The Cycle of Emotions that You Will Feel if You Have an Affair with a Married Man

The Cycle of Emotions that You Will Feel if You Have an Affair with a Married Man

If you are considering getting into an affair with a married man, there are some things that you should know, namely that the feelings that you are having right now, feelings of love and anticipation, are not the only emotions that you will feel as the affair goes on.

I know that the idea of having an affair is complex – guilt at the infidelity but also excitement about the new feelings that you are feeling. You should know that, unfortunately, those feelings of guilt will never go away and that excitement will turn to misery.

As someone who has been there, and someone who has coached dozens of women who are having an affair, let me share will you the cycle of emotions that you will feel if you have an affair with a married man.

#1 – You will feel intense joy, joy that you have never felt before.

Am I right? Are you feeling joyful, perhaps in a way that you have never felt before?

Have you met this wonderful man and grown to believe that you are soul mates and that there has never been a love like this in the world? Are you wondering how you have gotten through your life without the love of this man?

Women who fall in love with married men feel an intense amount of joy as the falling happens. While the reason for this might seem because they have found their perfect match, what it really is is the release of those “feel good” chemicals, like dopamine and oxytocin, chemicals that are released at the beginning of every relationship.

So, know that those feelings that you are feeling aren’t necessarily the feelings of finding a soul mate but just feelings that every other woman at the onset of a relationship feels.

#2 – You will feel hopeful, perhaps for the first time in a long time.

I know that when I had fell in love with a married man I, for the first time in a long time, felt hopeful. I had been divorced for six years. I had dated a myriad of men, none of whom stuck. When my college crush reappeared, I thought that I was going to finally live happily ever after.

That sense of hopefulness was delicious but, unfortunately, it didn’t last long.

#3 – You will feel wicked, an emotion that might cause you internal conflict.

According to clinical psychologist Max von Sabler, when people do something that they know is “bad,” they experience something called “cognitive dissonance,” namely holding two conflicting beliefs or values at once. This cognitive dissonance can cause us to do things that we know aren’t great for us – like having an affair.

The reasons that we do these things are myriad. Sometimes we do them for immediate gratification over long term health. Sometimes, when we do something “bad,” our body releases dopamine, a reward response that makes us want more. Sometimes we do something “wrong” because of trauma that we have had in our past.

Regardless of the cause, feeling wicked is an emotion that will cause you some mental anguish and, when those emotions appear, it will be the moment where the cycle of emotions flips from very good to very bad.

#4 – You will feel jealousy, jealousy that he goes home to someone else.

Right now, you might be feeling like your person loves you more than anyone else in the world, especially more than his wife. After all, they supposedly live separate lives, they never have sex, they fight all the time and the marriage is effectively over. Supposedly.

As time goes on, in spite of his declarations of love and his repeated promises, he will choose his wife over you every time. His wife will be his priority. His wife will be the one who he goes home to every night.

So remember, while you might feel sure of his love now, you will question that emotion as time goes on.

#5 – You will feel anxiety, anxiety that he will never leave his wife.

I know that when I was having an affair with a married man I lived in a state of constant anxiety. I spent all of my time  wondering if he had “had the talk” with his wife. If he had told her that he was leaving her. I wondered if he loved me. I wondered why he would make me promises that he wouldn’t keep. All of those worries took over my life, ultimately making me feel unloved and unworthy.

#6 – You will feel a lack of trust because of his continued broken promises.

Trust is the cornerstone of every relationship. According to the Gottman Institute, “trust is embedded in every fiber of a relationship.”

A lack of trust is born of betrayal, something that your married man does every time that he makes promises but doesn’t keep them. When people feel betrayed, particularly over and over, they no longer trust their person to keep them safe and this, over time, erodes the relationship.

#7 – You will feel unimportant as he continues to not prioritize you.

Much like your married man choosing his wife over you more often than not, he will also not prioritize you over most aspects of his life.

Your man will choose his kids’ soccer games, his work events, taking his dog to the vet, spending time with his extended family over you. Even worse, as he is doing these things, he will tell you that you are his priority – something that he might believe but that is obviously a lie.

Feeling unimportant will ultimately erode your self esteem, leaving you wondering why you aren’t worthy of someone picking you first. I know that when I was having an affair, after a year I was a shell of myself. Always being second destroyed my self-esteem, making me questions my worthiness in every aspect of my life.

#8 – You will feel hopeless because all the hope you felt at the beginning will be gone.

Remember at the beginning of this article I spoke of the hope that you would feel if you got into a relationship with a married man – hope that you had found the happiness and love that you had dreamed of?

Unfortunately, over time, as a married man repeated breaks his promises and always puts you second, that sense of hope will not only disappear but a sense of hopelessness will replace it, a hopelessness that will be more intense than any that you have ever felt before.

You will feel hopeless that you will never be with your married man (and questioning if you should be with a man who treats you the way he does). You will feel hopeless that you will ever find someone who can truly love you.  You will feel hopeless because you feel like no man could ever replace the married man you love so much.

All of that wonderful hope that you felt in the beginning will be gone, replaced with the feeling that you will never be happy again.

# 9 – You will feel abandoned because he will never leave his wife.

This is the most notable emotion that you will feel in the cycle of your affair – abandonment.

I know that you have not yet given up hope that your married man will leave his wife – your emotions are winning the battle over your brain on this topic.

But, let me tell you – your married man will NEVER leave his wife. Why? Because leaving his wife means leaving his kids, wrecking his finances and perhaps damaging his social life. And no man is going to do that.

I have a client whose married man told her he was going to leave his wife. He even got an apartment. And, when his wife found out about his affair partner, she gave him 90 days to figure out what he wanted – his affair partner or his family. Ultimately, he chose his family, leaving my client with a sense of abandonment that devastated her.

So, there you go – the cycle of emotions that you will feel if you have an affair with a married man.

I know that right now it all feels like sunshine and roses but I want to make sure that you know going in that that sunshine will turn to storm clouds and those roses will bare their thorns.

You will not live happily ever after with this man – that I can promise you.

Mitzi Bockmann

I am a NYC based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate. My writing has been published on The Huffington Post, Prevention,  Psych Central, Pop Sugar, MSN and The Good Man Project, among others. I work with all kinds of people to help them go from depressed and overwhelmed to confident and happy in their relationships and in their world.