Here’s why people risk everything for an affair: couple’s therapist
Two people hold hands on a table and give a sense of comfort and intimacy in a comfortable environment.
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While the former CEO Andy Byron and the HR president of the company were hugged on a jumbotron during a concert, he followed a collective question: Why would they risk their families and careers at risk for an experiment?
As a manager advisor and couples therapist, I sit in front of customers who are often thinking or already interested in similar situations. Most of them are not serpent cheating abusers, narcissists or sex addicts. They are good people: hardworking, gentle and dedicated to their careers and families.
So, even a person – even someone who swears that he will never cheat – what suddenly crosses the abyss and risks everything for a relationship?
People are wired to ask for the approval of others, and our survival as social beings usually depends on it. “We go with a flow” by suppressing our emotions to please the people around us.
However, like a spring that is more strictly injured every year, this can prepare the ground for a violent recoil.
Here is a surprisingly common psychological trap that can cause someone to risk everything for a relationship.
1. Always being ‘good’
Most of my customers who deal with non -marriage have always seen themselves as “good”. They listened to their parents, worked hard, did a profitable job, married, had children, and followed every social expectation to the letter.
For them, love and acceptance in childhood were linked to success, and they often reach the middle ages without clearly understanding who they are. When “something missing” inevitably emerges, they sometimes return to a relationship to fill the gap.
2. Being perfectionist
It is not surprising that perfectionism is a feature I see in almost all my high -performance customers. However, perfectionism is often a response to trauma. Children in variable environments or who are inconsistently approved often believe that doing everything perfectly will keep them safe.
Over time, they get tired of pushing themselves and the people around them to force impossible high standards. When an event calls, they can suddenly stop being perfect and try to double in the opposite direction.
For them, an illegal relationship may feel like getting rid of their realistic expectations – a salva that softens hardness that frame their lives.
3. Having bad limits
People with weak borders often had their parents who were often incapable – addiction, poverty, feeling overwhelmed, or simple maturity – and the role of making emotional stability at home fell to their small shoulders.
Parentized children keep the sense of value from successfully predicting and meeting the needs of others. But in the end, they begin to feel angry with people they “help”.
When an event comes to steal, they rationalize that they spend all their lives by giving them to others, and now it’s time to do something for themselves.
4. Being in a malicious or emotionally withholding marriage
As Esther Perel, the therapist of famous couples, stated in the “Status of Jobs: Reformation of Underneath”, the victim of a relationship is not always the victim of the relationship.
Some of my customers are engaged in work after relying for years of physical, emotional or oral harassment. A secret relationship can be an unexpected but welcome, a rude treatment for decades.
At the same time, a subconscious retaliation form can be a decision to save the relationship once and for everyone. There is no turning back after an event has emerged, and the roasted world offers them the chance to start again.
5. They have suffered a loss lately
One of the first questions I ask to customers who think about a matter is whether they have lost one or something close to them. Grief is a catalyst and is often the death of a parent that triggers the re -evaluation of existing relationships and priorities.
In this re -assessment period, the boundaries become more permeable, which sometimes allows a party other than marriage to gain access.
After the incident
Nobel Laureate Albert Schweitzer said: “In everyone’s life, once our inner fire goes out. Then it turns into flame with encountering another person. “
This is a feeling of drunken emotional enlightenment, which makes many of them feel that they were worth to risk everything they once valued. Worldviews narrows until every aspect of their lives except the event partner is reduced in fields of view. Only things backwards return to the right scale and the situation can be seen objectively.
For some couples, a relationship can trigger the death of a marriage that already conducts its way. For others, it can lead to self -reflection and re -negotiation of the terms of the union, which allows them to emerge more powerful and better than before.
Professional, results may change career and irreversible.
Learning how to defend yourself before you reach any emotional breaking point is a personal and professional superpower.
Lisa Oake A old host of CNBC Asia’s Squawk box. It is now Media Instructor, administrator consultantand the host Be a human podcast. Lisa has a master’s degree in both journalism and consultancy. Execution of articles focuses on mental health, leadership and effective communication.
