Will anyone admit to...?

[Just5minspeace]

...having an affair that no-one found out about?

Isn't it really difficult to conceal an affair?

If you look at anything rationally you wouldn't do a lot of things. Smoking for example a lot of money for something that kills you. Humans don't have rational thoughts all the time because they are emotional beings.

I'm sure some affairs happen because some women like sex and some husbands however lovely they are don't.

I don't think that people who've had affairs (compared with those who have not) are as polarised in opinion as often as is suggested on this site. There also seems to be a presumption that those who have not, see things in 'black and white' terms or have never experienced similar feelings, which is why it was a fair question to ask of posters, RunningBarefoot.

I think most people who are capable of love, strong emotions or who've experienced addiction of any kind understand exactly how difficult it can be to walk away, once they are already involved.

But that point is way down the line.

What's interesting is what separates people at the start of the process, before the emotions or addiction have taken hold. What separates the personalities of those who put up stronger boundaries and those who dismantle them and then say later that all this 'just happened'?

People (especially women IME) will often hide behind excuses such as their marriages were bad enough to risk, or that their self-esteem had always been poor and so their defences weren't as strong as a woman in a happy marriage whose esteem was high and who wasn't as vulnerable to attention, but whereas IME that is sometimes the case, it doesn't apply to every woman who had an affair and there are always other personality differences between those who walk away and those who allow themselves to get involved in triangular relationships.

Tales of bad marriages and chronic low esteem position women as victims, so they are often seen as understandable and acceptable reasons for her having an affair. What's more interesting (if a person is brave enough to delve deep) are other less palatable personality traits, such as the aforementioned 'victimhood', selfishness, narcissistic traits, entitlement, misogyny, competitiveness with other women, passive-aggression, punitive behaviour - and where those traits were formed and shaped.

I think it takes a very brave and strong character to undertake that sort of self-analysis and I think raising uncomfortable issues like this on a forum is more helpful than those who either use platitudes like 'life's not black and white', 'walk a mile in my shoes' or 'I never expected it to happen to me either', as though these were involuntary events. The other extreme is also unhelpful i.e. 'once a cheater' - or those that denigrate women's sexual impulses.

I'd agree that affairs and people's reasons for having them are not 'black and white' - but perhaps not in the same way as is often meant when people on here use that phrase. IMO, the grey area is what separates one person's choices from another at the start of the process - and going beyond the usual excuses about what caused the difference.

"Unfortunately, to get the relationship you dream of you have to leave the safety of the one you have."

I did not have an affair, and infact I dont think I have ever beeen unfaithful to a partner. But, I was horribly miserable and unhappy in my marriage, having lost all respect for my then husband.

I can see how it could happen.

Fortunately I ended my marriage before I met someone else, but now, I am so happy with my new partner, I cant believe I ever considered staying in the dead, miserable soul destroying relationship that was my marriage.

No stone throwing from me

I agree withStern about what it is that separates people re beginning something or not. With me at the moment I honestly don't know......

A great insight there, I think, Sternface.

I would add to your list... adrenaline. The rush that some human beings crave and cannot seem to live without. That, allied with a certain amount of recklessness and possible feeling of invincibility can send you on a path that you wouldn't normally take - or have the opportunity to take.

This is a really interesting discussion. I'm off to the gym for a bit now and will ponder this some more on the treadmill...

Excellent post sternface

I think this thread proves that the majority of posters have not entered into their affairs lightly.

I am interested in the minority who love their husbands and have a relatively happy life and risk it all thinking they won't get found out.

'I suppose I have relegated husband and extra marital sex to different sphere's in my mind?' = is this how you can cope with the lying? By compartmentalising it all? So you go home and are wifey and then meet secretly for the exciting sex? Like leading a double life?
No judgements btw, honest question.

And for the few who say it's just sex (male or female perspective) don't you get any feelings at all about that person if you continue to have sex with them or can you just harden your heart and seperate it all?

I know people who have had affairs for so many different reasons. But i find it hard to understand someone who would risk a happy life. There must be something missing to be able to do all the deceit in the first place.

Yes but often the 'something missing' is in the people themselves.

Stern, I take into account your point about the difference between those who stop before becoming involved and those who do not.

Can I ask what are your views on someone who has always had a connection with that OM/OW through events of life, good and bad, and now find themselves reconnected again - resulting in a long term affair. And I mean many years down the line? Not just simply a case of letting things happen but finding themselves back in love with a person who deep down they have always loved - but for varying reasons were never with on a permanent basis.

I think the first point is that people never 'find themselves re-connected' or 'find themselves back in love' again, because that is too passive in language. It is again an active choice. In your example you say that one or both of the participants always knew that the connection was still there and that the feelings were strong, so there would have been even more danger signs ignored and boundaries dismantled than the people who cross the line in a new friendship. Fewer excuses for why this started.

But society sanctions relationships between old lovers, especially since websites were designed to facilitate contact, plus there is a harmful romantic discourse about the 'One That Got Away' which has as its premise that there is one soulmate for every individual - a flawed concept if ever there was one.

So people re-connect and find that the relationship is not just with the individual concerned, but with their past. A past when life seemed full of endless possibilities, was fun, innocent and joyous. When physical beauty was at its height and when responsibilities were fewer or non-existent. The memories of the feelings for this person are more vivid and technicolour, not because they were necessarily deeper but because they were 'new' and not experienced beforehand. This can produce very harsh comparisons with the steady but mature love for an existing partner, especially if responsibilities are burdensome and hard-going at that point.

So one of the personality issues for people who have affairs with their past as well as the people from it, is an unwillingness to live in the adult world and take responsibility for the choices they've made -whether that's a career that failed to live up to early potential, their partner selection, their decision to have children, sleepwalking into the status quo of being a SAHP or financial burdens imposed by lifestyle choices they've made. But instead of taking equal or full responsibility for those choices, people with that personality trait often have others e.g. a tendency to blame others for their own choices and a desire to punish a partner for choices that were freely made.

What adds further fuel to these relationships is the belief that if infidelity is chosen, it's of a more permissible kind. The lovers convince themselves that they wouldn't have been unfaithful with any old Tom, Dick or Harry; they could only ever have done this with eachother. So the personality traits I mentioned above are completely ignored, to prop up the This Is Different fantasy.

Invariably this is not the case and it's statistically improbable that both lovers have an absence of those harmful personality traits. (I agree BTW with Lying's addition of adrenaline addiction)

That's not to say that these relationships cannot be successful - in fact many are. But the ones that survive tend to be between couples who are more realistic and pragmatic about what led them there and who as individuals examine their own personalities and make changes accordingly so that they won't cause this much pain and damage again.

Running no I have never had an affair, but I have witnessed at close hand the devastating effects they have. And I have heard all the pathetic excuses that people trot out 'Oh it's not that simple' and 'Oh, it's all very complicated'

Obviously life isn't perfectly black and white. But, there's a point very early on before it all gets complicated and before lots of grey areas appear, where you can think ahead and predict 'Right, if I do this now, followed by that then there's a very good chance that something is going to happen'

You don't magically awake one morning to realise your life is now one big impassioned grey area that is too terribly complicated to sort out.

"because I for one don't have a switch to just turn off all those emotions."

Actually no one has a switch to turn off their emotions Running. But some people do have the integrity and the strength of character to physically walk away even if their emotions are very much still invested in the other person.

You say that 'it's an incredibly lonely and unhappy place to be, but sometimes it's the only place to be'

What gives you the right to try and improve your own 'lonely and unhappy place', when by trying to improve it you are going to destroy someone else's life in the process?

What sort of person are you that you will actively try and pursue your own happiness at the expense of (very often) innocent wives/husbands and their totally innocent children?

'
"You don't magically awake one morning to realise your life is now one big impassioned grey area that is too terribly complicated to sort out."

Well, it happened to me. I was on a business trip. He was married and wefell for each other at first sight. Nothing happened. We tried to avoid each other, including no contact at all, but destiny put us on the same trip again (we did not know). It took 4 days to decide to leave his wife. I am certain, until this day, she thinks the 'affair' lasted longer, that he would have not taken that decision of destroying her life for 4 days. But he did, 10 years ago. We are still very happy. There are many stories. I find it crazy to try to theorise about this topic and reduce all stories to one general theory, and establish the 'personality traits' of the persons involved.

I agree. But I think what happens is that people tell themselves that if what they predict comes to pass, they can handle it or back out before it's too late. People will often under-estimate their powers of resistance or how strongly they are already addicted to the process. Whereas people who are more realistic and know themselves well can't kid themselves. They know the danger signs and act accordingly. This is why the 'once a cheater' pronouncement is flawed. People who've walked into the fire before (and regret it) know that people get burnt when they do so, so they self-regulate. And people who've never had affairs but are more pragmatic about feeling attractions for others and are used to getting attention, will also be more adept at recognising the danger signs and backing away.

People who are prepared to ruthlessly lie and deceive others usually have no problems lying to themselves.

And really it's all quite romantic to imply that you were just swept up in emotions too strong for anyone to control and you were just helpless in the power of such passion. And so on and so forth.

That then allows you to indulge your extreme selfishness without taking any responsibility for it. 'Oh it wasn't me, it was my emotions'

'Romance' has a lot to answer for, in my view.

Re : "soulmates"

I believe my soulmate is an Innuit Eskimo living in The South Pole, with no tv and no internet and has never been on an aeroplane

We are destined never to meet. My life will never be properly fulfilled.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic to illustrate my point.

There are many, many people out there that can fulfil the role of romantic partner for every individual on the planet. Trying to say only one person can do it is nonsensical.

You see... It was not 'romance'. It was very rational at some level. We knew, from the start, that we had similar views on life and that we wanted the same things.

We could both decide to have our 'second best life' or try this one out. And we were very scared we were making a mistake. We were not. We have quite a long history behind us (not the 10 years together, but more the huge amount of things we have shared together during this time).

Anyway, it is clear that some people think there is an answer for all possible extra marital relationships, and that the 'cheaters' follow a same script. If it make you happier, it's fine.

Thank you Stern for your reply, I am in a rush but I am going to come back later and re-read it in more depth. From my perspective it is possible to find myself back in love again but there are a whole myriad of reasons as to why that is so. If I even attempted to explain them I am quite sure that many people would assume that they were an excuse to continue the affair. And that is not so.

TheBH I think that you make an awful lot of assumptions about me when actually you don't actually know what position I am in. It is that kind of response that is so clearly black and white to me. However, I accept you saying those things because you are entitled to have your own opinion even if the facts are not fully known to you.

"You don't magically awake one morning to realise your life is now one big impassioned grey area that is too terribly complicated to sort out."

Did I say that? No.

Soulmate? Give me strength!

No worries Running, although FWIW, I don't think here's the best place for advice. A very challenging therapist's room might be, though

I understand why you might post in a defensive way camaleon but your last post seems quite passive-aggressive in tone and language. And the contradictions within your posts fascinate me.

If you'd said:

I met my husband while he was already married and we both felt a strong connection. We tried to back away but we met up again on a business trip shortly afterwards. Neither of us asked if the other was attending. Looking back, we both realised there was a strong likelihood of that happening, but neither of us wanted to take responsibility for going ahead anyway, or to take the risk to back out of it, so we met up and fooled ourselves at the time it was 'destiny'. We realised quite quickly that we had similar values and beliefs, but we took the (with hindsight) irrational decision to be together after only four days. We've been lucky it worked out and wouldn't claim any special powers of insight after only 4 days. Of course what we did was selfish and so because we acknowledged that we both had that character trait, we've spent a lot of time ensuring that we aren't selfish with eachother. That's one of the reasons our relationship works.

......I'd get it and comment on your self-awareness and honesty. I'd also have high hopes for your continued happiness as a couple.

I think a careful distinction needs to be made between 'reasons' and 'excuses' when we discuss this.

There is always a 'reason' why something happens. Everything has a reason. It is factual cause and effect. Sometimes the reason for something is obvious, sometimes not. Sometimes the real reason for something is never known. Sometimes people know but don't want to admit it.

An excuse is an emotive and subjective thing. It's something somebody offers up which they believe 'excuses' them for behavior which is seen to be bad by others. It is open for rejection and disagreement.

When people here are trying to explain why they have had an affair, and giving their best attempt at reasons we should respect that. Because we are discussing it. It's not always an attempt to excuse themselves. Some may think the idea that another person feels they have found a soul-mate daft, for example, but it's how they feel. They are trying to convey their experiences.

Incidently - as a poster upthread noted - there may be many people in the world, not just one, that could turn out to be a soul-mate. But i can say from experience that when you do meet one, it's a powerful thing.

One thing i really don't understand is how, if you love your partner, as many here have said they do, you can then carry on an affair. I can understand falling out of love with someone and (therefore? consequently?) falling in love with someone else - so why arn't they ending the previous relationship quickly. I've yet to see a good reason for prolonging the agony or the deceit of the first partner.

stern - i agree with your last post completely. I think honesty with yourself, at the very least, is so important.

"because I for one don't have a switch to just turn off all those emotions."

Neither do I, so I didnt. But i did walk away from the man I had those emotions about and could have all to easily had an affair with. It IS that simple and anyone who says it isnt is just trying to make exucses for their affair.

Sorry, but there it is.