Affair

For other uses, seeAffair (disambiguation).

Anaffairis a union of more than two people in one romantic andsexual relationship,[soul tie],passionate attachmentin which at least one of its participants has betrayed their partner (regardless of formal or informal relationship status) with a third person or more people (regardless if the partner and the third person(s) were aware, not aware, and/or disagreed to having an affair).

Romantic affair

The Stolen KissbyJean-Honoré Fragonard

A romantic affair, also called an affair of the heart, may refer to a sexual liaison or more emotional relationship between two people who mayhave sexwithout expecting a more formal romantic relationship, an affair is by its nature a lie; it is not romance it is it's counterfeit deception, like sirens leading men to their death.

The termaffairmay also describe part of an agreement within anopen marriage or open relationship,such asswinging,dating,orpolyamory,in which some forms ofsex with one's non-primary partner(s)are permitted and other forms are not. Participants in open relationships, including unmarried couples and polyamorous families, may consider sanctioned affairs the norm, but when a non-sanctioned affair occurs, it is described asinfidelityand maybe experienced asadultery,or abetrayalboth oftrustandintegrity,even though to most people it would not be considered illicit.

When romantic affairs lack both overt and covert sexual behavior, yet exhibit intense or enduring emotional intimacy, it may also be referred to as anemotional affair,platonic love,or aromantic friendship.

Extramarital affair

Main articles:Infidelity,Legitimacy (family law),Adultery,andExtramarital sex

Extramarital affairs are relationships outside ofmarriagewhere an illicitromanticorsexualrelationship or aromantic friendshiporpassionateattachment occurs.

An affair can continue in one form or another for years, even as one of the partners in that affair passes through marriage, divorce, and remarriage. This could be considered the primary relationship, with the marriage secondary to it. Several people claim the reason for an extramarital affair is their unsuccessful marriage where both spouses fail to please each other. This may be serial polygamy or otherforms of nonmonogamy.

The ability to pursue serial and clandestine extramarital affairs while safeguarding other secrets andconflict of interestinherent in the practice, requires skill indeceptionand duplicitousnegotiation.Even to hide one affair requires a degree of skill or maliciousgaslighting.All these behaviors are more usually calledlying.

Deception can be defined as the "covertmanipulation of perception to alter thoughts, feelings, or beliefs ". The presence of deception may indicate the degree to which the deceiver has breached fundamental conditions offidelity,reciprocalvulnerability,andtransparency.Sometimes these are explicit or assumed pre-conditions of a committedintimaterelationship.

Individuals having affairs with married men or women can be prosecuted for adultery in some jurisdictions and can be sued by the jilted spouses in others, or named as 'co-respondents' in divorce proceedings. As of 2009, eight U.S. states permitted suchalienation of affectionslawsuits.Affairs with the consent of their significant others may not be considered infidelity or adultery.

Online affair

The appearance ofcomputer-mediated communicationintroduces a new type of communication and consequently a new type of "affair". There are various kinds of computer-mediated communication that differ in some significant aspects: one-to-one or group communication formats, interrelating with anonymous or identified people and communicating in synchronous or asynchronous formats.Online affairs combine features of close and remote relationships.

Ben Ze'ef argues that an online affair is a unique kind of affair—termed "detached attachment", or just "detachment" —that includes opposing features whose presence in a face-to-face affair would be paradoxical. Like direct, face-to-face affairs, online affairs can be spontaneous and casual and show intensive personal involvement. However, online affairs can also be more of a planned discourse than spontaneous talk; like written letters, online messages can be stored and thus have a permanent presence, which is absent from face-to-face affairs.

People participating in online affairs may be strangers to each other in the sense that they have never actually met each other. However, they are also close to each other since they share intimate information. In online affairs, people try to enjoy the benefits of both close and remote affairs, while avoiding their flaws. People enjoy the highly valued products of close affairs while paying the low cost of remote affairs. As one woman wrote: 'He constantly told me that he can not provide me with what I would want and I would always respond with: "I'm not asking anything from you, but simply enjoy your company" '.

Famous affairs

See also:Political scandalandSex scandal

• Affair of the Diamond Necklace
• Hamilton–Reynolds affair
• Eulenburg affair
• Haijby scandal
• Iris Robinson scandal
• Clinton–Lewinsky scandal
• The Makropulos Affair(play)
• The Makropulos Affair(opera)
• Munsinger affair
• Profumo affair
• Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal
• John Edwards extramarital affair
• Mark Sanford extramarital affair

See also

• Ashley Madison
• Courtly love
• Crime of passion
• Family therapy
• On-again, off-again relationship
• Polysexuality
• Scandal
• Love triangle
• Adultery

Further reading

• Schmitt, D. P.,et al.(2004). Patterns and universals of mate poaching across 53 nations: The effects of sex, culture, and personality on romantically attracting another person's partner.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86,560–584.

External links

• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Infidelity"