First of all, most affairs are based upon fantasy, and a fantasy is always more alluring than reality, especially when you add about the years spent together, the resentments that have built up, and the responsibilities pulling you in multiple directions to that reality. Add kids, mortgages, mood swings, PMS, menopause, financial pressures and you have a recipe for potential disaster if help is not sought out soon enough.  Affairs are based upon another life that is free from the pressures of life and reality. It’s easier (albeit selfish and cowardly) to have an affair than it is to do the work to fix your marriage or yourself.

The grass always looks greener after about 5 or 10 years of marriage, and we don’t make the connection early enough sometimes that if we’ll nourish our own relationship, we can have what we want in our marriage, not an affair.

An affair partner may seem more appealing to your spouse because the lust associated with an affair partner can seem overpowering and just plain fantastical. It’s new. There are no kids in the way.  It’s automatic and electric. The nature of it is like a drug.

The reality though, is it was probably that way when you and your spouse first started out as well.

Love becomes a choice as we get older and more mature.

Samantha is who and what I want to date. Our sex life has been redeemed in a way which one couple hearing our story said “Are you lying…that seems unrealistic?” It’s truth. Yes there are some bad times. Yes we fight frequently about money, child rearing and normal stuff. But I have no desire to be with my affair partner, and I don’t want a new affair partner. Yes, I am tempted and yes there are temptations that follow me around, but life is different now. I have accountability in place. I have my head on straight. Samantha and I are more connected than we’ve ever been before.

There will always be someone who is younger and more voluptuous. That’s lust. That’s fantasy. Samantha can find someone else who is also bigger, stronger, more muscular, and more attractive. I get that too.

If the betrayed lives in constant comparison mode, the opportunity for new life remains limited. If the unfaithful refuses to get the right help, he/she may stay stuck, disconnected from his affair partner in the visible world, yet still paralyzed by the desire for reconnection with them.  

The truth is, an affair partner may seem more alluring than you (or your spouse) as it’s about escapism and fantasy.  Escapism is fun but unrealistic and forever damaging to your mate.  

Don’t allow yourself to be paralyzed by comparison. It’s toxic and is about torturing yourself or your mate, and no one needs that my friend.