There was a beautiful family living in a metropolitan city. Children aged 9 and 12 lived with their parents. Years of marriage suddenly changed a happy and joyful family into daily criticisms and self-centeredness from appreciation and respect.
Slowly the aloofness began. The father started getting home late in the evenings for one family get-together. Children’s waiting at the dinner table to hold hands to be grateful for the food they consume and eagerly waiting for some educative conversations before ending the day.
Everything started to fall apart. It was happening so suddenly, changing the mood of the home. A home brimming with joy was slowly fading and turning into a house.
An affair i.e. an extra-marital affair never happens in an unplanned manner. The decision to be in a new relationship outside sacred marriage or before a legal divorce makes a relationship self- centred.
The beginning comes with excitement
It looks like an amazing feeling as if the person is on cloud nine. This is associated commonly with the feeling of conquering the world and being in power. The people in the relationship start meeting in secret like a pigeon thinks the cat won’t attack if the bird has closed his eye. The affair usually starts at different professional places where spending full day with colleagues, sharing every nitty gritty with close circle, can trigger its beginning. It might occur in religious groups as well as educational institutions. In most of the cases, the couples are unhappy in their marriage as they become uninvolved with their partners.
Different people react differently. While some look for physical attractiveness and intelligence, some people want a good alternative of their spouse, while some explore the relationship’s value by moving one foot outside and testing the waters.
Following are some of the factors where the married men or woman try to pull themselves out their comfort zone:-
1.Workaholic– It is making oneself workaholic and overloaded. With no family time, no entertainment, lacking intimacy, zero vacations. In short, making one unavailable to the family.
2.Distance– Every marriage has its peaks and valleys and it is very common for couples to go through emotional imbalances and seems to distance itself to re-fresh. But by creating distances between each other in the midst of an affair, the spouse starts to act differently or strangely in a manner which he/she never does.
3.Appearances– For most of the people appearance and physical attractiveness matters. This may influences a relationship. For men it is seen in their health and physique whereas in women it is generally their face that attracts people. If your spouse has changed his style of clothing or the design of beard or may have started to use cologne totally different from his taste. He/she starts to have an interest in a sport completely opposite to his favourite. The eagerness at which he tries to learn the newly found hobby all at once.
4.Intimate betrayal– This happens when the spouse starts making the other partner pamper with expensive gifts, out of blue, to hide his secret from his family.
All the above behaviour shows how it is easy to generate time for other person with whom he/she is in extra-marital relationship with. The person stuck into an affair stops taking care of his spouse feelings and may start to compare her with the newly found love.
Physical attraction may or may not be the string for this kind of relationship. It can also be the long, deep and intimate conversations and the parallelism with the two.
In Extra- marital, the relationship might be new for both the persons involved new and refreshing for one and a game for other. The latter might turn out to be a Casanova or he may cheat on you.
Psychological Analysis of an affair
Psychologically, these affairs can start as the reason to come out of an abused marriage or a rejection. It can also be different for someone who has not explored the world in his own unique way. This person might have been subjugated under societal customs of arranged marriage, and fixed behaviours. While this person can start to experience joy and happiness outside her marriage in a newly found love and friendship, not every affair comes out with a purpose. It is all unplanned as people look something for thrill and excitement even if betraying their family and offspring’s.
Adding to the list of factors affecting the appearance and behaviour of person, we can now look at some of the common affairs going around in the world:-
1.Emotional involvement
It’s been found that women cheat more emotionally than men. Affairs have been found sinful as adultery.
- They generally start as a friendship. The emotional affair calls in for more flirtations.
- There is exchange of messages both normal and intimate but are never physical. People are connected on calls for longer time and get excited to see the message ring beeps.
- People stay deeply connected to each other and share everything going in their lives.
- People take is as a hush affair and starts avoiding family members. They will never respond to people touching their mobiles.
- In this type of affair, people are daydreaming about their friend more and more.
- You are ready to share your thoughts and problems with your friend instead of your partner.
- You think your friend understand you better than your spouse.
2.Lust Affairs
Though their relationship may be working with their families and spouses simultaneously comfortably, the person is only involved for sexual favours here.
- Lust makes people crazy and is hard to resist.
- Love stands very less chance when you put love and lust together.
- They love dressing up for the special partner and thus are attracted to each other physically and sexually.
- Clothing can be misleading as it makes a person think about you all the time.
3.Revenge affair or retaliatory infidelity
- This starts with teasing and complaining often.
- This affair generally involves hurting other spouse by retribution for the illicit relationship they have found their partner to be in. It is same like, if my spouse hurts me and I hurt the spouse back.
- It’s simply the payback time for satisfying ones ego and taking revenge on the spouse for causing betrayal.
4.The affair Soul mate
- This is the only affair that leads to divorces or healthy living.
- This affair is almost like a marriage which needs physical intimacy, emotional dependency, and spiritual connection.
- Here the couple feels more connected to each other feeling their pain and sadness deeply.
- Even if they are separated and live with their spouses, they will still wish happiness for each other.
- This affair can also be short lived by staying on good terms with each other and remaining friends with each other instead of going to a certified level of marriage.
The Signs of being unfaithful and its after-effects
If one is a good observer, it will not be difficult to check for the signs of your spouse infidelity. It is difficult for most people to hide the guilt of betraying the other partner. Instead of not getting caught, they try to create a distance between themselves. The person here constantly and silently lives his/her life in guilt. It is all because it is not easy to do multi tasking in relationships. Marriage doesn’t involve half- heartedness. The focus is always on one person. And when somebody is cheating it gets difficult to manage two relationships. Extra marital affair involves lots of manipulations, lying and dishonesty.
Guilty of cheating? You better read this Cosmopolitan article.
Also, the shame of getting caught, the devastation it creates, destroying families and hurting grown-up children, for a temporary feeling of love. And at this time, the regret is not enough.
There are those who also believe emotional affairs are not harmful. But it is viewed as a cheating without having any kind of sexual relationship.
A lust affair seems to be a powerful force than any other attachment. But then, these are never permanent. If one gets bored with the physical personality, he may move on to next. This unrealistic love creates unimaginable instability in life. Without self- control and restraint one cannot save their marriage. The affair will continue to wreak havoc, until one learns to control it. It is purely inhuman and unkind to compromise on your spouse even if you know your partner is a good human being.
Cheating like revenge affairs is one of the biggest gamble. It works best on the forgiveness level as the couple now realises that grass is not always greener on other side. If they have understood their mistake, it is better to preserve relationship.
Better try to put yourself in the person’s place that was compromised for your selfish or lustful act. How would you feel if this were done to you?