Good People and Affairs

From When Good People Have Affairs by Mira Kirshenbaum

Here's the real reason good people have affairs. You're in a relationship that has problems. You don't know how to fix those problems. You're frustrated and confused. You don't know what to do. So you head into an affair. When you know what kind of affair you're having, you'll better understand what you're trying to get for yourself. Stay tuned for the 17 most common kinds of affairs.

The See-If Affair

The reasoning behind this kind of affair is to see if being with a new person will solve your problems. You want to see if you can be happier with someone else. Ultimately, though, the new relationship is really all about shedding light on your first relationship. What are you trying to see if? If it's to see if you can be happier with someone else, ask yourself, Am I? If not, then you don't need the affair. If yes, then it's served its purpose.

The Ejector-Seat Affair

Anytime you have an affair there's a danger that it will blow your marriage out of the water. But some people feel trapped. This kind of affair is a way out. If you've been careless about getting caught and, honestly, would be relieved if your partner found you out, you're in an ejector-seat affair. Stop being in denial about how "trapped" you are and get on with it. Warning: Just because you're looking for a way out of one relationship doesn't mean you should make a commitment to the person you're having the affair with.

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The Heating-Up-Your-Marriage Affair

Here's the classic scenario. You have an affair. It's eh. Your partner finds out. He or she is really upset, devastated, mad, etc. But at the same time, amazingly, things get a lot hotter in bed. If this rings true, your affair will probably die a natural death and your marriage will improve. The heating up of marital sex is a sign that something needed shaking up.

The Distraction Affair

Answer this: Did you feel stuck in your life but didn't know what to do about it prior to the affair? If you're in a distraction affair, you're in tremendous jeopardy. Not only do you risk ending a perfectly good relationship, but the pain and craziness of struggling and breaking up just may delay what you really need to do. That is, figure out how you want to live.

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The Break-Out-Into-Selfhood Affair

This is the opposite of a distraction affair. With this affair, you're finding your way back to who you really are and what's most important to you. It's as if part of you was lost, and something about the affair helps you find that missing piece. It's not the affair itself you need; let that go before it destroys you life. What you need to do bring that missing part of you back into your life.

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I Just-Needed-To-Indulge-Myself Affair

Thoreau said people lead lives of quiet desperation. Some of us lead lives of married desperation. You'll know if it's an indulgence affair if, yes, you feel guilty but you also feel you deserve it. Oh, and you also enjoy how good it feels. The danger here is that guilty feelings can lead people into big trouble. Don't make the affair into something it's not. Write it off as something you needed and then figure out what's making things so unrewarding in your primary relationship. Now do something about it.

The Let's-Kill-This-Relationship-and-See-If-It-Comes-Back-to-Life Affair

Think of it like chemotherapy: Giving poison to someone who is sick in the hopes of saving their life. Here, you're looking to give your marriage a perhaps fatal blow, and then see if the two of you can thaw the icy walls that have grown around the relationship. With this kind of affair, you never know how it will turn out.

The Unmet-Needs Affair

This is a dilemma. If you go outside the relationship to get an important need met (say, sex or emotional connection), it's a betrayal. But if you never find or fulfill that need, it's an awful waste. Get into couples therapy to work on getting your need met at home. If that isn't workable, consider this: Your needs might be more important than your marriage.

The Having-Experiences-I-Missed-Out-On Affair

Here, the unmet need isn't something in the present; it's something from the past. Women without a lot of relationship experience often have affairs like this to make sure that they haven't missed out on something important. Want to be with someone much older or younger? A different ethnic group or someone who's very artistic? What's it like to be with someone who just wants to throw you down on the bed and have sex with you all the time? Alright, now you did it. It shouldn't change your life.