Every romantic and/or relationship situation deserves a fair analysis. I have found when I don’t do these in the past and go on my confidence in my intuition, that isn’t a reputable source of good will towards my mental health.
As mentioned in previous posts, I am involved with a married man. In researching this online, there is very little positive to find other than “the sex is amazing”, which is true. There is a lot you sign on for, that doesn’t cash out until much later—it isn’t evident in the short term, and I have fell victim to those types of behaviors before (smoking comes to mind).
My ongoing justification for the romance and sexual nature of the relationship is the compatibility. We even made a list of 50 things, purportedly objective, of things we would want in another person and we meet a high percentage of those things—but from my reading, it misses the point.
The statistics say that 95% of all married people will meet somebody more compatible than who they married. Of those 95%, most said they found several people more compatible than who they married, and one or two far more compatible than the person they married. That makes sense—but this also tells me people who remarry will at some point again find somebody more compatible than the person they married. Clearly choosing the person you will spend the rest of your life is the most important decision one will ever make. Also, there has to be a line drawn on what qualifies as “compatible enough” to a place where when all of the quirks and faults of your mate are accentuated with time, the factors of compatibility will outweigh the scales positively and keep the integrity of the unit you have built. I digress.
Had I made my list before being involved in an extra-marital affair, I most certainly would have listed “not-married” as a deal breaker. I am a woman of worth, and do not deserve to be put second to another woman—only children, if applicable—yet, here I am. Temporarily (?) we have made the choice to be just friends. To most that would seem like the right decision, but what everybody else thinks is best is not always best, so I think a thorough analysis is due.
What will take place if we revert to being romantic and sexual? On the positive end, we would get the immediate satisfaction in indulging our desires—but what beyond that? Hmm, is there anything beyond that?
On the negative end, I will have to deal with the slow subconscious degrading of my self-worth, knowing that I am being put second in this man’s life. I will have the anxiety of not only being caught, but being judged by my family and friends. I will risk being looked upon poorly at my place of work if we are caught. I will risk his wife finding out, his wife telling his kids when they are old enough to understand, slandering my name, and making overall life with him much more difficult. It was easy for me to say that I could deal with that in light of the compatibility and chemistry, but we all know that over time that the negatives are amplified, that the chemistry dies out, and at some point we meet somebody we have greater compatibility with. How would all those negatives sit over time?
More likely than not, some negative things that would arise over time would also be: the weight of the guilt in feeling like I was continually putting fuel in the fire of their breaking up. Why would I intentionally choose to carry that, when I clearly do not have to do that? Additionally, knowing that he and I did not have the self-control to stop ourselves, how could we ever have confidence in each other to remain faithful when that person with greater compatibility likely did enter our lives? I wouldn’t want him to doubt me, and I sure as hell would not want to doubt him.
“Relationships born out of affairs survive less than 5 percent of the time.” That isn’t a very good statistic. However, 67% of second marriages end in divorce; that is nearly a 30% delta. I am improving my chances of success by nearly a third. Lastly, being friends, and eventually having my head cleared by abstaining from romance and intense sexual chemistry, and lightly dating others will give me much needed perspective to deeply evaluate and analyze if this is as good of a match as I think it is at this point in time. Being that it is the most important decision in my life, do I really want to initiate evaluating it in a cloud of confusion generated by guilt, sex, romance, anxiety, and depression?
So after writing three large paragraphs of negatives, and the only real positive being that “immediate satisfaction in indulging our desires”, how could I do anything other than just be friends? It would be irresponsible. I have kept very few fortunes from fortune cookies in my life, but I do remember one, “Do as you wish as long as you hurt no one”. I really believe that, and in participating in an extra-marital affair, I am directly risking and disobeying that mantra. I can’t accept that for the woman I aspire to be.
