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The Seductive Nature of an Extramaritial Affair
13 Jan 2006 by Rod Smith in Affairs, Divorce, Marriage, Sex matters / 11 Comments
Get out of the middle!
Extramarital affairs are very seductive.They appear to offer better, more intense passion than the marriage. Hide and seek will do this, spawning the kind of relationship we wished was possible with a spouse. It’s amazing how “attractive” someone can sound, look and feel when you add large amounts of adrenalin. The secrecy idealizes the other, not love or truth. Deception, the “ducking and diving” past family can give vitality to the stolen hour.
What is so ridiculously seductive (and hurts so badly when the truth comes out) is the belief that affair is about you. Actually, it is about who you are not. It about what you do not represent. You are not the wife or husband; the “routine.” Yours is not the other name on the mortgage, you are not one who owns the other car in the garage. You are not the one whom the children sound like when they are at their worst (and best). It’s not your beauty. It is not your charm (although you might be both beautiful and charming). It is the difference from, the contrast with, what your affair knows. In his or her boredom and selfishness, you become so very appealing in the heat of it all. It’s the contrast he or she “loves.” The secrecy, the chase, the conniving makes it all so surreal and convincing and such a turn on. It is not you. It is not he or she who has met you here in this rendezvous, but the secret itself, the fact that you will share this secret, that’s lighting your fire.
The seductive thing is that for a period of time one or both of you actually believe in the affair as if it is a real and enduring relationship, able to offer you each something you really want. For a time you will give so unreservedly, so wildly, and be sucked in by passion. Every meeting will feel like you were meant for each other and that it is a cruel world forcing you apart. The really sad thing is that even your children will feel, to you, as if they are in the way, obstacles to your freedom, hindrances to your finding true love. When you are with your lover the first hours will slip past feeling like heaven. The approaching absences and those times when you are apart, will begin to fill with suspicion, heaviness and demands that come with cheating. You will think your love is cheating on you (even when with his or her spouse) every time the cell-phone is off, a call is not returned or a weekend happens without you. The moment the clandestine activity began with you, the scene was set for it to occur around you and to you. He or she who cheats on a spouse will most certainly think nothing of doing the same to you.
The affair itself, born in secrecy and lies, itself begins to lie, making the participants believe they have been short-changed, deceived in marriage and that a fling can offer what’s really wanted. It is not so. Affairs seduce the participants from what is real, what is important, what is enduring and significant. If I cannot talk to my wife, talking with someone who is not my wife (or who is someone’s wife) doesn’t help anything one iota. Learning to talk with my wife is where the real action is, it is not in talking with some other lost person looking for a temporary shelter from her own storm.
Affairs are always a poor substitute for a relationship. No matter how intense, how willing each person is, inevitable pain and suffering lies ahead for each person in the seductive cycle. If this is your dilemma break it off today. Go cold turkey. See a professional. Change locks. Change phone numbers. Quit your job if you have to. Run home to your parents! Get out of it. No, you do not owe him or her an explanation or closure. Everyone you love, or thought you loved, will be better off for it.
Copyright 2002, Rod Smith, MSMFT
About the Author: Rod Smith
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
Idiots – always adults, children were surprisingly patient, – would make me repeat sentences as if a repeat performance of the humiliating uncoordinated gesticulations, my arms and legs flying in all directions, would make for an easier delivery the second time. That I’d just spent every ounce of energy trying to cough it up was lost on them. That I was already thoroughly humiliated was something to which they were blind.“Practice, practice,” they’d say as if stutterers simply didn’t speak enough. “Think before you speak. Now – try that again,” they would declare slowly and loudly as if I was stupid and deaf. These thoughtless people were ignorant of just how much stutterers do think. Too much – which is central to the issue!
If I’d known at twelve or thirteen that the day would come when I’d make a career of public speaking I might have strolled off a high-rise building.
Now it is quite easy to hide. I am very comfortable with crowds.
It’s asking driving directions or ordering food at a drive through where it gets tricky. Sitting in a cozy circle waiting for my turn to introduce myself sends my blood-pressure through the roof. The ticket attendant on the London underground can render me dumb after I’ve just spent days addressing a room full of graduate level adults about Family Systems Theory. I know. It sounds ridiculous.
I was almost immobilized the first time I saw Thulani put himself “on duty” in the event he needed to be my mouthpiece. He did it. No one asked him or appointed him. He just did it.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
Our house is the same, but instead of painting from end to end and back again, I am the guy constantly cleaning, – and, it’s hard to tell.
Where I cleaned and swept and dusted and vacuumed and sponged and sterilized yesterday there are scooters and bicycles (boys), mail in piles (me), books (boys and me), newspapers (me), magazines (me), and socks (boys and Max, the Chihuahua).
Turn my back and the boys and Max are at it again – enjoying life as boys (and a dog) while I find being a cleaning lady quite an exhausting challenge.
There is a point of no return, I’ve noticed, or at least a point of the chaos where I feel compelled to let it all go for a while and I throw up my hands and join in the fun of trashing the place.
But when I clean I like to think I’m just like the guy painting the Bridge, which I can only imagine must be a slow and methodical task.
I do it room by room, starting at one end, the front, in the event that I soon lose interest – then, at least, the front room is somewhat in order. I push it (trash, magazines, books, socks, clothes) all back from the living room, through the piano room, then into the TV room until everything lands up in the kitchen.
Once it hits the kitchen I separate out what’s Max’s – he’s has his own set of toys with which he ruins the house – what’s Nate’s, what’s Thulani’s, and what can be recycled, dumped, restacked on bookshelves, placed in drawers, hung on a hanger, or filed in the “important documents” file I keep losing.
We moved into “122” (creatively named for its street number and which has had very few updates since it was built in 1886) when Thulani was about two – and I have been getting it in order ever since. Nate joined us in 2002. Max, in 2009. The house- attachment, at least for the boys and Max, is strong. When I talk of selling Thulani reminds me that Rhino, the husky that was on the run for nine months and returned to die within a few weeks after we reconnected, is buried in an Air France first class cabin blanket just outside of the kitchen door. Nate reminds me of where the fat goldfish is buried and Thulani ends the litany with his inability to think of living in a house without the large tree in the front yard where he has his brother (and Max) have “peed like boys” (and a dog) for the past several years.
So. I’ll go on painting and, before you send me letters about giving the boys chores and responsibilities and assigning daily tasks and getting on top of it before it gets on top of me let me advise that you are barking up the wrong tree (sorry, Max for the dog metaphor) because we do have all that in place and it does work here and there and off and on.
I know, I know. Consistency is the name of the game for parenting and let me tell you, the ONLY thing that is consistent here is the need to keep going room by room with or without the boys (and Max) to get this little bridge painted one stretch at a time so the world can see just how organized and decent our lives are here at our beloved “122.”
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
I am regularly aware that:- I was discouraged from playing soccer in the “front” yard (in view of the neighbors) with the servant’s children. While this may seem insignificant in the light of other much more severe problems rising from racism, it was huge for me as a child on several fronts. I loved the children and I loved soccer even more. They were excellent soccer players.
- I did attend a segregated school as did almost all white South Africans while there did exist some church schools that were integrated even under Apartheid. I vividly recall my school principal scolding the entire student body (over a thousand white boys) because a domestic worker (a black adult man) was seen walking in the neighborhood wearing a school blazer.
- Although, by no means wealthy, I was waited on hand and foot by a full-time servant.
- In the late 80s I was warned not to pray publicly for Prisoner “Nelson” Mandela from my church pulpit.
- A member of my family did balk at my request that I bring black children to his home-swimming pool to swim.
- Even as late as 1987 I was embarrassed that a young black boy whom I’d “helped” in his squatter camp had shown up at my door unannounced. I recall wondering what the neighbors would think seeing a child arriving at the home for a social visit and not to work in the yard.While I am aware that these are piddly problems in the light of what millions faced under the Apartheid regime, I am also aware that these factors in my immediate environment “shaped” me into believing perverse things (like in my own superiority and in “their” inferiority) about persons of other race groups. More significantly, I am frequently reminded that my children and I could not have shared life as we now do if we were still living in the era of Apartheid.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
That’s the upside.
We are a 10-hour-drive to the nearest coast – and, most of the east coast beaches are not worth the drive. The west coast, which has many wonderful beaches comparable to where I was reared, takes three full days of driving to reach.
Being landlocked is one thing but another is the weather. Indiana weather is erratic, neurotic, and downright psychotic.
Days ago I could’ve (but I didn’t) ice-skated across the street. Now, as I write, there’s a small lake in the street next to the sidewalk from last night’s rain. The weather is so brutal and extreme (it is as hot as blazes in the summers) that when we do drive anywhere (there are no grocery stores in walking distance) the streets are often full of potholes making some of America’s finest suburban streets resemble stretches of road you’d find in a rural stretch of South Africa’s Wild Coast. So, I am exaggerating but really not too much. Washington Boulevard is a challenge to drive right now, you have got to dodge potholes and loose pavement or, unless you drive a tank, you stand to severely damage your suspension.
But I do love living here. My neighbors are some of my best friends. My children are free and safe in the neighborhood and everyone knows everyone’s children. Even as I write Joseph (born a week or so before Thulani) from down the street has wondered into the house and it is quite likely he will eat with us, stay the night, and then wander down back down the street to his home sometime in the morning. His mom and I will talk sometime between now and nightfall unless he of course chooses to wonder off home and be gone just as quickly as he showed up.
Potholes and crazy weather won’t send us running, although we will drive to church in the morning – even though it is really close. I’m not sure I want to brave the elements which could be a snow-storm, an ice storm, the threat of a tornado – or a little or a lot of each. What else could you expect during March in Indiana?
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper. Of course you can go baby-stuff-shopping, get a room painted, stencil yellow ducks on the wall – if you know long enough in advance your child is coming. But painting a bedroom with ducks and rainbows and a pot of gold, and getting a truck load of stuff from your local one-stop baby emporium will only fill your home with a lot of weird and wonderful, and mostly unnecessary, equipment.
Children interrupt everything. It is the child who is really ready to teach you, whether you are or not. Once he arrives he will become the hub of all your scheduling. You will be fine with this because the child is not an interruption to your life but rather, from this point on, central to it.
The baby will make you ready and you can’t really prepare for the baby until he is breathing in the crib right next to your bed.
Life inside the Smith household
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11 Comments
Rosemarie
Affairs as you put it are the woo of the issues a person must face. He has only made matters worse by treating me and the kids unfairly and warranting his affirmations by making cruel comments.
A few weeks after he left i was diagnosed with cancer. He was devasted, but refused to leave his girlfriend. Devasted enough only to force his ways to my dr’s appointment but carefully enough not too send the wrong message to his girlfriend and convince her that the only reason he was doing this is because i am the mother of his children.
Affairs, are masks created by insecurities and fueled by the adrenalin that feeds him passion and zeal to feel young again. He has lost weight and hangs around with people half his age.
I have no further strength and tired of knocking on doors looking for the hope and love that i think he still feels for me but is refusing to acknowledge. i didn’t allow him to help me with my treatments. When i did it only permitted me to see that he still cared and this only caused me more pain because of this other relationship that he so painfully hangs on to.
True, i don’t know what is going on with him and her behind closed doors. I don’t know what is fueling him through this whole ordeal. Is it really my job to know? This is a journey that he must make on his own and see things through his own eyes. I can only sit back and through it all keep myself together for my own children, because who is going to be there for them? Most days I wake up and feel weak and feel cheated; some other days I wake up and am ready of a world of independence. I constantly looking for sources of strength that I get from my friends and watching my children grow.
25 Jul 2006 01:07 pm
Rod Smith
thanks Rosemarie — please contact me if you’d like to talk…….
SKYPE address: “RodESmithMSMFT”
25 Jul 2006 01:07 pm
Rod Smith
also, see DifficultMen.com
25 Jul 2006 01:07 pm
Sugarfree Vanilla
I read this with sinking pain. How many have read this and thought, “that’s not how it is for us – we’re different”. I know that’s how I feel. I also know that on most levels I’m wrong.
We’ve both tried to end it. Four times now, I think. The last time it was my attempt and I lasted barely a month before I couldn’t bear it any longer. I missed him so much, I was so lonely without him. When I returned to him, he was angry at me for taking us away. A week later, he was anguished telling me we had to stop, had to end. And then we talked for hours and he told me he couldn’t give me up and I cannot give him up.
He’s never offered more, I’ve never asked it. But I’ve wished for it. Before I got divorced, it worked for us both. But I changed; I got out of my marriage for other reasons. Now, well now I want him. I am terrified at the thought of losing my last touchstone. I cannot think about anything else but the few hours a week we spend together. I know he’s unhappy and I see the evolution and I see that his own marriage will not last forever.
He’s a good man. I am a good woman. I never expected to love someone like this and even though we’ve never used that word, I know he loves me too. I also know that I have never been in love before until now. My ex husband and I never had this. I am afraid of trying to start again. I have only loved two men in my life and the first was not even real love, I know that now. It took me 35 years to find this person who ignites my body and my mind. The thought of leaving it behind, even the limited time we do have together, frightens me more than I could ever truly say. I don’t know how to meet someone else.
I’m too afraid.
14 Aug 2006 08:08 pm
Lost in Florida
Hi Sugarfree,
I was involved in an affair with a married man while I was married. It was exciting and passionate and I felt alive. I did not leave my husband of 12 years during the affair but it strained the marriage and my children so badly that we have since seperated. I feel a lot of what Rod had to say up top is right on the money, and I have lost everything that was important to me because I thought I loved him.
You didn’t mention how long the affair has been going on, but if it has been a while, there is a reason that you two have not told each other that you love one another. If it has been short, like mine was (but intense), then you may be in love with the excitement, the passion, the way he treats you when you are together. This is the feeling I had. But he went home to his family and I went home to mine after our meetings. It became unbearable, living two lives and the constant cover-ups.
He did not want to commit, or should I say, he did not want to leave his family and life. You also didn’t mention if you have children from your marriage. I have two teenagers, who were preteens when this all happened. They have had a lot a trust issues with me and stored up anger. My husband (maybe soon to be ex) is not a bad man. He provides for us and is involved in the community. I just felt like things were stale between us, so I looked elsewhere. When I was involved in the affair, I thought I didn’t love him, because I was so convinced that other man was the greatest thing on earth. After some time I realized that I was being selfish. I let everything else slip, the house, our friends, the kids, because I was crazy in the head over this guy.
I now go to see a counsellor to work on this. I hope to work with my husband soon too. Yes, I have issues with him, but in the end, they seem trivial now and I think we could work it out. I’m sorry that you were not able to work it out with yours, but maybe the reasons for your divorce were significant.
I have also looked around at other websites and done some reading into the subject. I can’t quote anything, because I have a bad memory, but there is good advice out there. I found out the hard way that affairs are hurtful to everyone involved. Especially to me, because I have to live with it now. I hope you can figure it out and don’t worry about meeting someone, it will happen.
11 Sep 2006 07:09 pm
rosemarie
After all this time, i am here to tell a story. my story continues from up above. Its been over a year. There is nothing i see that is consistent this whole year except that he is still with her. It has been a few weeks that he has not signed the divorce papers. He seems to want to come and hug me and come and have casual conversation with me. He still checks me out when he sees me. His behavior is confusing. He has broken down a couple of times and he says its because of his children. I’m not sure what to think. Help!
11 Feb 2007 08:02 pm
Singsweet
WoW! I happened to fall upon this site and I am so amazed at all the responses on this matter. I am not proud of what I am about to say….but I fell in love with a married man. It started out as a professional relationship, but he flirted and pursued me and eventually I relented. I believed him when he said “nothing would change between us professionally”. I believed him when he said “I have never done this before”….but little clues led me to believe different. The fact that when his wife called him on his cell and he answered while I was present…he would look me straight in the eye and not act nervous at all. Another time….I tested this, but hugging him while he was conversing with her and he did not wince, or push me away at all! So, either he really hated her or he is very used to this situation. I wised up and left this relationship…..she caught on….and you could tell that she had dealt with this before….she wasn’t even angry…it was more like…..”here we go again” type of attitude…..I feel sorry for her. He is “high profile”, makes a good living and they have several young kids. If hurt to leave, because I did love him….probably still do…but bottom line…it was so wrong!! One doesn’t intentionally try to get into these situations….at least I didn’t….it just happened, and like a fool I fell for his charms. Don’t be stupid like I was…..realize…that if they REALLY loved you?? They would leave her for you….but then…..”buyer beware”….you just might get what you wished for!?!? Hmmmm………!?! No Thanks!! I don’t want to spend MY marriage looking over my shoulder and babysitting my husband…..just like it has been stated previously….it they did it to them? What is to stop them from doing it to you?? What makes you better?? You are NOT the mother of his kids, you do NOT own property together, you do NOT have a history together….so why wouldn’t he cheat on you too?? Just an FYI….take it from someone who knows….
OH!!……yeah…here’s an update for you…..AFTER I broke it off with him….I ran into a girl at a nightclub and she told he that he had sex with one of her co-workers!!! Now who would have thought!! ~
13 Jan 2008 09:01 pm
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
Dear Singsweet:
Thanks for your reply and your insights.
I trust your reflections will be read and informative to many women.
Rod Smith
13 Jan 2008 09:01 pm
A woman writes, after ending her affair….. « Difficult Relationships by Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
[...] This comment was left on the article found here: http://rodesmith.com/2006/01/13/the-seductive-nature-of-an-extramaritial-affair/ [...]
» Marriage Help: After the Affair Full Tilt Marriage.com
[...] This comment was left on the article found here: rodesmith.com/2006/01/13/the-seductive-nature-of-an-extramaritial-affair/ [...]
Please read this post if your are interested in understanding affairs… « I am listening….
[...] Please read this post if your are interested in understanding affairs… Posted on April 6, 2009 by Rod E. Smith, MSMFT http://rodesmith.com/2006/01/13/the-seductive-nature-of-an-extramaritial-affair/ [...]
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