Love Affair: A Psychological Perspective on Extramarital Affairs

Chapter 43
But everytime I feel sick to myself afterwards.I feel so despicable and disgraceful that I don't understand why I would be so shameless to slander my wife and our relationship for the sake of possessing a woman's body.I don't know why I have to be human with a different mask.And all this is for the right to sleep with a member of the opposite sex.So I didn’t dare to look my wife in the eyes when I got home. In order to make up for the guilt I felt towards my wife, I cared more about her and the life of the children than ever before, and always bought some items that made my wife feel too extravagant. Always used a grand form to celebrate the birthday of the wife and daughter.My wife sometimes feels flattered by my behavior, she keeps saying that I know you love me and the kids, but you don't need to spend so much money and energy on us.We are already living a good life, you don't have to think about us too much.But how could she know that I was using this method to compensate for the guilt I felt behind my wife's back. I wanted to balance my mind and make myself feel better.

If one day she finds out, I won't divorce her either.In fact, I have no real feelings for those women.We are each other's playful mutual use.I know that such behavior doesn't fit the image of a man of status, position and education like me.In terms of gender issues, my appearance is very sanctimonious, but my inner world is very dirty. I just use the appearance of an angel to cover up my inner ugliness.

Sometimes I also want to be a gentleman, especially when I am occasionally rejected by a woman, I am very embarrassed and painful.Because I have always considered myself to be an excellent man who is loved by all women, regardless of my temperament, appearance, or my intellectual ability and spiritual connotation, I consider myself to be the best among men.I think that I should be successful in developing a special relationship with any woman, but after listening to my confession, several women not only did not sympathize with me, but instead treated me with respect and indifference.So whenever at that time I would resentfully think of the many benefits of my wife, I would hate that woman especially, I am a particularly sensitive man, I can’t stand the stimulation of being rejected, so every time I encounter this situation Sometimes I feel very humiliated, I feel very humiliated, and it makes me lose my confidence in myself.

In addition to being rejected occasionally, there is another situation that makes me feel very humiliated.There are a few women who have slept with me, and after they have been with me for a while, I alienate them out of liking the new and loathing the old, but after a while I will think of them and invite them to come and hang out, but They probably guessed that I wanted to pull them into bed again, so they found reasons to shirk me, and showed me a cold look. Every time I encountered this situation, I became very angry, and my self-esteem and self-confidence When I was frustrated, as long as I thought about it afterwards, I felt very uncomfortable.

I want to be an honest man who wants to be a loyal wife, especially after encountering occasional setbacks of rejection, I have developed the image of a good husband who wants to restore my previous focus on nothing else.What's more, my wife is still a very attractive and excellent woman in the eyes of other men. I shouldn't sneak around like this. This kind of indecent behavior is really incompatible with my social image.But I can't stop, every time I stop at a stage, I can't help falling in love with a woman who fell in love at first sight, I can't stop even if I want to.

The results of extramarital affairs are nothing more than two: one is to break the current combination and switch to a new one; the other is to retreat after going crazy and making noise.Most of the extramarital affairs of urban white-collar workers choose the latter. They only want to get the stimulation of extramarital feelings, but they are too lazy to divorce.After Jian and Ping got married, their relationship has been very stable, and their friends are very envious of their fairy days.But soon after, Ping discovered that her husband had another woman.Even so, Jian's attitude and enthusiasm for Ping did not change significantly, and he did not ask for a divorce.Ping considers herself a gentle and caring wife. She always wonders what she did wrong and where she went wrong.In a conversation with my husband, the husband said that he did not look for a lover because his relationship with his wife broke down, but because he was bored with the increasingly dull married life and wanted to find some new excitement outside of his wife." Add some salt, some vinegar, and some sesame oil to life like white water”

For some, the constant stream of shallow affairs is a continuation of premarital sex.Infidelity for the first time does not cause major changes in marriage and life, because the affair does not change the marriage itself.Before marriage, sex and love are carried out almost in a state of complete separation, so the frequent occurrence of premarital affairs is carried out without guilt.After marriage, the same detached mentality about sex makes extramarital affairs easy and guilt-free.A male salesman who claims to have had constant affairs and no guilt before marriage cheated on his fiancée and routinely behaved infidelity after marriage:

"I never stopped cheating on her before and after marriage, and never felt uncomfortable about it. To be honest, I probably never consciously looked into what I should and shouldn't do. Of course, I knew I probably shouldn't, but , I’m afraid I just don’t have a conscience.”

Having said that, most people who slowly fall into the pattern of long-term superficial affairs are faithful at the beginning of their marriage, and some remain faithful for many years.However, their loyalty is fragile, and the first experience of extramarital affairs will pierce the fragile window paper.Their extra-marital experience made them suddenly realize that they are actually easy-going hedonists, happy and healthy people without morals.

Here's what one cheating woman had to say about self-discovery:
"The extramarital experience makes you think another man is more suitable for you. Sleeping with another man is no worse than sharing a steak with another man: it gives me joy, that's all."

Superficial extramarital affairs are a pattern that leaves little emotional investment but still preserves a pragmatic marriage, and the combination of being too involved can be quite stable.Many unfaithful people find this combination satisfying: They don't suffer from conflict, don't feel deprived, and don't long for a closer relationship.They see this combination as a liberation from outdated taboos, as a possible solution to the conflict between the demands of society and the needs of the flesh.This pattern can remain the same for years, unless external forces unravel it: either the spouse discovers the truth, or the couple relocates, or the financial burdens continue to mount.Sometimes, inner forces can change the pattern, and some people seek deeper, more intimate relationships after years of minor affairs, brewing new needs and feelings.Li Ran is such an example.

李苒
For seven or eight years, the combination of a marriage with little commitment and constant affairs provided Li Ran with a stable and seemingly satisfying lifestyle.Later, her husband Ji Yu confessed that he had been unfaithful to Li Ran not only during the years when he was stationed overseas, but also during the two months when he was sent to other places for marketing by the company.Her husband's frank confession broke her life pattern of superficial extramarital affairs all the year round.As a wife who is also chronically unfaithful, I no longer feel safe in my marriage.Of course, it's not just these things that affect her.By this time, she had finished her bachelor's degree and her pre-graduation social work internship was coming to an end, and she began to imagine herself as a valuable person.

Although her affair with Jiang Ruofei started out like her other affairs in the past, many influences quickly developed a very different relationship between them.

"It started in a bar and I saw him looking at me. He came over and asked if he could buy me a drink. I liked the way he looked, so I said yes. At first, it was a very straightforward conversation. After a few conversations, flirting started. He told me that his wife is much older than him and likes to play mahjong with a group of women all day long. He just had a big fight with her.

We play games with each other, feel each other's mind, and understand what we have in common.When we were about to break up, he swore in the name of his ancestors that he fell in love with me, but he drank a little too much at that time.In order to test him, I did not leave my phone number to him.

The next night, Ji Woo and I were watching TV in the living room when the phone rang.Fortunately, I answered, it was Ruofei's voice.I almost didn't show a flustered look, and called him 'Gong Pei' repeatedly, and I said: Oh, it's terrible, okay, I'll come over as soon as possible.Gong Pei is a friend in my school, we are close friends, Ji Yu knows this.I told him that Gong Pei had a high fever and I had to do a few things for her.He stared at the TV without asking.

I met Ruofei at the gate of a big shopping mall.He said he liked me when we first met, and he couldn't help calling me, he was very sober when he spoke.Love begins vigorously from this time.

After that, we met almost every day, or he picked me up after class, or I made up a story with Ji Yu and went out for a while.We meet at a bar, or wait somewhere with a symbolic sign.I even went to his house one day when his wife was playing mahjong in the dark at the neighbor's house.

After a month, I really had a crush on him.this is normal phenomenon.But the relationship continued to grow.After seeing each other often for two or three months, I began to feel that I could not live without him. I hoped that he would be my husband, and loving him was not enough. I hoped that he could become a part of me and I had to take care of him.As for him, he loves me, he can do what I want him to do, he will chat with me at home and even when he is on duty (he is a policeman) at the risk of coming home from work.

In the end, we both agreed to divorce and get married.After several hesitation, I finally had a showdown with Ji Yu.We got divorced after six months.According to the divorce agreement, I didn't get much alimony, but I didn't want things to drag on, and I knew that in a few months I'd be graduating from college and working as a social worker.But on Ruofei's side, there seems to be no progress in the divorce.As long as he opened his mouth, his wife would become hysterical, or simply leave to play mahjong at a neighbor's house.He couldn't muster up the courage to just dump her like that.She is better at controlling the situation than he is.I could see that she was like a mother and he was a naughty son who would stop as soon as he saw that his naughtiness was affecting her.

It became like a continuous shootout: he chased her to negotiate, she yelled.He stormed out of the house to meet me, sometimes not returning home until the next day.She kept threatening to report his affairs to the unit, and finally he was so angry that he resigned and found a job that didn't care about reporting.Every time he was about to leave her, she threatened to kill herself.In the end he did dump her and move in with me.But the next day, this poor little man got drunk, called her, talked for a long time in tears, scolded me for destroying his family, and then returned to 'mother' with a whistling sound. "

Ruofei went back and forth like this for several months, sometimes he dropped his wife to live with Li Ran, and sometimes he attributed his anger to his extreme insecurity, and threw Li Ran back home angrily.He is often inexplicably jealous and accuses Li Ran of being unfaithful to her, but he doesn't have this problem at home. His wife is much older than Li Ran and not attractive.Finally, he finally moved out of the house and rented a furnished room, but he lived with Li Ran most of the time.But one year after Li Ran's divorce, he still hasn't taken any legal action for the divorce.

For a while, Li Ran stopped insisting that he take any legal action, because in her eyes, he became weak, immature, and selfish, after all, he was not the marriage partner she imagined.But "I really enjoy having him as a company, and that's the main reason I want to keep our relationship. Also, I'm a social worker and I want to help people, and he needs my help." She added that one day, she hopes to find A man who wasn't just a partner, a man who wasn't just a grown child. "If I can find the right man, he doesn't have to be handsome and talented, but he must be strong, intelligent, and passionate. If I can find a real belonging, I will never let myself Play the old trick again." This is what she said half a year ago.

Since then, Li Ran has been advancing in this direction.Not long ago, however, she sent us a letter, worded in a far cry from the brisk, confident tone of half a year earlier, which read in part:

"Ruofei is gone. There was a fierce dispute between us. He went somewhere in the south. In short, it was the city where his wife moved. Now life has a kind of peace that has not been seen in a long time, a kind of loneliness that is unspeakable, and a kind of Unbearably half-toned. No, I don't miss him, but I do want to be around. I've grown a lot through my time with Ruofei and feel capable of maintaining a loving, loyal, dependable relationship. Relationship. And yet I haven't dated in months! There must be someone like that, I can only wait with hope."

Some people, after a period of unfaithful affairs, gradually enter into a series of fairly long-lasting but emotionally limited "reinforcement" extramarital affairs.In this model, the unfaithful is not wanton and short-term searching for strange things, but is content with one extramarital relationship at a time, and each relationship lasts for several months or even years, and the degree of development is deeper than superficial extramarital affairs much.These people are not dissatisfied with their marriage, they just complain and complain from time to time, but they are still content to maintain this imperfect marriage.However, having tasted the taste of infidelity, they quickly discover that the model that works best for them is a solid second love relationship outside of marriage, which can provide everything that marriage cannot.An unfulfilled marriage paired with an unfulfilled affair not only met all their needs, but neither demanded more than they could.A novelist in his thirties articulated his views on the nature of the relationship between men and women:
"The first affair made me understand why I had been emotionally restless and unhappy for seven years. Marriage was at least beneficial to me, a pragmatic arrangement, good, and worth keeping. I knew my wife had many qualities, but it wasn't She has everything I need. The women I've had affairs with have their own strengths, but none have everything I need. No two men and women are perfectly compatible, perfectly compatible. There are always some of our needs that are ignored unless they are addressed in another relationship. These are things that I experienced in my first affair. But I also know that I need the support of marriage and family.”

This type of person admits to their selfishness, claiming that they not only give pleasure to their extramarital partner while satisfying themselves, but also maintain the marriage, and there is no pressure on either.The opinion of a 44-year-old housewife falls into this category:
"My husband is a nice guy, but not stimulating. He works on his research project all day long, and even in the same room as me, his mind is not on me. Even in bed he is not very open and expressive. Emotions. I developed a need for something else, and I had an affair with some exciting and attractive man. I needed it, my marriage needed it. The affair lasted about a year or so, and then it just kind of froze by itself .In the future, I don't want to start another affair for a while, but once I find out that there is something between me and someone, I will not hesitate."

(End of this chapter)