Have you ever experienced an affair in a relationship? It could have been a sexual or an emotional affair. It’s always painful and frustrating when an affair occurs and it ruins the foundation of the relationship built on trust. The both of you are now left to pick up the pieces and start over.
When these situations arise, the major question that recovering partners try to answer is “What went wrong?” Based on research conducted earlier by others in the relationship field, the following are the causes of betrayal and affair in relationships.
TURNING AWAY
Partners can make an emotional bid that is met with turning away or against instead of turning toward. Turning away would include ignoring or being preoccupied with something else while turning against would be a retort or a lash back. When “Would you like to plan for the weekend?” is met with silence or “Can’t you see that I am busy?” the bidding partner feels rejected and hurt. Over time repeated failed bids lead to reiterating the belief that “you are not there for me,” and trust associated with the partner starts to erode gradually. An anticipatory rejection starts to flood (stress) the bidding partner, making them feel vulnerable, insignificant, or unwanted.
NEGATIVITY AND AVOIDANCE
The bidding partner soon enters the negative absorbing state, which is the negative affect from past failed bids building up with every new failed bid. It gets easier to get into the negative state but challenging to exit, resulting in a persistent negative state of mind. Soon unheeded requests turn out to be stressful and pointless arguments. Therefore bidding partner suppresses feelings and needs, leading to avoidance of conflict and self-disclosure.
INVESTING LESS AND COMPARING MORE
When partners favourably evaluate the relationship compared to other alternatives, they are more likely to stay committed to the relationship, as Thibaut and Kelley suggest. Therefore, the unfavourable comparisons propel a relationship towards a lack of commitment and betrayal. The bidding partner starts negatively comparing the partner with a real or imaginary partner who would make them feel cherished. As approaching the partner with an emotional bid is found futile, bidding and investing in the partner reduces, while substituting begins.
FEELING LESS DEPENDENT AND MAKING FEWER SACRIFICES
Commitment is a gradual process of making a good comparison level for the relationship within alternatives. Similarly, the opposite process of un-commitment is a gradual process of damaging comparison levels with other options. Commitment leads people to make sacrifices while building interdependency. It also leads to disparaging alternatives in comparison to their partner. As reliability or dependability on the partner lessens, trust reduces. The partner opens up to others and engages in talks (or self-talks) that magnify the relationship’s negative qualities.
INSULTING VS. CHERISHING
As one maximizes the partner’s negative qualities, one also minimizes positive characteristics. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (defensiveness, criticism, contempt, and stonewalling) become rampant. It is suggested that people committed to their relationship should cherish their partner by reminiscing about the positives with gratitude, even when not together. An essential part of a relationship, cherishing and expressing gratitude, is replaced with trash-talking the partner (directly and in front of others).
RESENTMENT AND LONELINESS IN RELATIONSHIP
Gratitude for the partner becomes replaced with bitterness. Resentment seeps in with silent arguments such as feeling the partner is selfish and uncaring. There is loneliness enhanced with unfavourable comparisons like “my ex would have understood me better” or “my colleague is more there for me than my partner.” With loneliness, vulnerability to other relationships increases. The built-up resentment results in low sexual desire and impersonal sex. The refusal to have sex may result in the partner’s blaming, leading to further feelings of rejection, and the affair cascade intensifies.
IDEALIZING ALTERNATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
There is less dependency on a partner, less reliance on the relationship for meeting essential needs, less investment in the relationship while idealizing alternative relationships, and thinking fewer positive pro-relationship thoughts. Instead, anti-relationship thoughts take over like “maybe we will be better off without each other,” “it may be a relief to let go of the relationship than hold on,” etc. The window between the partners is replaced with a wall, as the window opens up to outsiders. Other harmless liaisons provide the safe house.
SECRETS AND CROSSING BOUNDARIES
Secrets begin with omission. The other patterns such as inconsistencies, lies, confidence violations follow. While in cherishing relationships, interactions with others that hurt the partner are avoided, in denigrating relationships, ties with others are sought to fill the prevailing emotional gaps. As the hiding increases with the partner, there is an active turning toward others, and at a vulnerable moment, boundaries are crossed, and actual betrayal unfolds.
These are enough reasons to push many people into seeking emotional satisfaction outside the relationship and cause an affair. When an affair occurs, one partner experiences shattering guilt while the other partner experiences an intense feeling of betrayal. The broken trust can overtime develop into PTSD.
Whenever issues arise in your relationship, do your best to work on them and don’t let it get to the stage of an affair because the consequences can be devastating. Love and light, Wonder.
