SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

How is it that some affairs can last many years? If affairs are fueled by newness, excitement, sneaking around, and both parties putting their best selves forward, how is it that those things can last? Some WS have said during an affair, they were just acting and pretending to be someone they are not so how were they able to keep that up for years? I am under the belief that APs are usually not very nice people and have issues (emotional, mental, self-esteem) so how could WS stay with people like that for so long? And vice versa. What is the driving force behind the long term affairs? If WS were just looking for excitement, a new shiny toy, escape, etc. wouldn’t they get sick of their AP and move on?

My xWS had a long term A with a MOW that started in 2011 and ended with False R in 2014. Partly why I am in a D is over the fact he was able to lead a double life for so long and did so while watching me literally fall apart. They either can compartmentalize well or they have no empathy or conscience or both. I see my xWS's LTA as a REAL relationship. They celebrated holidays together, spent weekends together, ate together, worked together, commiserated together.

I am under the belief that APs are usually not very nice people and have issues (emotional, mental, self-esteem) so how could WS stay with people like that for so long?

I would include the WS in this as not being nice people and also have issues. Probably how they can carry on a LTA without batting an eye.

I had a RA (still an A) after my xWS's first A and it was probably one of the worst experiences of my life. I felt horrible about myself, debased myself and the lying made me sick to my stomach. My A lasted 6 weeks too long. A couple of years of that I couldn't even imagine.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 12:54 AM, Tuesday, February 27th]

Because they're in lurrrvve

Maybe it has to do with the infrequently and topical nature of contact. Usually, a couple spends a significant amount of time together so that they become real human beings to one another. If you are only spending short hookups together, you artificially prolong thecrarly stage of the relationship.

They never had to wash each other’s underwear. Or pay bills together. Or deal with sick kids or broken down cars or a million other mundane things. I’m not going to say it "wasn’t real", but it didn’t have the stressors of a day to day relationship.

APs and WSs are cut from the same cloth, wouldn’t you say? They’re not all bad people. They are all unhealthy people. No healthy person would compromise their own integrity and risk hurting their loved ones or blowing up their life in that way.

Maybe they view each other as an escape. I like to go to the beach, or go to TJ Maxx and smell candles. They like to meet up and do whatever it is they do. It’s a familiar dopamine dispenser without having to risk that a new person might be a bunny boiler.

APs and WSs are cut from the same cloth, wouldn’t you say? They’re not all bad people. They are all unhealthy people. No healthy person would compromise their own integrity and risk hurting their loved ones or blowing up their life in that way.

Absolutely, APs and WSs are "cut from the same cloth". Depending who one is in the relationship, they play both roles. Most of my WW’s APs were married. Therefore she was BOTH a WS to me and an AP to her AP and the OBS.

My WW initially tried to blame cheating on "falling in with the wrong crowd". I told her it was really her "finding like-minded people" to make it comfortable for her to be a cheater.

My WW also liked to say she "wasn’t a bad person, she just did bad things." The most simple definition of a "bad person" is "one who does harm to others." Most BS’s claim being cheated on is the worst thing to ever happen to them. It certainly is for me. Now, you intentionally inflicted that harm on me with multiple people for 20 years? I consider you a "bad person" (certainly a bad wife at a minimum) while actively cheating.

Maybe it has to do with the infrequently and topical nature of contact. Usually, a couple spends a significant amount of time together so that they become real human beings to one another. If you are only spending short hookups together, you artificially prolong thecrarly stage of the relationship.v

This definitely plays a role IMO. Also, you don’t see the "warts and all" day to day life of the AP.

My WW’s longest LTA lasted somewhere between 18-24 months (she "can’t remember specifically). They never went on dates, had a meal together, exchanged gifts or had any kind of "actual relationship". My WW would leave work, meet AP in the Commuter Lot by her work, have a quickie or give him OS (had to be done within 30 min. to get home) and then head home to fix the kids and me dinner…..pretty much the same as stopping by the corner to "hit the crack pipe" every few days. This was a "once every 2-3 week thing".

The most stupid part of this particular affair was my WW claimed "it wasn’t about the sex, I just did that to keep the relationship going". Me: "what relationship? It is nothing BUT sex. In a tow truck. In a commuter lot." Talk about "not real life"….

My husband claimed he was simply a selfish coward. He knew she’d become a bunny boiler so it was just easier to keep her fat, dumb, and happy. He literally said "live to see another day" 🙄. I know it sounds unbelievable, but based on how quickly and easily he dropped her upon Dday I’ve seen no evidence it’s not true. There was zero missing her or if there was he is a damn good actor. 🤷‍♀️

[This message edited by OnTheOtherSideOfHell at 2:30 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

Affairs aren't fake. They're real relationships. The cheaters are bonded and emotionally connected to one another. The fact that the relationships are illicit can help keep them feel perpetually new and exciting.

Affairs can also be difficult to extricate from, particularly if one of the partners is single and has nothing to lose by outting the cheating spouse, or if exposure of the affair could cost one of the partners their job.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:53 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

Most BS’s claim being cheated on is the worst thing to ever happen to them. It certainly is for me. Now, you intentionally inflicted that harm on me with multiple people for 20 years? I consider you a "bad person" (certainly a bad wife at a minimum) while actively cheating.

I think there's a special place in hell for those who cheated once and saw the effect that it had on the BS, and then DID IT AGAIN. I agree that that WS would likely qualify as a bad person. Or at least a garbage-head who has no business being in any sort of committed relationship.

My WH and his MOW found each other on Ashley Madison in 2009. They both intended to stay married for convenience and cake eat for fun. They lasted 9 years, and although she considered him her BF and never strayed from him as far as I know, he shopped around for new partners several times over the years, because he said the sex got boring and she was high maintenance. She wanted their "relationship" to be more than it was and insisted on celebrating holidays, birthdays, etc. It was a stupid card she gave him that blew up my life in 2017. They went underground until 2018 when I found another email and sent her one of my own and she scurried back into her own life. Apparently they had ground rules and boundaries, and she kept pushing them, which he said was part of why he looked around for replacements. They had a master plan that when everyone retired and moved away, the A would end organically. This has been a huge sticking point for my dense WH, as he thinks that because it was going to end, the actual ending and false R was irrelevant. Wayward thinking.

I know the MOW texted and messaged and emailed him constantly, always trying to get more time from him. Some of her emails and texts are pathetic. He has admitted that it was easier to keep seeing her than to stop. He has admitted to a friendship, and a business relationship and several common interests that kept them together so long. He tried to claim it became only a platonic friendship for years, but that turned out to be the lie to cover up the shocking number of years and the false recovery. But that "friendship" got her ghosted the day I scared her off and he let her go with relief and almost no guilt, so he claims.

He has called their time together a secret playhouse where all the troubles of life melted away. I have asked if something akin to addiction kept them together, and he denies that. He claims her tears and begging made it hard to stop seeing her. This one really stings, as I remember how many tears I cried and how instead of giving in or kindness, he reacted to me with confusion, then anger, which led to further trauma, panic attacks and prescription meds and so many more tears. He has been an absolute idiot for most of this debacle but I'm still here, and curious to see who he ends up becoming now that I see through his veneer.

My bigger question isn't why it lasted so long, but why it took him so long to see me again as a person with feelings who deserved to be treated with more care than he could muster in his selfishness. It took him a long time to even see himself as selfish at all, and to find a shred of care for how badly the A ended and how much he used her too. I imagine the cheating itself was part of the allure, more than the sex. He was seething with petty resentments toward me and this was his best choice for coping with those emotions. I really had no idea.

My WH claims to always have loved me, never used the words love with his AP, they were just horny BF and GF who snuck away whenever and wherever they could. But to answer your question, he did get bored with her and tried to find new partners in their years 3,4,8 and 9 together, that I can prove. He wouldn't admit to even shopping around after the first one, until I found those moldy breadcrumbs on an old phone. He claims he never had a PA with anyone else because he couldn't find anyone who met his standards for secrecy and safety, so he kept coming back to her. He has called her high maintenance, stupid, needy, annoying, and claims their longer trips together were brutal, because they were way too long. I can't begin to understand why he would continue with her, especially after DDay, and risk everything if he didn't care more for her, or was addicted to the illicit sex. He has no answers and I really can't begin to understand much of anything about him or his A, and DDay was 6 years ago. I hope to reach a point where it just doesn't matter anymore.

It is their escape from reality, it becomes an addiction.

I have often wondered this.

My affair was two months long, with being present face to face with AP a total of four days. I was coming apart at the seams in trying to exist in both lives, but maybe I would have gotten better at compartmentalization.

I mean I don’t think it’s hard to imagine keeping up the fantasy life, it was the hiding it that I found harder to manage. I wear my heart in my sleeve and have never been an accomplished liar.

My husband is also not an accomplished liar. I don’t think he ever lied to me before his affair, at least that I am aware of. In fact, I was friends with him before I dated him and I knew him to be honest and full of integrity in his dealings with others.

Yet he saw this woman for 18 months, having sex with her as much as with me. And I had zero clue. Not a whiff that he was doing something that wasn’t in alignment with what he was telling me. In fact, when I found out we were 3 years past my dday. I felt like we had both done so much healing, and our relationship was really growing. Then I found the weird text and it all came out from there.

Here I was, sitting with a new wedding ring he’d gave me telling me that I had earned him back, and on that same day he’d had sex with her in my house.

So it’s less hard for me to understand how the fantasy goes on as long as it stays in its bubble. But I honestly don’t think I could have kept the secret going that long without him realizing there was something seriously going wrong with me and our marriage. I mean he was blindsided by my affair but not that we were in a challenging place and having marriage issues.

For me that’s the part I can’t wrap my mind around, but I think it’s because he was cake eating and fine with that. For me, I was talking divorce and keeping up a secret long term wasn’t in my agenda. It doesn’t make his cheating worse, we don’t compare it. It just is hard for me to understand that level of compartmentalization. I think too some of it was he felt a fondness towards her but it wasn’t an obsessive energy like in my affair. He wasn’t creating this big love story thing, and maybe without that there wasn’t the conflict I was feeling. I kept feeling I needed to choose, so I don’t think long term would have been in the cards for me.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:31 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

I think there's a special place in hell for those who cheated once and saw the effect that it had on the BS, and then DID IT AGAIN. I agree that that WS would likely qualify as a bad person. Or at least a garbage-head who has no business being in any sort of committed relationship.

For clarity, I’m in the "found out many years later" club. The affairs were all 19-39 years ago and I just found out 20 months ago. So WW didn’t see the effect it had on me before "going back to the well".

That said, she knew cheating was wrong, it would be devastating to me and kill our relationship. Yet, repeatedly chose to continue going down that path. Had I caught her or she had confessed early on, I wouldn’t have been around for subsequent cheats. She did admit to an EA very early in our marriage that almost ended it. She begged to come home after leaving me briefly and promised to go NC. She didn’t and it went on for several more months and turned physical. I found this out on D-Day 36 years later….

The cheating in and of itself is bad enough. The worst part is "dragging me along for the ride". If she wanted to be single and screw around, she should have told me and left. Or let me make a choice. She definitely had no business being in a "committed relationship" because it was only half of one.

"Good people who did bad things" as it relates to cheating is a huge trigger for me. IMO, "Good people" don’t cheat. Full stop. That doesn’t mean they aren’t redeemable. But it is a choice. Cheaters in LTAs and serial cheaters make that choice over and over again. Not a "good person" characteristic.

[This message edited by ImaChump at 6:42 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]

If affairs are fueled by newness, excitement, sneaking around, and both parties putting their best selves forward, how is it that those things can last?

The sneaking around lasts as long as the A is not outed (and sometimes continues even after that). The "newness" is a bit of a misgiving - think less as a A being "new" and instead more of a "limited time" like a vacation or something. When you can only see someone/interract with them on a limited basis it is a draw, at least for awhile - sometimes a long while.

I've done a lot of reading trying to find information on LTAs since I'm a member of that club.

I read that the average affair lasts 18-24 months. That lines up with new relationship energy which fades around the 2 year mark in "normal" relationships.

That energy (or infatuation) can last even longer because the affair relationship is more sporadic. They aren't getting to see each other every single day or do all the things together. So the "newness" doesn't wear off as quickly.

Part of what creates infatuation is uncertainty. When will I see him again? Will she call? Does s/he feel the same as I feel? That uncertainty exists almost constantly in an affair. It can keep the infatuation factor higher and lasting longer.

Then of course there is simply the illicit part of it. For some folks, that ups the excitement / energy and keeps them coming back for more. Some people getting off on getting away with something.

The escape / fantasy bubble is pretty well documented too. The affair is a vacation from life's stressors. It gets addictive.

I also read that if the "needs" align, an affair can go on indefinitely. For example, two cake eaters looking for nothing more than fun sex without any talk of leaving marriages might see each other for years to get that sexual need met w/o any drama or consequences. When the needs don't match or start to change (i.e. one starts to want more), the bloom can come off the rose.

I do think people who can carry on an affair long term (and I'd put that at over the 2 year mark) have some pretty deep seated issues, pathological or not. Their ability to compartmentalize beyond us mere mortals points to probably a life time of poor coping skills and avoidant behavior. That skill makes them excellent cheaters.

I imagine over time, the affair becomes normalized to the cheater. So it's not as thrilling, but lunch with Sally on Wednesdays is a fun thing to look forward to and now feels normal/routine. As long as Sally doesn't ask for more, why give it up?

I think TheEnd is spot on. My WH fell into the 2+ year affair category and he fully admits that the infatuation (as TheEnd described it) and fantasy were the big pulls for him.

I think there's a special place in hell for those who cheated once and saw the effect that it had on the BS, and then DID IT AGAIN.

My wife’s POSOM was supposedly cheated on (or maybe he just lied that for sympathy). But I hate him all the more for having experienced this and then inflicting it on me. That truly seems like the worst to me, to feel this and then callously inflict it on another.

If affairs are fueled by newness, excitement, sneaking around, and both parties putting their best selves forward....

My W's A was fueled by her self-hate, not by much excitement with the A. She was just a knight in shining armor for a damsel in distress at first, then a victim of blackmail.

My bet is that many, if not most, As are attempts to get external validation, not searches for excitement. If one ap keeps getting the external validation, why end it?

I agree that external validation is typically the end game.

But there is a chemical process that happens with "new" and "forbidden" and that fuels affairs. It's the gas used to get to the destination (make me feel good/worthy).

[This message edited by TheEnd at 8:07 PM, Wednesday, February 28th]

Someone once posted that affairs are hysterical bonding that never ends.