Click to Enlarge
An affair usually refers to one individual in a monogamous marriage carrying on a sexual relationship with someone outside the marriage. Sometimes people use the term when they aren’t married but in a long term committed monogamous relationship and their partner starts having sex outside the relationship. Sometimes an affair isn’t actually sexual, but emotional, where one partner carries on a serious emotional relationship with someone they are sexually attracted to and both pulls away from their partner emotionally and keeps their partner in the dark about it. Affairs and cheating are sometimes used interchangeably, though an affair is when someone is unfaithful over a long period of time, months, sometimes years, and it almost always involves a strong emotional component. Cheating is often the term used if you or your partner has a sexual ‘slip up’ and kisses or has sex with someone at a party or during a drunken evening. While cheating can be very harmful to a relationship and painful for all involved, it is often easier to move past than a full-blown affair. An affair is a whole other relationship and it’s often much harder for the person having the affair to walk away from that person and it’s often much harder for the partner to forgive the person who’s been having the affair.
I’ve watched a couple friends deal with one person having an affair and it’s a horrible thing to watch. Everybody suffers. Even something simple as going to the Safeway to pick up groceries becomes this horrifying risk because what if you run into that other woman who’s been licking your girlfriend’s pussy for the last eight months while you thought she was studying for her med-school exams? Do you punch her in the taco or do you walk right up to her and smile and say, ‘hey, I heard you’ve been fucking my girlfriend. Thanks for doing your part to ruin my relationship’. And what if it’s someone you both know and worse, what if it’s a friend of yours? Someone you trusted and loved and thought would do anything to protect you and who you were positive would never hurt you, at least not this horribly. It’s messy business. Just don’t get involved.
Not to say that being the person who someone is having an affair with means you’re a bad person. Like, it’s probably not going to turn out great for you either. We just need to keep in mind that those ghost ships, those lives that look so fantastic from the dock, those other lovers who seem so undeniably perfect for us, are filled with the same shit and baggage as our partners. Nothing comes free, especially in relationships.
1. I’m having an affair. It’s getting awkward because my wife just admitted that she’s having an affair…with the same woman.
2. Sometimes I wish that having an affair was an option. Then I think about how badly I don’t want to shave my legs anymore and I just pull my sweats on and give in to my life.
RELATED TERMS: