An Affair With the Neighbour
By Peter Halpin

All of us are capable of having affairs. To be incapable of having an affair is to be incapable of feeling temptation. But feeling the temptation to have an affair isn't the same thing as having it. Many happily married couples admit that they are attracted to members of the opposite sex from time to time. Yet instead of repressing or feeling guilty about those feelings, they acknowledge them as the sign of a healthy sex drive and let them go.

But when a person is unable to let go of that feeling of attraction, they may risk everything--even their marriage--to give into their feelings. Affairs are the number one cause of divorce.

There are also emotional affairs, as opposed to physical ones. An emotional affair can be even more threatening to a relationship, because the new lover replaces the spouse as the primary source of emotional well-being and companionship.

What Triggers an Affair

The roots of affairs are difficult to pin down and are usually many, not one. Even if you are in a happy, stable marriage, you or your partner could find yourself tempted to have an affair simply for the excitement or novelty. The greatest danger for affairs occurs when there is a potential lover who is not only available but willing, when conditions make giving into the temptation easy, and there is little to no expectation of a powerful social or moral condemnation for having the affair.

Here are some of the most common conditions that pave the way for affairs.

1. Increased social contact with members of the opposite sex, especially in the workplace.

When a man or a woman spends a lot of time with a member of the opposite sex they develop a platonic friendship that can become much, much more. Familiarity, emotional intimacy, and common professional or sporting goals create a powerful bond that can feel more compelling than the marital relationship.

Can men and women "just be friends" under these conditions? Emphatically no! Men and women can't be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way. No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her. It's not okay for your husband's best friend to be another woman. It's not okay for your wife's number one confidant to be another man. In a strong marriage, both partners look first to one another to get their emotional needs met.

2. Not meeting one another's emotional needs.

This is the single greatest cause of affairs. When relationships are struggling, both men and women look elsewhere to get their emotional needs met and easily find themselves in the arms of someone "who appreciates them" or with whom they feel "heard and understood".

If you and your partner take each other for granted and treat one another like housemates instead of lovers, the stage is set for one of you to have an affair. Women, feeling unappreciated by their husbands, find solace with someone who does listen to them. Men, feeling as if they're always being criticized and cannot please their wives if they try, enjoy the emotional reinforcement of someone who thinks that they're wonderful and can do no wrong.

3. One partner is away for long periods of time.

We all know the stories of musicians, actors, or athletes who spend long months on tour and return home to a wrecked marriage. Cheating is easy when partners spend long periods of time away from one another. Even if your partner calls you every night, you have no idea what they're doing in the time away from you. It is easy for your partner to disassociate what they do in their time on their own from what they do with you. They may feel as if they live in two separate worlds that need never meet.

4. Busy lives with little leisure time spent together.

When partners don't have time to relax together, their marriage becomes all work and no play. If both of you have overly busy lives, taking your kids to school and after-school activities, meetings, overtime, fixing up your house, and social engagements on the weekends, your marriage will suffocate from lack of attention. Just because you live together and wear a ring doesn't mean that your marriage is invulnerable. A marriage thrives when there is space for both partners to spend quality, unstructured time together, doing nothing but enjoying one another's company.

5. Increased public acceptance of affairs.

Public acceptance of affairs has transformed dramatically over the past few decades. There continues to be strong social and moral condemnation of infidelity, but the consequences of having an affair are not as great as in the past. Nowadays, an affair isn't shadowed by the threat of pregnancy, the brand of social stigma, or losing one's job as a result. Cheating spouses are comforted by the ease of divorce that would allow them to leave their spouse for their lover. As culture removes more and more of the consequences of infidelity, more spouses will cheat.

6. Increased cultural importance on having a great body and superb sex life.

Men and women both have high expectations of marriage--that their partner will be their soul mate, that love will be effortless, that their sex life will be dynamic and exciting. When these expectations are not fulfilled, men and women often look to someone else for fulfillment rather than examining their own expectations.

Modern Western culture places a high premium on an exciting, fulfilling sex life. When everyone else is doing it in the movies, we think we need to be doing it too. Although research proves that married men and women have better (e.g., more fulfilling and more frequent) sex lives than singles or couples living together, popular opinion believes the opposite. Many people believe that once you marry, sex becomes dull and boring. What better to liven it up than the allure of an illicit rendezvous?

Where Affairs Happen

The vast majority of affairs start in the workplace, primarily because many people today spend more time at work than they do at home. When men and women work in close proximity to one another, they can find it easier to relate to one another than to their spouses back home, especially if there is conflict at home.

Affairs can happen anywhere your partner frequents without your company. This includes mixed-gender clubs or societies, out-of-town conferences, or the gym. Another growing arena for affairs is the internet. Websites advertise personals for persons seeking extramarital affairs. The internet offers the advantages of anonymity, ease of communication, and the ability to meet like-minded individuals. If your spouse spends a lot of time on the internet with the door closed, you need to have a serious talk.