I met her on the street and recognized her from some social situations we had shared. We struck up a conversation and agreed to have lunch together, as we both worked downtown.
Lunches led to trading emails and confiding in each other.
Confiding in each other led to an emotional affair.
The emotional affair led to the physical affair.
It is very, very easy to find places to have sex if you want to badly enough.
The physical affair led to me having what is euphemistically called “a nervous breakdown” from the guilt and being such a complete and utter shit to my then-wife. Yes, we were having marital problems before the affair began. The affair did absolutely nothing to help the situation and never do. There are much easier ways to heal a hangnail than cutting off your arm.
The physical affair led to my divorce and has cost me incredible amounts of pain, anguish, sleep, friends, and yes, money. I realize that what transpired is a selfish, ugly thing and it, above all else, is what I’m most ashamed of in my life. In some ways I’m better for it, in that it took such a complete upheaval to get me to where I am now, but I could have achieved the same results without the affair.
To quote my dad, “That has to be the most expensive piece of ass you ever got.”
There are two types of affairs: Those that are found out, and those that are not, with the former likely making up 99.5% of all affairs. Of course, we can never know this number because by definition we don’t know the second number! It is my firm belief that it takes uncanny skill and luck to pull off an affair no one finds out about. There are just too many opportunities for the couple to be found out. However, the single most important thing has to be that neither ever, EVER tells. In that vein, you will not learn the secrets that those who were lucky enough and smart enough to pull this off know.
The time issues are probably manageable. As others have said, working late or maybe finding a new hobby would help quite a bit to cover for time you are missing. Frequent business trips wouldn’t hurt, either. Taking office time isn’t bad, as long as you take it offsite. For example, a slightly longer lunch. Going on regular ‘dates’ seems impossible, I’ll grant you.
There is another angle, and I’ve seen this almost work. You become friends with your paramour and actually tell your spouse you are friends. You hang out together, either with your spouse or not, and you do lots of things friends would do. Then, saying you have to go over to their house to help with this or that is fine. So instead of hiding the entire relationship, you need hide only the sex, and being seen together isn’t a problem anymore.
Woeg is right on the money for describing how many affairs begin.
For a short period many years ago I dated only married men. It was my guarantee that there would be no strings attached to these “relationships”. They were all relatively brief. In all but one case, these were men who were already experienced in extra-marital affairs.
The one exception was a sweet guy who just got carried away. He was a colleague who lived in another city. We were working on the same project so we were in meetings together when he came to HQ. I loved his sense of humor, we had many common interests and his ego and hormones got the best of him. After a couple of great evenings together, I dawned on him what he was doing and he was appalled at himself and very embarrassed. We immediately reverted to a “business only” relationship. I suspect he’s been totally faithful for these past 30 years.
Anyone who’s looking for an affair can find one - and can find a way to deceive his/her partner - at least for a while.
I think the falling in love/lust with someone type of affair has been very well covered here. My Mother had an affair with a married man that eventually led to the end of both marriages and thier marriage to each other. They met by chance while both were out of town on business. They managed to find ways to meet because he was a frequent business traveller and my Dad was a workaholic. They’re still married and have been for almost 30 years. Both my Mom and my now Step-Dad were in cruddy marriages before the affair but their current marriage to each other isn’t much better.
There’s the other type of affair where a married person is just looking for some nookie on the side. In the day and age of the Internet, willing partners must be very easy to find.
Ah, there’s the rub. It’s finding that first one that’s hard. Actually, the other part is hard. Never happened to me, ever. If I sound jaded, it’s because I am–the woman I wanted to be friends with, with the idea that maybe there would be more down the road, just talked to someone who gave her the same warning that has been given here. Run, don’t walk, from the almost-divorced guy. I hope to salvage at least a casual friendship from the wreckage, but who knows.
I also think that one factor would be one of the partners not being completely honest to the other. Like, someone who is bi-curious getting married and then deciding they need to explore that. If they know their partner doesn’t want an open relationship, they may not even bring it up and just do it secretly.
A lack of respect: the cheating parnter’s sexual impulses are more important to them than the risk. Their wants are more important than the feelings of their partner. Or, they’re just cocky and think they’ll never get caught.
I was with someone and afterwards, found out he was cheating all along. Our relationship was not rocky. I mean, he was always gushing about how much he loved me, we had a lot of fun together, our sex life was always fine. I think I was enough for him emotionally, but sexually, one woman just wasn’t enough.
If he had only discussed it with me (“yo, I can’t be monogamous”) in the beginning, I would have accepted it and things would have been very different. I am not interested in having a lifetime, open relationship, but we could have developed our friendship and had a casual sexual and still emotionally satisfying relationship. (You know, like “friends with benefits”.) I wouldn’t have had to worry about all the lies and be hurt and angry about it.
Affairs happen because people aren’t careful. Very few people are going to hit on you, at least not twice, if you don’t flirt back. Don’t keep up the flirtation after you feel the spark, you won’t have an affair.
I think a lot of affairs come about the way Woeg describes. Someone likes the little rush of attention, so he or she keeps pushing the envelope, seeing how far the situation can go. Afterwards, the adulterer says, “It just happened.” Bullshit. Affairs never just happen. They are nursed into being.
I’m not convinced they only happen to marriages in trouble. No matter how much in love one may be, no matter how stable and happy life is at home, everyone likes validation. Everyone likes to feel attractive. So affairs happen to people who let their guard down.
