When Rose gave me this topic I chuckled because I told her this sounds like a Hindi film where the bride is married off and they are in loved with their childhood sweetheart.
This is obviously not the case but many of us can relate or know people who are in love with someone else but stick around because circumstance or convenience.
The short answer for the people who are in loved with someone else but are not married it’s a lot easier to answer – End it and move on if you are truly in love but be sure to ask your self the right questions are you truly in love with that person or you in love with the idea of being with them. Are you influenced by power, money, social status, proximity or by their sexiness or physical appearance?
You probably never meant for it to happen. It’s not as if you went looking for a lover.
However, once you fall in love with another person other than your spouse, things can get intense and can cause tremendous drama. You’re already in what some refer to as an emotional affair or what I call the black hole of emotion. Now you make a lapse in judgment and the emotional affair becomes a real relationship and it turned physical. NOW WHAT?
WHY & HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
It may be difficult for you to know exactly how you got into this situation. Some are honest enough with themselves that they know step-by-step how everything came to be as it is now. Others have more difficulty, their mind is confused because what they are doing is so contrary to what they believe and value. Some feel that God sent them their true life partner and some blame it on their spouse’s actions or lack of actions.
According to relationship expert John Gottman who writes in his book The Marriage Clinic:
“…many clinicians…have been quick to point out that ‘affairs involve sex, but sex is usually not the purpose of the affair’…In fact, most clinicians who have written in this area report that affairs are usually about seeking friendship, support, understanding, and validation…they are about getting the acceptance that is missing in the marriage.”
In the case of what I call relationship affairs – as opposed to the one-night-stand type of affairs that are wholly about sex and not at all about relationship – usually find root in a person’s feeling unloved, unaccepted, disliked, or disrespected. That doesn’t mean that the person necessarily went looking for affirmation and validation from someone else. However, when it came, it captured his/her heart.”
Many people describe this new relationship as:
“I’ve never been loved like this.”
“No one understands me as well as he/she does.”
“This is the person I was meant to be with.”
“I can’t explain how this feels because I don’t think anyone else can understand it. It’s intense. Amazing. Wonderful.”
All those statement may be true because many people are able or capable to detach at times when their emotions get the best of them.
Most likely your desire is not to hurt the person you’re married to or committed to, but rather to live in this new level of love that you never knew existed. You don’t mean to harm family, friends, coworkers, temple buddies. Your desire is to have, not to hurt. But there are exceptions but that is another topic altogether.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT THEN?
You have only 4 choices before you TO MAKE:
- Stay in your marriage or committed relationship while continuing a relationship with your lover,
- Leave your marriage or relationship for your lover,
- End the relationship yourself,
- Or your lover ends it.
Each possibility carries consequences. Short-term consequences and long-term consequences. WAY TO LONG FOR ME TO ELOBRATE ON – NOT ENOUGH ON ROSES PROGRAM
Unfortunately, it’s rare, if ever, IT turns out that way you want it to.
Your emotions are intense currently, but they won’t be forever. Within a couple years, if not before, you’ll discover that the perfect girl or Prince Charming you’re in love with isn’t quite as wonderful as you think. In the high of new love people overlook flaws, quirks, and problems in the other. When that emotions evolves, as it must and will, you will start to be bothered by things that never bothered you before. Trust me it happens. You will discover that Cinderella and Prince Charming exist only in fairy tales. All the rest of us are truly flawed and at times hard to live with.
MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION
All Though logic doesn’t exist for you at this time, try to make all efforts to attempt to silence your emotions and aim to see past the feelings into your future. What do you honestly, at the deepest level of your being, expect it to be ten years from now if you abandon your marriage, maybe destroy another in the process (if your lover is married as well), and violate your core beliefs and values?
Happiness? Is what you are seeking or are you trying to fill a void that is currently in your life?
Based on my observations, research and experience with clients and patients, I can firmly tell you from a purely logical, statistical, vantage point, that it is extremely unlikely that the happiness with last. But there are always exceptions!
No Comments