Relationship Phases
Marriage Conditions that Lead to Affairs
Affairs don’t start when an opportunity arises. An opportunity arises because a married person is susceptible to having an affair. Are you affair material? Is your spouse? The following symptoms often lead to an affair:
Disillusioned by Marriage Relationship Phases
Every relationship goes through specific phases of existence. As your relationship slips from the honeymoon phase into the comfortable recognition of differences and then on to the phase of painful compromise and negotiation, you may not realize these are normal steps. You may feel vulnerable and at risk, perhaps you don’t recognize the sign, only the feeling that something is wrong.
Destruction of Intimacy and Connection
As you slip beyond the early phases of comfort zone your relationship slides down the slippery slope of avoidance, where you step away from failure by avoiding issues that must be dealt with, allowing them to erode intimacy and cause you to feel lonely. A feeling of being avoided by your spouse may leave you susceptible to another person whose interest in your feelings appears deeper.
Passion Fades to Mundane Tolerance
The intensity of burning passion becomes glowing embers of smoldering frustration as the light fades from the relationship you remember. Passion naturally levels off, and you may find the practical aspects of loving another person aren’t as charming as the romance you first knew. When spontaneity is replaced with drudgery and responsibility, your relationship may not have enough strength to keep you burning bright, so what do you do then? Your vulnerability becomes pessimism that it’s all over.
Friendships Begin to Fulfill Emotional Needs
You’d rather spend your time with those ‘special friends’ than with your spouse. Your friend provides for your emotional needs, giving you the warm fuzzies your spouse used to provide. All your recreation time is spent with that friend, and you begin to feel closer to the friend than to your spouse. Your spouse has been replaced by a friend who no longer compliments your relationship with your spouse. The charge you get from being with your friend is greater than the time you spend with your spouse and you know you’re vulnerable.
Your Relationship Triggers Negative Responses
You may be surrounded by negative relationships, empty and void of loyalty, commitment, and fidelity. Your experience of life may have changed and there are more divorced couples in your life than married. Your spouse or you may have single friends, and your single friends probably outnumber your married friends. Couple time diminishes and you find you’re spending your time out with single friends looking for openings and opportunities. You’re at risk for marital failure.
Where can you turn, if not to your spouse?
William Clarke III takes infidelity seriously in his relationship practice. If you’re looking for answers, visit his site at http://billclarkedbaplus.com/relationships and claim your FREE Copy of Opposites Attract: Relationships for REAL People.