personal needs under duress.

But we can live creatively and authentically, challenging our social circumstances, and fighting for our right to live openly how we want to.  In other words, we can bring personal integrity to an inconsistent world by learning to express our needs consistently, and finding a more comfortable place for them.

One person can fall into affairs where they cannot see a way to negotiate openly for a life they want.  However, another person can find a way to challenge more, and to bring more of their secret needs out into the open, thereby negotiating a more suitable life without the need for deception.

We don’t like to hurt those whom we have got used to caring for, or anger those who hold power over us.  But unless we learn to break the cycles of expectation and control that hold us back, we can get stuck in secret cycles of hiddenness, caused by our own compliance.

A ROLE FOR THERAPY

Therapy can be very useful in a number of ways.  We can use it to explore our own thoughts and feelings around affairs, and explore any hidden or frustrated needs.  We can use it to help navigate our relationships, and learn to express our needs and negotiate for change.  We can also use therapy positively to find and create a life which suits us better, and to learn to challenge, and overcome, dysfunctional patterns of social control.

A good therapist is non-judgemental, and helps us to weigh up and explore alternatives without the sense that one way is right and another is wrong.