Read these
“18 reasons why not to have affair”,
if you’re tempted to try it.
Part 1, of a 2 part series.
Part 2 of this post is: “When you’re tempted to have an affair”
with reasons 10-18, because it would be too long of a post for one.
Why would someone have an affair when they knew in their hearts it’s wrong?
How do otherwise good people decide to get into an affair? Hey, there’s no judgement here, because I was one of them.
But I want to talk to those who may just be thinking of having an affair.
There’s usually a period of time, when a person is just thinking of cheating on their spouse. It all starts in our minds, my friend.
Is that you right now?
Although we may justify, to ourselves, that our flirting is innocent;
it’s a dangerous game of playing with fire.
If you play too close to infidelity, you’ll eventually be burned.
So, if you’ve found yourself thinking of having an affair,
even just entertaining the thoughts occasionally,
here are some things you should consider before following through.
These are 18 reasons why not to have an affair, a warning, before you get swept up into it:
1.The affair is an illusion that life will be better with this new person.
We usually choose to only see their positive qualities. We’re often blinded to anything negative. It’s only later on, after we’ve entered into an affair, that we realize the affair actually made our lives worse.
The affair partner wasn’t an angel in disguise after all.
And would you really be happy if you married this person?
2. Secrecy and Lies will become your new normal.
You’ll begin to change into something you won’t even recognize.
Your life will be characterized by lies and deceit. The very existence of an affair needs secrecy to survive, and so you’ll find more ways to lie everyday.
Only these lies will be to the very person you vowed to love and cherish the rest of your days.Keeping those lies straight will become your part of your daily thoughts, wondering who you said what to. Callousness will easily grow in your heart as you find yourself not caring as much about your former values, like you once did.
3. Your secret will find you out.
You will be caught eventually. Part of the illusion (#1) is thinking that you won’t be caught. It may not happen immediately, or next month, but it will happen.
Secrets don’t stay secrets for very long. People usually like having the latest gossip on others. So once people find out, your ‘secret’ will likely spread like wildfire.
4. Your integrity and reputation will be lost.
No matter how many years you’ve spent building up your reputation, it only takes one act of moral indiscretion to lose it. It will deeply impact those you love, and hurt them to the core.
Those closest to you will be very disappointed, and their trust in your integrity often won’t return for many years. Some friends you’ve known for years will leave the friendship, as they
can’t stay friends with a ‘cheater’. Trust me, it happens all the time.
5. ‘Do as I say not as I do’.
Anyone who looked up to you, or who trusted you, won’t value what you say as much now.
It’s difficult to tell our children to not do drugs when we do them ourselves. So it is with adultery.
The values we taught them will look hypocritical now, particularly with our children.
That respect is not impossible to return, but it’s a very long road back to being a moral example.
(this one breaks my heart, to think of how deeply I hurt my own sons.)
6. Your spouse’s trust in you will be lost.
Sometimes that trust can eventually return, but sometimes it cannot.
Even if your marriage does eventually survive, trust takes a lot of work, and many years to return.
Living under suspicion is never a fun place to be and you’ll have to explain your actions and whereabouts for awhile.
7. You’ll spend years putting your life back together.
The guilt and shame you’ll feel about yourself will likely linger a long time. The lie is that we’re ‘only’ being unfaithful in our marriage.
But the reality is, we’ve broken trust and relationships with others in our lives too.
And the fact is, we hurt ourselves, and our own souls, in the process as well.
8. Guilt and shame will become your new companions.
You’ll find it hard to shake the guilt and shame at first.
No matter how much you ignore those feelings, your own moral convictions will prove you do.
You can ignore the convictions for a while, but they’ll grow bigger and get louder. It’s called our conscience.
And if you continue on, you risk a hardened and cold heart. That’s not much better.
Overcoming the shame from infidelity isn’t an easy thing to do.
9. Nobody usually ever “affair’s up”.
This means the person you have an affair with, is most likely way lower on the scale of moral integrity, conviction and positive character traits.
Maybe they’re more attractive, or they make more money.
But the fact is, most people “affair down” not up. Look at it closely, is this person really better than your spouse?
Where is their maturity, loyalty, spirituality, integrity and other important character traits?
Just the fact that they’re willing to cheat with you, shows their character is lacking.
True Love rejoices in the truth. Is this person encouraging you to be truthful or to lie?
Continue to Part 2 (numbers 10-18, of this post): “When you’re tempted to have an affair”.
Here are some other posts you might also find helpful:
If you’re already caught in the trap of an affair:
read my post on breaking off an affair.
How to end an affair for good.
Why ending an affair is so hard.
Your blogs have been very helpful for me in learning to cope with my wife’s affair. We were together for 9 years and married for 5. She one day told me in October that she had been feeling unhappy and disconnected from me off and on for a year. But never told me. I know things were hard because we have two small children together and we didn’t make enough quality time for each other. But if I knew she was unhappy, I would have done anything to fix it. She left me in emotional limbo for a month letting me try to work on things and then tells me that there was someone else. I did tje math and she had been talking to this guy since the middle of September. So she didn’t tell me about being unhappy until she met someone else. She also eluded to the fact that she was in love with him after only knowing him for a month and a half. Come to find out she was sneaking around with him while I was at home taking care of the kids. We have been separated now for a little over two months because she wants a divorce. She acts like a completely different person. She has also had to deal with the consequences and reality of her decision through having to pay the mortgage by herself (I moved out), having to pay me child support since she makes more, loss of custody (50/50), disapproval from her family and mine, etc. yet she continues on the same path. She has shown some remorse and guilt.
Sometimes I feel so lost. I just don’t understand how all of this could be worth it for her.
My husband has been having an affair since May. We separated a few months ago. He’s never apologized or shown ANY remorse. We’ve been together for over 10 years (no children) and we certainly didn’t have a bad or volatile marriage. We just kind of fell into a rut (what marriage doesn’t)? It completely baffles me that he’s willing to give up everything we worked so hard for over the years for someone he’s only known for less than six months (she also lives on another coast)!
We are in the process of divorcing and in the little communication we have, he simply says we must move forward. I believe my husband is having a massive midlife crisis. I also believe he’s fully entrenched in the affair fog. I know his infidelity is due to his own insecurities and it had nothing to do with me.
So I’m moving on with the divorce and will soon be moving out and selling the house. I honestly don’t know when the fog will lift, it certainly didn’t when he was served with the divorce papers. If that didn’t wake him up, I’m not sure anything will. I know he thinks he’s in love with her and has rewritten our marriage to be horrible. I haven’t begged him to come home or for us to stay together. I’ve stayed to myself and have been going to counseling to better myself.
I guess my question is, have you heard of situations like mine where a husband gives up everything with no care in the world, completely abandon his wife… Do they ever regret the affair down the road? The newness of their relationship will ware off, I’m assuming because it’s long distance the affair fog may linger longer.
I’m so sorry you are dealing with this. I did send you an email a few weeks ago with some more thoughts. But you asked if it’s possible for your husband to later regret the affair. Absolutely. It is actually very common once the affair fog lifts and they see their affair partner in everyday real life. They usually come to realize every person has faults and they just traded one for another. It doesn’t help you now though and I’m sure this has been very devastating for you.
Take care of you right now. Be good to yourself and don’t blame yourself or think you weren’t enough. This is about him, not you.
-Debbie
I’m on about the same timeline as you. I accidentally found out about the girlfriend the end of October, 18. I told him to leave and we have had no contact – per my lawyer’s advice. My daughter (his step-daughter) has sent him three “lawyer scripted” texts. I hate that she is the messenger.
Today, he signed the listing agreement for our house. I had to initiate this because he is paying no bills. He is probably still buried in a fog or ego. I is probably truly gone because he just said that he “met someone” and that he was done with the marriage. Typical story of enjoying our simple, fun life one week and the Discovery Day the next.
We didn’t even get to say good-bye.
I’m so sorry to hear you’re go through this. It’s made harder by not even being able to say good-bye and have some type of closure.
It sounds like you’re right, he may very well be buried in the affair fog. All you can do now is work on you and take care of yourself and your daughter.
Journal your thoughts and anger if you can, and find a good counselor to help you process your feelings. The support will be really important in your own healing and recovery
and knowing that this was in no way your fault.