Affairs are abuse

[Wellwobbly]

'Its not 'Just an Affair

Sustaining an affair involves the emotional manipulation and psychological control of another person. A person who trusts and relies on you. At the beginning, it?s constructing and controlling an alternate reality, where you aren?t where you say you are and you?re not with who you say you?re with. Then it progresses to smoke-screening: ?we?re just friends?, ?there?s nothing going on? or ?I wouldn?t do that to you?. And then, at the risk of discovery, desperation creeps in and it becomes mind games: ?no, you must be imagining things?, ?don?t be silly?, ?you don?t know what you?re talking about? or ?you must be crazy?. At this point you might also pick fights or find fault with your partner to create conflict or emotional distance so you can justify to yourself the feelings you are developing for someone else.

But your words don?t fit right, don?t make sense and you can?t look your partner in the eye. Its little signs such as these, a change, a ?differentness,? a ?not rightness?, that your partner has noticed. At first they dismissed them, preferring to trust you, but then their intuition started setting off warning bells. They ignored these for a while, because they wanted to continue believing you. And then there were some clear signs they just couldn?t ignore any more, the item of clothing left in the car, the newly purchased underwear, the late night phone calls. Maybe they confronted you and maybe you denied it, maybe this happened several times, but at some, final point they are forced to make the world-splitting choice: am I going crazy or are you having an affair? Am I losing my mind or am I losing you?

Cultivating an alternate reality so an affair can continue undiscovered destroys, amongst many other things, the cheated party?s perceptiveness, intuition, confidence and, more than their trust in you, their trust in their own senses. Trust is the foundation of relationships. It is also the foundation for mental health and emotional wellbeing. In sustained affairs, sex is not the hardest thing to get over; it?s the deeper and more long-term affect of having to put the pieces of your intellect and your shattered self-esteem back together and learn to trust yourself again.

Both mind games and emotional manipulation are forms of domestic abuse. Sustained affairs are covert, insidious abuse that has dire consequences for families and yet it?s also the sort of abuse that can be minimized, condoned or even glorified in the media. It?s the sort of abuse that is commonly ?blamed on the victim?: it happens because of a woman?s ?declining interest in sex?. Psychological and emotional abuse are forms of domestic violence and include humiliation, contempt and controlling behaviours. Affairs involve all of these. Acts of omission are also included in one definition. In Hurting Without Hitting: Non-physical Contact Forms of Abuse, Laurie Mackinnon lists: withholding necessary information, refusing to communicate for extended periods, ignoring the other person?s attempts to interact, failure to confirm the other person?s feelings or needs and failure to show appropriate affection or love.

Advertisement
Mental and emotional abuse has an effect on physical health. Infections and stress related illnesses are commonplace as are driving accidents due to distraction. One woman I know of recently went though a red light ? with her two children in the back seat - after her husband had just disclosed his affair. Those who are psychologically abused are at risk of anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Emotional abuse in the form of rejection leads to feelings of shame and the powerlessness that comes from losing control of your life to helplessness and depression. I know of both women and men who have thought about or attempted suicide after they found out about a partner?s affair.

Having sex unknowingly with a trusted partner who has been having sex, protected or not, is a sexual violation, a form of sex abuse. When they find out, many women feel as if they have been raped by their partner; had they known of the affair, there is no way the sex would have been consented to.

If the ?third party? is knowingly involved in the affair, then they are collaborating in the mental, emotional and sexual abuse of another. If they do not know that the person they are involved with is leading a double life, if they have been informed the person is ?separated? before the partner they are supposedly ?separated from?, then they are being abused also.

All affairs leave marks, particularly those that entail psychological and emotional control and manipulation. You might not be able to see them, but they are black and blue.'

Elly Taylor is a relationship counselor and the author of Becoming Us, Loving, Learning and Growing Together, the Essential Relationship Guide for Parents.

Rulesgirl, I agree entirely. If you are a miserable unpleasant person (for example) it is not that surprising if your spouse looks elsewhere.

If RulesGirl's husband has had an affair (and it looks likely he has) then I can't imagine how 'miserable and unpleasant' it must be to read a post like that Higgle.

It's also an extremely unkind post on a thread where the OP is so obviously suffering.

I'm sure you have your reasons for posting that sort of bile, though.

In that situation leven why did your friend even bother then. He doesn't sound like a man worth bothering for. If she knew he was a bad one then why not just walk away. Not become a complete doormat.

I think you are just being provocative higgle - obviously if you are married to someone who is miserable and unpleasant you must work yourself into the ground to make them happy, pleasant people who might or might not choose to stay with you. You don't go off and have an affair, silly higgle.

Sorry wasnt trying to offend op just adding my opinion. Affairs are not usually abusive....just the fallout that causes so much pain. Your trying to find understanding to your own situation and maybe it's too soon for you to have clarity...but one day I think you will. Again....I'm sorry for your pain which is indescribable.

She's not exactly a friend Rulesgirl. More of an acquaintance who overshares!

She stayed because she's been brought up to believe that women are to blame for men's sexual pecadilloes and has swallowed the whole 'only unhappy men cheat' myth hook, line and sinker. Her dad shagged around, her (anorexic) mum put up with it and to be fair to her, even more intelligent colleagues came out with some of this tripe. Plus, the usual story of her not earning as much money as him and not wanting to be a lone parent. She's reframed what you and I would call being a doormat into being 'empowered', but sadly I think she's understanding it all a bit more now.

It's a painful lesson to realise that if someone wants to cheat, there's not a darned thing anyone else can do to stop it happening, apart from of course the person they are cheating with

OP, there was a thread on AIBU, it made interesting reading. I don't think you did wrong, I think that some posters have not always got an OP best interests at heart. I think you are right, it is abuse. You talk here and work through what you need to, it is what Relationships is about.

I am probably a little older than most of the people who post on here. I'm aware of friends/colleagues who have had affairs, including two men who have each had a mistress for several years. They seem to be looking at making a life which is far from perfect a bit better, and lack of sex and feeling excuded in the family and as if their views don't matter seem to be common complaints. I'm very aware taht most would see these people as good providers, good husbands and fathers to now grown up children, abuse just isn't the word.

I have to say I agree with the OP. I think affairs are abusive. My STBXH knew I would not have stayed with him if I had known about his cheating over the years. I made a lot of compromises including what job I did and where I lived which I would not have made if I had known. He wanted everything run for his benefit and obtained my participation in a very long marriage totally by deception. He knew darn well what he was doing and excusing it as "just an affair" lets him off the hook for his behaviour. Yes of course I won't get any redress for that and yes of course I am better off without him. That does not alter the fact that his behaviour was abusive.

I agree, Higgle that 'abuse' isn't the right word. I would say though that you never can know what somebody's relationship is like and these men (and women) have a stake in making their relationships good too, not just the responsibility of their husband/wife.

I don't agree with most of the general 'sayings' that get bandied around here because everybody's relationship is different and everybody has a story. I do think though that basic respect for your partner isn't something that somebody should need to beg for, it should be there, always.

So if a person who has been abused by their partner has an affair is it still abuse? Does one form of abuse cancel out the other?

I think the word abuse has become rather over-used.

higgle that seems to be a common complaint from men....that they feel they come last in order within their families despite having spent years working to provide.

There is a type of person that will cheat. There is nothing that their partner can say or do to make them be faithful.

The type of person who cheats is the same type of person who offers reasons and excuses as to why people cheat. They felt unfullfilled in their relationship, they didn't get enough sex from their partner, they didn't get enough love from their partner, their partner didn't listen to them or show an interest in them, blah, blah, blah.

We all have choices. An affair is a choice. It's a very careful and deliberate act. Anyone who tries to excuse it is the type of person who would cheat.

Not true...I would never cheat but I'm old enough to know that affairs happen and the people who have them are not necessarily bad or the type to cheat. It's never that simple.

Sheesh...I don't suppose Higgle's menfriends' wives were exactly idle layabouts while their husbands were out 'providing' for their families......and shagging other women.

In my experience, the only people who actually believe this rubbish are OW who like to think they are 'better' than a man's wife, control freak women who desperately need to think if they keep a man happy, he won't go elsewhere- and men who will blame anyone but themselves for their own very shitty behaviour.

I believe that cheating on a partner where there is an understanding of monogamy then lying about is a form of abuse, yes I do

it is mental torture to be lied to, and the hoops you are forced to jump through when you are gaslighted are totally premeditated and observed in a cruel way

If we water down the terms used to describe the extreme edges we won't be able to focus resources and time sensitive intensive aid where it is need for the sake of life, limb, mental health and long term fallout.

My father had an affair. It broke my mother. It changed my and my sibs lives dramatically. In a very negative way. So I am no apologist who prefers to reframe lying, cheating, deception, flagrant disinterest in realsitic outcomes and wholesale lack of consideration for the well being of others as "a mistake" when in fact it is a grave error, demonstrating at best profoundly poor judgement and at worst a character steeped in selfishness to a point where the person really ought to come with a public health warning attached.

If we haul affiars into the abuse bracket we don't increase aid, solutions and reduction, we just make the haystack bigger, rendering time sensitive, high priority needles harder to find and deal with.

If a lingusitic solution to the persistant minimisation of the impact an affair can have on people who had no say in the bombshell hurled at the fabric of the lives is desired, we should start with tackling the proliferation of "a mistake" being used as sheild against taking heartfelt and genuine resonsibility for one's actions, aknowledgement of impact and social pressure to maintain basic standards of honesty in our dealings with other people.

Ditto "I couldn't help myself" cos actually you could, but you didn't want to so chose faux incapsity to make your failings as a human being easier to ignore.

Peel away at the language based self defence so people can behave badly without the risk of feeling the full wieght of a self assessemnt that reveals them weak, lacking and self absorbed and you might actually claw back some ground in terms of people over prioritising how they are feeling to the extent that they fail to examine what they are thinking.

Wobbly - Have just seen your thread and agree with all the points you make!

CV, I totally agree with your post

to a point

it focusses on the behaviour of the cheater

I think that the least of the issues in some ways...what wobbly is talking about is the effect on the people at the sharp end of it

and they are abused, IMO

Yep, AF, you're right!

I think that it is complete mental and physical abuse (I say physical because a person having an affair puts the sexual health of their unsuspecting partner at risk if still continuing intimacy)! The discovery of betrayal is earth-shattering and devastating; wrecks lives forever!

it focusses on the behaviour of the cheater

Not the behavoir. The mindset that allows the behavoir to happen with too little friction to encourage braking, because in terms of cost/benefit they see no onerous personal outlay that renders the gamble too risky to contemplate. A mindset aided and abetted by a typically under challeneged "lexical defence sheild" that minimises responsibilities shirked and the degree to which outcomes for others were brushed under the carpet with unbecoming haste.

what wobbly is talking about is the effect on the people at the sharp end of it

The people at the sharp end hurt. And the pain can be excruciating, extensive and long lasting.

It cost me ten years of my life just to come out from the deep black depression it precipitated. I lost the end of my childhood, my education, my expected future, my sense of worth, my trust in most human relationships and a large chunk of my young adulthood is something I prefer not to dwell on due to vast amounts of alcohol being used to try and blot out the pain.

I still wouldn't swap places with somebody who was abused in the "pure" meaning of the word. I hurt. Badly. But I don't believe we faced identical challenges and issues in terms of healing and recovery that an abused person does. Becuase our pain wasn't caused by our being the target. It was caused by our being collatoral damage.

Pain, excrusiating pain, should be enough for society at large to give pause and think maybe we shouldn't underestimate and minimise the fall out of selfish, self abosrbed, "don't think, just feel" behavoirs that breach trust and break bonds so violently. I don't want to have to co-opt abuse as a concept in order to ascribe our past pain "value" or "worth" to the point where Joe Blogses in large numbers think "actually, you know, this is quite a big deal and "I made a mistake" doesn't really cut it in the face of the significant fall out".

Isn't what we went through enough ?

Do I really have to stick a lable of "abused" on my family's head before the very real, long lasting, profound, often excriuciating cost to us is deemed worthy of perhaps not being quite so quick to wipe the slate clean, gloss over his wholesale failures in term of honesty, morality, and priorities and honour him with an OBE instead of questioning what kind of man fails to give any thought to the impact his choices risk for his wife and children ?

We need to set our yardstick of "wholly unacceptable" a bit higher than abuse.

Pain hurts and even if you cause it as a consequence of self abosbtion or under exercised self control, rather than a need/intent to harm or control the people who got hurt, it's still not bloody good enough and there shouldn't be this rush to smooth over agony, while clucking about human fallibility like the architect had lost control of their central nervous system rather than abdicated responsibility for making better choices.

That's not to say that affairs cannot be abuse. If one of the points of an affair is to cause pain to a spouse, or debilitiate them emotionally to improve control for example, then yes, I think it qualifies with knobs on. But it doesn't describe me or my family in oir "roles" as the children/wife of an unfaithful man. Nor does it describe me later on the wife of a former husband who cheated.

Thank god, becuase frankly I had enough on my plate without "abused" being added to my bag of issues to grapple with.

I am definitely very in love with Carpe at the moment. I have a big, big Carpey crush.

Yes, if you look at it from the point of view of the faithful partner, it is abuse.

People who try to defend cheaters use loads of phrases to minimise the deliberate and painful destruction they choose to cause by their actions.

Of all things, an affair cannot be called 'a mistake'. Of all things, it needs careful planning. People do not just 'fall into' an affair.

It's not that simple. Yes it is! Some people choose to cheat. They make a decision to repeatedly lie to their partner. To mess with their heads. To abuse the trust in their relationship. And they do it over and over and over until they are caught.

They know they are doing it. They know it's wrong. That's why they don't tell their partner. It is an entirely selfish act and inexcusable.

I've got a Carpe crush too.

Beautifully explained.

She keeps doing that at the moment. I spend hours trying to formulate a coherent sentence and then delete it because it sounds like waffly bollocks, and she just effortlessly does that.