Why Do Affairs Happen?
Your partner just said, “I have something to tell you.”
You get a pit in your stomach. You’re not sure what’s coming but you know it can’t be good…
And then they confess to having an affair and your whole world is turned upside down. You’re speechless. Outraged. Heartbroken.
You’re devastated and your mind is racing with questions:
what did I do wrong?
why did they do this to me?
am I not good enough?
Here’s the thing, affairs don’t usually sink relationships- it’s lying that typically ends or halts progress on affair recovery.
But why do affairs happen in the first place? Let’s take a look…
Why do affairs happen?
Our brains seek answers in order to fully process and put behind us an event of this magnitude. It’s hard to heal from something you don’t understand and especially heal with someone you no longer trust.
But the truth is, most people don’t wake up saying, “I think I’m going to hurt my partner today”.
Most often, a partner meets someone that sparks something inside of them they didn’t know was missing. It starts out harmless with conversation and slowly but surely more and more information is shared and a bond forms.
Often, the partner having the affair will voice feeling disconnected or unimportant to their spouse/partner for a long time.
There have usually been communication and intimacy issues that haven’t been addressed in productive ways leaving the affair partner susceptible to getting their needs met elsewhere. This in no way makes the affair okay. The hard part is, once you’ve built that connection and bond with someone it’s an itch that oftentimes feels so overwhelming that you keep going after it to scratch it even though you know irreparable damage can happen.
If I could give any piece of advice, I’d say get a marriage counselor if you're starting to notice things are missing in your relationship.
The person we have an affair with represents something to us but in my experience rarely is it what we’re really seeking.
In fact, research indicates that 70% of couples whose relationship began as an affair don’t make it! That indicates that the affair was actually only filling a gap in the short-term and not truly lasting love.
The truth? Having an affair will never get you what you’re really looking for. It may feel like this person is all you ever wanted but in my experience it’s short-lived. If you’re considering having an affair or have had an affair it may be helpful to do your own individual counseling to assess the unique variables in your life that you may be looking for.
Here are some key takeaways:
Couples can heal from affairs and often have a better relationship than the one they had prior to the affair.
Get a counselor involved as soon as possible. Both for you as a couple and individual therapists for each of you if possible.
An affair partner will most likely not be able to give you the life you’re looking for in the long-run. Only you can provide the happiness for yourself that you seek.
If something is missing in your relationship with your current partner, then you need to fix that and talk through that before adding other partners.
Are affairs ever a good thing?
By definition, affairs are a secret you withhold from your partner and that causes a serious break in trust. Going behind your partner’s back will only cause hurt and pain that’s very challenging to recover from - so basically, no. Affairs aren’t ever a good idea.
However, if you never got the chance to explore love and sex in healthy ways in your early adulthood and you feel like you missed out, then I can understand why you’d want to open up your marriages. Couples who successfully open up their relationship do so with a lot of communication, boundaries and expectations. So it is possible to open your marriage to other partners in a healthy way, if you’re both on the same page from the start.
Final thoughts
You and your partner have a road ahead of you to recovery. Make sure you have the right people there to support you and both of you agree on who information is being shared with.
If the goal is to stay in the relationship and work through it then you need to have resources and support that help you do that. The first step is finding a good Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) either locally (we’re in Georgetown, Texas) or virtually.
If you want to end the relationship then you may need help from an attorney and co-parenting coach to help you walk through the process without being vindictive.
You need to be able to heal. It’s important and necessary to but healing before the need to get even.