Thinking about having an affair? Six questions to ask yourself first

3 months ago 28

So you’ve met someone. You’re attracted to them, or perhaps they have made it clear they find you attractive. The problem is, one or both of you is in a committed relationship. It’s a heady mix of excitement, desire – and dread that you might even contemplate acting on your feelings.

But that doesn’t alter the way you feel. In fact, it might even be a contributing factor. Somatic therapist and certified sex and relationship practitioner Georgia Grace says it’s normal to feel sexual attraction to people outside your relationship. What is more important is what you do next.

Being attracted to someone outside your relationship is normal but regulating your emotions is your responsibility.

“Often when people feel attracted to a person outside their relationship, it can feel confronting,” she says. “They might feel excited, aroused or playful but that is not necessarily a sign that they need to leave their partner for this person.”

Before speaking with your partner or the object of your desire, Grace says it is worth sitting with this new information first and reflecting on your feelings.

“What a lot of people might do at the start, because it is confronting, they feel they should do something like talk to their partner immediately,” she says. “But the partner might be confused. It can be confronting and scary to think of this happening in the relationship.”

Instead, she says it’s worthwhile to press pause and give yourself time to consider your feelings on your own. Start by asking yourself these questions.

Is it OK to be attracted to someone else?

Grace says the answer to this is a resounding yes.

“We will all feel attracted to someone else at some point,” she says. “We might flirt with the barista or a colleague at work or just someone we’ve always had a crush on. It’s really common and really normal to experience attraction.”

In fact, she argues, making desire outside marriage seem “abnormal” could make the situation worse.

“When we don’t [acknowledge it], we are shaming ourselves, and shame should not be in this conversation,” she says. “When we shame something, we are saying it should exist in the shadows. That is when things go underground – and that’s when people transgress.”

But just because you feel desire for someone else doesn’t mean you need to act on it.

“It’s OK to feel attracted, but you have a responsibility to regulate that.”

Why do you want this?

Affairs occur for all sorts of reasons, from a desire to end a relationship to a sense that the person’s need for intimacy is not being met within the relationship. Then there’s the thrill of the new and forbidden.

“You are feeling aroused – that’s exciting and thrilling,” says Grace. “The question is: how can you experience that in a way that is respectful?”

Your attraction to another person can be an opportunity to discuss your desires with your existing partner.

Recognising these feelings in yourself could open the door to better communication with your partner to express your desires, whether it’s as simple as trying something new or a more radical option such as opening your relationship.

“A big driver in affairs is novelty,” says Grace. “When you are in a long-term relationship, you’re no longer experiencing novelty. We are not in that process of discovering who we are and it might feel mundane.”

Is he or she worth it?

In the thrill of the moment, the object of your desire may seem like the ideal man or woman – a manifestation of your fantasy. Sometimes it’s worth picturing them doing the mundane tasks we all have to do, like taking out the garbage, doing their tax return or packing the dishwasher. Even if he looks like Chris Hemsworth, he still most likely has some unflattering habits, such as leaving his smelly socks on the floor.

Bringing your potential new lover down off their pedestal can take enough heat out of your desire, temporarily at least, to give you pause for thought.

Picturing your potential new lover doing menial tasks may help take the shinje off them a little bit, at least temporarily.

Are you ready to lie?

By their very nature, affairs are an exercise in deception. At the very least, you are about to become economical with the truth to conceal your movements and perhaps set up alibis. If you’ve always seen yourself as an honest person, it can be confronting to admit your duplicity to yourself.

Will you still recognise yourself?

Once you’ve crossed that threshold and started an affair, there’s no turning back. Grace says for some people, knowing they have broken trust in their relationship, whether they are discovered or not, fundamentally challenges how they saw themselves.

“If you have an affair, it will change everything,” she says. “A lot of people will say if they have cheated on a partner, the guilt and shame is so distressing that it feels like it will destroy them.

“It can feel quite shocking if they don’t recognise themselves any more. If you engage in an affair, it may really change the fabric of how you know yourself to be.”

Are you ready for your life to blow up?

If the affair is discovered, damage can be extreme. Infidelity is one of the most common reasons for divorce in Australia, behind a breakdown in communication in the relationship, and the ramifications may be felt well beyond your partner or theirs. Grace says sex doesn’t have to be involved for your partner to feel betrayed.

“People will say it is most painful when it hits on something that is most important in the relationship,” she says. “It might be they were ready and willing to show up for their partner and their partner turned to someone else, or it could be because the affair is with someone close and they have lost a friend as well as a partner.

“It’s really individual. For some people, it is way more painful if their partner has a long-term emotional connection with someone else that they have never had sex with.”

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