Is An Affair True Love?

During my affair, I read over and over that affairs statistically have a poor probability of becoming a lasting relationship.

Amid the ecstasy of limerence, I believed I found True Love. Loving Mike gave me butterflies and similar feelings to when I read romance novels. I used the term excitement often to describe the emotion, but it was more like bliss.

Post Affair, I learned I’m not alone in my feelings or beliefs. Part of why affairs are so compelling is the fucking ecstatic bliss of love.

Unfortunately, limerent bliss isn’t True Love. Ecstasy is merely fantasy. We went through the same infatuation period with our partners before we committed monotony.

Part of why affairs are so potent is they provide escape. I felt unloved, unwanted, and bored in my marriage. Instead of facing the struggle, I escaped into pretending my affair partner loved and worshipped me. In my fantasy, our lives are perfect — great sex and no conflict.

If you married even the most perfect person, you’re laughing at me. Relations always have conflict. And sex? Not always blowing minds. Even with tall, sexy, muscular Californian gods.

Limerence makes people attractive. Every limerent object I’ve obsessed about was The Most Gorgeous Person In The World. But only during limerence. After the obsession faded, so did my view of them.

The intense emotions and physical attraction must stem from a potent neurochemical cocktail which fucks up my perception. The body releases all the feel good hormones during an affair or limerence.

Why are our brains doing this? Why wouldn’t my brain seek long-term commitment? Someone needs to get food and protect the babies born from all these rampant hormones of infatuation.

Does torture have an evolutionary advantage? Maybe we aren’t naturally predisposed to monogamy, and we simply conform to societal expectations by entering partnerships.

Or maybe I’m justifying my behavior?

If I’d been a better wife, I would have sought to increase dopamine and oxytocin in my marriage.

Behind the scenes, like neurochemicals, drive our behavior more than I’d like. Not only hormones but also how I grew up, my 20 year marriage, where I lived and so on all influence my reactions now.

I’m not a bad person who wanted to hurt everyone in my life.

I fucked up despite being a good person.

But if someone gets lost in a relationship or life, they become susceptible. If bids for attention go unanswered; if we confide in someone other than our spouse; if we allow doors to close and walls to spring up in our primary relationship.

Gottman outlines a very predictable path of most extramarital affairs in his book, How to Make Love Last. Reading the steps, I saw my affair and the descriptions of affairs I read in learning about affair recovery.

Is an affair true love?

Unlikely. A small percentage of affair relationships work out happily.

Cheating spouses often see affairs as an escape from loneliness and the pressures of reality. If the affair transcends, the primary relationship breaks up. The following harsh reality causes a crumble in the affair relationship.

Your affair partner is hot until you are picking up his socks and underwear and fighting over the remote.

It’s easy to be unhappy in a relationship and not change. Until an outsider sparks your desire.

Like all infatuation, it fades to the usual nothingness. A new partner won’t change you. Your old, boring, habitual self will return. Your affair partner is not perfect. He’s a guy who lifts weights, lives with his parents, and loves gaming.

And I like gaming.

For a single moment, the affair excited me.

But eventually, I paid for my laziness in my marriage. For my betrayal of my promises

Love is staying together when both partners want to quit because life hurts. Staying despite betrayal is true love.