Lack of honesty with others and even with themselves when faced with one of life’s turning points: opportunity.
Good/ bad relationships suffer from affairs, ordinary people have affairs. This does not necessarily mean they are bad people, I prefer to describe behaviour as good or bad rather than a person themselves. Behaviour can change and that’s how we grow and learn from the inevitable mistakes we make in life, big or small. We are all capable of good and bad behaviour, but deep down most of us actually want to be good people, even when we get it spectacularly wrong.
If we are honest, when our relationship isn’t going well, we discuss our problems openly and depending on the responses we get, we decide to work on the relationship or leave it. However many grey areas there are around this view, the honest thing to do boils down to two choices. That it is ‘not that simple’ or ‘not that black and white’ just muddies the waters and opens the door to excuses. We prefer grey to black and white sometimes because we would rather not face up to life’s challenges, especially when others might get hurt.
If all else fails, we tell the partner who will not change or work on it, despite our open and frank discussion of the problem, sometimes sadly stated many times to no avail, that since things have not changed, we will look elsewhere to get our needs met. We tell them.
We need to find the strength to be honest about things, even, and especially, the tough things we might find very hard, but need to say.
There is no need to be dishonest. Dishonesty only benefits one person and can destroy another. It usually damages everyone in the triangle to greater/ lesser extent.
If you have agreed/ committed to a relationship which is understood by both parties to be completely exclusive, no matter what, the other person in the relationship deserves the chance to know that a turning point has been reached and that exclusivity is no longer certain. Unilateral private moving of the goalposts is dishonest and unfair.
People justify their affairs to themselves and others using a myriad of reasons, usually citing a deficiency in their relationship or partner which may or may not be true or minimised/ exaggerated to soothe their conscience. The commonality is dishonesty. If you are ok with using dishonesty to serve your own ends, rather than honestly facing up to your problems or tough choices, when the opportunity presents itself you are more than likely to take it.
The difference between people who have affairs and people who don’t, rests on whether or not they can justify dishonesty to themselves as a route to getting their needs met and a way to avoid tough choices, no matter whose ‘fault’ the affair is perceived to be.