One Lie Every Affair Partner Tells at the Beginning

Do you want to know how many people fall into it?

In a word, relief. Relief at being wanted again and not having to explain yourself to someone who already knows your history and your bad habits and has seen you on your worst days.

They fall into it because their primary relationship stagnated, and this feels like pure oxygen. This is when the “reasonable” lie manifests:

“This doesn’t count.”

At least that is how they sell it to themselves early, but by “This doesn’t count,” read also: this is different, this doesn’t say anything about who I really am, this is just a reaction to my situation, this is temporary, and this won’t touch the rest of my life.

Everyone thinks they will recognize the danger before it gets dangerous because they are just too self-aware to lose control. They think they will feel the line before they cross it. So, most never admit they are starting something that will blow up their lives. On the contrary, they will claim it doesn’t mean anything yet. The word “yet,” I believe, does a lot of damage because nothing bad has happened… yet, and no one is crying… yet.

There is also this delusion that consequences are for cheaters who mess up and not for those who plan, and so the planning then becomes the proof. They think that they can keep it small and not let things get complicated because they know when to stop.

However, the idea that an affair is something you manage is mere fantasy. The plain truth is, affairs aren’t managed; they run on adrenaline and just enough guilt to feel intense, but not enough to stop till everything spirals out of control.

“Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson

If you are one of those who think the danger is getting caught, know that that is not it. The real danger is believing you are still in charge even after you have actually lost control. You see, once an affair becomes part of your emotional routine, stopping is no longer a clean decision. It involves a sense of “loss” exaggerated by, perhaps, the sudden return to the life you were escaping. Only now, with extra baggage.

And so the original lie cracks because the fragile idea that they are living exists in some small sealed box becomes a very visible pattern with time. People don’t end affairs the way they imagine. They hardly ever pick a perfect moment to exit with “new clarity and grace”; they just reach a point where something, inevitably, gives:

they reach a point where their energy is depleted;
they lost their ability to lie convincingly;
their nerves are shot;
they have become numb;
they are no longer able to sleep good;
they lost the ability to feel proud of themselves;
etc., etc., etc.

You see affairs carry on until the bloom is off the rose. This is when the illusion that this is different has finally shattered. It pretty much doesn’t matter what you call it: chemistry, circumstance, lifeline, whatever, it still follows the same predictable arc.

If you are being honest, you know all this already because the unconscious but foundational lie at the very beginning isn’t that the affair won’t end, but that when it does, it won’t cost you much… but now you know better.