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For me, infidelity includes one or more of these three constitutive elements: secrecy, sexual alchemy, and emotional involvement.
One of the powerful attributes of secrecy is its function as a portal for autonomy and control.
affairs sometimes involve sex and sometimes not, but they are always erotic.
Desire is rooted in absence and longing.
many affairs are less about sex than about desire: the desire to feel desired, to feel special, to be seen and connected, to compel attention. All these carry an erotic frisson that makes us feel alive, renewed, recharged.
those who are most successful in keeping the erotic spark alive are those who are comfortable with the mystery in their midst. Even if they are monogamous in their actions, they recognize that they do not own each other’s sexuality. It is precisely the elusiveness of the other that keeps them coming back to discover more.
So many “emotional affairs” are pulsing with sexual tension, regardless of whether genitals have made contact, and giving them a new label seems to me to promote erotic reductionism. Clearly, affairs can be sexual without involving a penis entering a vagina, and in such cases, it is more helpful to call a spade a spade.
In the aftermath of betrayal, authentic guilt, leading to remorse, is an essential repair tool. A sincere apology signals a care for and commitment to the relationship, a sharing of the burden of suffering, and a restoration of the balance of power.
The impact of an affair is not necessarily proportional to its length or seriousness.
romantic love literally is an addiction, lighting up the same areas of the brain as cocaine or nicotine.
Weaning oneself off of obsessive thinking about a lost love, she concludes, is akin to breaking a dependency on drugs.
Sometimes silence is caring. Before you unload your guilt onto an unsuspecting partner, consider, whose well-being are you really thinking of?
affairs as a form of self-discovery, a quest for a new (or a lost) identity.
In my experience, most affairs end, even if the marriage ends as well.
The quest for the unexplored self is a powerful theme of the adulterous narrative.
Adultery is often the revenge of the deserted possibilities.
One of the essential components of recovery is finding ways to reintroduce the many pieces that were abandoned or exiled along the way.
I frequently witness affairs occurring on the heels of loss or tragedy. When the grim reaper knocks at the door—a parent passes, a friend goes too soon, a baby is lost—the jolt of love and sex delivers a vital affirmation of life.
We seek stability and belonging, qualities that propel us toward committed relationships, but we also thrive on novelty and diversity.
we crave security and we crave adventure,
The permanence and stability that we seek in our intimate connections can stifle their sexual spark,
Reconciling the erotic and the domestic is not a problem to solve; it is a paradox to manage.
The victim of the affair is not always the victim of the marriage.
Sometimes we need the actual experience of being with another person to taste a sweeter life and have the guts to go after it.
infidelity may be an expression of self-preservation and self-determination.
“monogamish,” which signifies remaining emotionally committed to each other but making space for the third, whether in fantasy, flirtation, flings, threesomes, sex parties, or Grindr pickups.
monogamy exists on a continuum.
Having feelings and desires for others is natural, and we have a choice whether to act on them or not.
Successful nonmonogamy means that two people straddle commitment and freedom together.
infidelity can destroy a relationship, sustain it, force it to change, or create a new one.
To repair is to re-pair.
When we validate each other’s freedom within the relationship, we may be less inclined to go looking for it elsewhere.
The ongoing challenge for steady couples is to find ways to collaborate in transgression, rather than transgressing against each other or their bond.
commitment. Each of these long-standing couples has chosen not to ignore the lure of the forbidden, but rather to subvert its power by inviting it in.
Our partners do not belong to us; they are only on loan, with an option to renew—or not.
