The Blog Erotic

Alternatives to Having an Extramarital Affair

In my last post, inspired by Elizabeth Edwards' book promo tour, I wrote about why affairs occur, and promised to post answers to solving a bad marriage, because in general having an affair isn't one of them.

If sexual frustration is one of the reasons you are considering going outside your marriage for satisfaction, please reconsider.  Marriage does have ups and downs.  Sex is not always guaranteed.  Life really does get in the way.  You need to have a mature outlook and realize that a marriage is about more than meeting your physical needs.

Before you go to your partner and make your requests, or demands, for sex, consider the context of your lives.  What is currently happening in your partner's life, and in the wider world, that might be affecting their interest in sex?  Are they struggling with physical symptoms?  Have money woes kept them awake?  Is there a shakeup at work?  Are parents ill?  Do kids struggle in school?

It isn't that any of these or other events should automatically give your partner a free pass for not having sex.  It's that it is normal not to have much interest in sex when these things are going on. 

The problem occurs when there is little or no discussion about the fact that life is getting in the way of intimacy.  Sometimes that's because you or your partner are embarrassed to talk about sex.  Instead of screwing someone or screwing up your marriage, how about screwing up your courage and sitting down with your partner to talk about the situation that you find yourselves in?

Let your partner know that you are sad, distraught, or even a bit angry that you haven't been able to be physically intimate.  You might be surprised that your partner feels the same way, especially if you communicate your feelings without blame.

Once you let your feelings be known, hopefully you can then decide together how you are going to handle the current state of your sex life.  You actually might have to accept that sex is going to have a low priority for now, but that doesn't mean that you can't share affection or caring with one another.

Or, you might find that doing some brainstorming about how the two of you can be together privately more often.  You might need to send the children to a sleep away camp for a week, or to pay someone to take care of aging parents for a weekend out of each month.  But just talking about the problem and taking some action, however small, might make the difference between total frustration and frustration that you can tolerate.

What if your sexual relationship is endangered because of psychological problems, such as your partner having an aversion to sex, or finds that sex is triggering memories of past negative sexual experiences such as abuse or assault?  In that case, you need to be understanding that these problems are real and not just a reason your partner has come up with to stop having sex with you.

You'll need to set aside a private time and place to let your partner know how worried you are about their mental well-being.  Point out, too, that having sex is natural and normal, and contributes greatly to the quality of one's life.  It's true:  People who stay sexual as they age are more likely to be healthier and happier.

Then ask how the two of you might work together to get over this impasse.  You may be able to accomplish this by experimenting to see what works (lots of relaxation before sex, having sex with the lights on, etc.) and then talking about it.  But if experiments do not go well or your partner is having difficulty just contemplating being sexual, then it's probably best to speak to a professional sex therapist; you can find one on the AASECT website.

It isn't that an affair is beyond anyone's understanding.  It's that an affair rarely does more good than harm.  At least try to resolve the problem; then you'll be able to leave your marriage with the knowledge that you did your best to adhere to your commitment, even if your partner was unwilling to do so.

Elizabeth Edwards: Why Did John Edwards Have an Affair?

I don't know, and apparently, neither does he.

Unless you've been brain dead for the last 24 hours, you've likely heard that Elizabeth Edwards has published a book (read the TIME excerpt here) about resilience and springing back after adversity.  Elizabeth Edwards should know:  she and John lost a child; she has fought breast cancer; and now, she has experienced the effects of infidelity.

The big question, of course, is why did John Edwards do it?  Amazingly, he has no answer for Elizabeth.  Even more amazingly, they seem to have had little or no discussion about it, other than agreeing that it was "that woman" who caused all the problems.  (Sirens, you have found your leader in Rielle Hunter!)

None of us can ever know why anybody does anything; we can only guess.  And for psychologists, ethically we are not permitted to diagnose public figures.  We can only be circumspect and talk about problems in general.  (So the next time you hear a media psychologist talk about someone as if they have given them a diagnosis, you'll know that they are stepping outside of ethical boundaries.)

So why does any man (I'm going to focus on men today, I'll talk about women another time), public or private, have an affair?  I can share some of what I have observed:

• To escape a stressful situation, which may or may not be the marriage
• To experience companionship that is missing from a relationship
• To do something naughty or dirty--for a thrill
• To have sexual release
• To keep a marriage intact, usually for children, while getting unmet sexual needs taken care of elsewhere
• To soothe himself, because he is depressed
• To prove that he's still in the game, still sexy, still "got it"
• To act out a compulsion, that is, to have sex more frequently because he feels he must in a way he has trouble explaining
• To seek revenge on a partner he is angry at, but can't express it

Now, I know among my sexologist brethren (and sistren?) that there are those who minimize the effects of affairs on marriage.  It's almost a given, goes the reasoning, so why are we all surprised?  Get over it!

I disagree.  The effects of a discovered affair reverberate not only in a marriage, but across generations.  I can't begin to count how many folks have told me how hurt they were when one parent cheated on another, and sometimes that pain even drizzles down to grandchildren if the infidelity was public or had a flavor of incest (e.g., occurred between a husband and his sister-in-law).  And then affairs can have an effect on a community, as when a pastor cheats with a congregant. 

Another argument goes that "affairs are never about sex."  Really?  As you can see from my list, an affair can most definitely be about sex.  An affair is often about chafing in the sexual constraints of a monogamous marriage, where communication about sex (and the topic of monogamy itself) is rare.  It is about not getting sexual needs met and sometimes--out of desperation--a man goes outside his marriage.

Unfair?  Yes.  Wrong?  Yes, I think so.  An affair is a stupid fix to a bad problem.  It's like fixing a problem with another problem.  It's like using PVC pipe when copper is called for.  (Recently, a man asked me--earnestly--if I had any advice before he commenced an affair with a married woman. "Check to see how big he is, and see if he has a gun," I quipped.)

Why don't men see that?  It's hard to say.  The mind isn't all that good at rational decision making when one is under duress.  And clearly, Edwards was under duress:  wife with cancer, campaign to run, and whatever else might have been going on in his life.  Men sometimes do bad things when they are depressed, too, like drink or become irritable and nasty.  

But an affair isn't the answer.  Next post:  Answers.