Tiptoeing Towards The Affair

No matter what anyone tells you affairs are preventable. No one accidently falls into another person naked and no one exchanges feelings of love, passion and deeper emotions without stepping over some significant personal barriers. Relationships become vulnerable to infidelity and affairs when partners begin to look outside their relationships for characteristics they find appealing during moments when their relationship is disintegrating or on autopilot versus communicating with their current partner about their missing needs. The word need often conjures up images of sexual dissatisfaction but is usually related more closely to emotional needs such as having opinions valued, communication, being listened to by a partner and personally supported by the partner. Affairs rarely blossom instantly and they are often the result of poor boundaries not being established early on in a friendship or other relationship. Discussing a facet of your relationship that is currently bothering you with someone of the opposite sex that is not a family member is treacherous. Intimate conversations coupled with empathetic listening from a caring friend can easily lead to the development of increased feelings. When this initial exchange goes uninterrupted for its breach of obstructing mature personal boundaries it only induces the likelihood of more intimate encounters occurring. Each encounter has a tendency to increase in intensity and the relationship feels like a snowball rolling downhill becoming larger and more massive with each conversation involving intimate details unless the process is halted. Being in the presence of another person appearing to fulfill an unmet need from the primary relationship nurtures bitterness for the primary partner who suddenly materializes into someone considered less appealing. Feelings of missing out on an unmet need allow for ideas of affairs to become lodged in your heart or mind when a partner begins turning towards someone else outside their primary relationship for personal needs that are not being satisfactorily met in their primary relationship. This resentment provides the groundwork for excuses and rationalizations in some individuals for why this need should no longer go unmet with the introduction of the person they are now confiding in. There are often many warning signs being consciously ignored during this period roaring at the straying partner like a caged lion to refocus and return to the primary relationship. These signals are often presented in the form of feelings of guilt, shame, personal culpability and a general understanding what you are doing is inappropriate in this new relationship. An affair is beginning when you suppress or ignore these feelings and make an active effort to continue confiding in this new person. The tilt towards an affair often begins with increased communication between two individuals in separate relationships, followed by shared information that is personal regarding a relationship problem and before you know it relationship boundaries become ignored. Sharing information about your primary relationship with others outside the relationship will escort your relationship towards emotional quicksand. This hinders communication in the primary relationship because emotional energy in the form of communication is being taken from the primary relationship and being placed with a person outside that relationship. Suddenly it becomes easier to confide in this new person and it feels like they understand many of your needs better than your primary partner. Your primary partner is becoming secondary in who you turn to for support in all areas of their life. Before you realize it feelings have developed and they begin to wonder if they should disclose the feelings whom they have been confiding in. If these feelings become verbalized the relationship is well on its way towards a full blown affair. Disclosure of feelings is the genie that can never be put back in the bottle. The inevitable comparisons between their primary partner and their new partner become more routine. Minor flaws in the primary relationship begin to feel like a grand piano on their back eliciting overreactions in arguments in the primary relationship. At this point the relationship has already crossed over into an emotional affair and a physical affair is often not too far behind. An astute primary partner will begin noticing an emotional drop off in the relationship and possibly several signs of an affair. In my opinion, the best weapons against an affair developing is talking with your partner about unmet needs and establishing very concrete defined boundaries with opposite sex friendships. The majority of affairs occur in relationships in close proximity of the primary relation such as work, friends of partners and family members of partners.