THE SHRINKING UNIVERSE
An unhappy state of affairs
VIJAY NAGASWAMI
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Extra-marital affairs are as common today as they were 25 years ago. What is the best way to deal with them?
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Photo: N. Sridharan
Facing the storm together...
I am presently writing a series of books about different aspects of marriage and the one that seems to have aroused the largest interest and promises to be a bestseller even before it is written is the third book of the New Indian Marriage series, which will be about extra-marital relationships. The interest is sustained, even when I clarify that the book is not about how to have affairs, but how to survive them. In the last 25 years that I have worked with couples, I have seen an extraordinary variety of extra-marital relationships. And, believe me, even 25 years ago, they happened with the same intensity and frequency as they do today. The only difference is that there used to be a lot of clandestine skulking around then and paramours tended to be more discreet. Today, however, affairs are more in-your-face and more brazenly conducted. It’s easier to have an affair nowadays what with the kind of technology (mobile telephony, Internet chats and the like) available at one’s disposal, but interestingly enough, it’s the same technology that causes affairs to be exposed — the spouse accidentally stumbles across a particularly torrid text message or a carelessly mislaid chat transcript on the family computer and so on. Extra-marital affairs invariably get discovered and leave in their wake considerable emotional suffering and scarring in the minds of a whole lot of people. The amount of emotional energy that gets locked into the resolution of an affair is quite astronomical and one often wonders whether affairs are really worth the trouble. But apparently people seem to think they are, otherwise why would they be falling over themselves to have one of their own?
Making a choice
Your moral outlook on extra-marital relationships is entirely your own affair, but here’s the professional rub — there is no doubt that an affair does detract from the marriage and vice-versa. One needs to remember that the affair too, is a dynamic relationship, not a static one and requires nourishment for its growth in terms of love, time and energy, all of which are in finite supply for an individual. As a result, sooner than later, the affair is going to demand more. Inamoratos and inamoratas cannot be perennially satisfied with a few stolen moments, sizzling text messages at midnight and the I-can’t-divorce-my-spouse-until-the-kids-are-grown-up line. And when the demands increase, the person is immediately at a crossroads: who does one choose — spouse or paramour? Not always an easy choice, I am told. And sooner than later, living as we do in an age of monogamy, a choice will inevitably have to be made.
Let us also be clear that in today’s world, it is but natural to feel attracted to one’s colleague at work, considering one spends more time at work than at home, and therefore has more opportunity to bond with the colleague than with the spouse. It is also not unnatural to feel attracted to a perfect stranger or to someone else in your social network. But what determines the fate and quality of your marriage is how you handle this attraction. If you are able to check your need for instant gratification, you’ll probably have a cold shower and get on with your day. On the other hand, if you are one of those persons who must be gratified immediately, the well-worn backseat of your car will probably get another workout as will your emotions when you sit down to deal with this new incursion into your marriage.
Put differently, the best way to deal with an affair is to prevent it. And to help you do this, you might consider examining why precisely people have affairs. The sex-seeking affair is probably the most common form of affair where the focus is on compensating for unsatisfying marital sex by seeking it outside the marriage. Frankly, there are far better ways of dealing with sexual incongruence: one could visit a sex therapist, for instance. The fulfilment-seeking affair, as the term suggests, happens when either or both partners feel unfulfilled in the relationship and choose to respond to this situation by getting emotionally involved with somebody outside the marriage. A visit to a couples therapist may be a more productive, though less enjoyable, way of dealing with this situation. Sometimes control is the reason for an affair. Unable to bear the spouse’s constant control games, a passive-aggressive partner may transfer affections on to another person, even while still remaining in the marriage, thereby giving her/him the illusion of control over the controlling spouse. Alternatively, a controlling spouse may aggressively have an affair to reiterate to the other spouse who the boss in the marriage is.
Repeating patterns
Many persons end up replaying the patterns they observed in their parents’ marriage as a sub-conscious way of legitimising their parents’ peccadilloes and may end up having affairs if either of the parents engaged in one. Or, when one belongs to a peer group that actively encourages extra-marital affairs and if one feels closely identified with the members of the group, it is not inconceivable that one might end up having an affair to “belong”. Not the “best” reason for having an affair, but surprisingly not as uncommon as one would imagine. There are also some persons who get their backs on their spouses for ill-treatment of some form or the other by having a “revenge affair”. Then, there is the “good friends” affair that starts of as a platonic friendship and ends up as an affair (platonic relationships require a lot of effort to keep them platonic). But the most difficult to deal with is the affair that just “happens”, for no good reason and with apparently no omens, much like the Sicilian ‘thunderbolt’. However, on closer scrutiny one can see that cracks had existed in the marriage, which the couple had chosen to ignore.
Whatever the cause of an affair, it needs to be dealt with. Decisions have to be made and emotions have to be handled. And surprising though this may seem, affairs do not always have to sound the death knell of the marriage. I have known many couples who have treated an affair as a wake-up call, gone through a healing process, reconfigured their relationships and have actually gone on to have lasting marriages. Affairs can be survived and even forgotten, if you and your partner make a concerted effort to do so. You might consider taking a bit of help, though.
The writer is a psychiatrist and
author of The 24x7 Marriage.
He can be contacted at vijay.nagaswami@gmail.com.
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