We had a reader share with us that she and her husband had been together for over seven years and were very comfortable with each other. They were each other’s biggest support systems and got along extremely well. However, over time, they had gotten stuck in a routine of sorts and to her, it felt like her marriage was no longer exciting. When she went for her college reunion she met one of her former lovers and sparks began to fly. Even when she returned to the familiar comfort of her home she could not help thinking about him. She had heard stories on people getting attracted to someone else while in a relationship but she was committed for life! They spent a few weeks texting back and forth but eventually, the boredom began to set in that friendship too. When you are happily married and yet find yourself having fallen for someone else you feel like you have eaten that forbidden fruit of love. And now, it is eating away at your soul. A feeling of constant guilt is one of the worst consequences of such an act. We have gotten several queries that our experts answered so please know that these issues are far from being rare. Why? Because the fruit of love came from a tree outside the restrictive boundary walls of marriage. You have probably always prided yourself on the stability of your marriage and are always there to provide a strong shoulder to your friends when they get caught red-handed in their extramarital affairs. And now suddenly this person seems to be the centre of your life. So is this love? Or infatuation? Or pure lust? Falling in love with someone else while being married is already a difficult situation to be in, add happily married to the equation and it becomes a recipe for disaster. You are married, but could your mannerisms have led others to feel that you are single? You question yourself because you cannot comprehend what is happening. You feel confused, you feel betrayed by your heart. Why would someone who is happily married and living a content life, fall for someone else outside of the marriage? Are you nuts to have feelings for someone else while married, you ask your self zillions of questions and destroy your mental peace?
8 Reasons Why People Fall In Love With Someone Outside The Marriage
Marriage is often deemed to be forever, but many circumstances make couples fall out of love ditching the happily forever agreement.
1. Because it is human
We humans are sometimes as frail and imperfect as the marriage we are bound to. And having feelings for someone else while being married, is that a devilish sin? No, it’s just a human complexity. You keep falling in and out of love. Today you have feelings for someone else; tomorrow you start feeling guilty and once again fall back in love with your married partner. Just like the ebb and flow of tides. You are married but in love with someone else and then you go back to being in love with your partner. Simple. You must always remember that a marriage is a very strong bond that will be able to survive transgressions by you and your partner. Understand that being attracted to someone else is completely normal but what you choose to do with these feelings is on you.
2. You feel you are stuck with the wrong person
You were 25. You could have completed that degree and then opted for marriage. But you chose to fling yourself into the game called life because that was the only way you could have competed with your friends. You were 25, what was the hurry? If only you had been strong enough to stand up for your personal interests, you wouldn’t have ended up in this marriage. Sooner or later the ‘what if’ dawns upon you. And you start feeling like you are stuck with the wrong person because of a wrong decision. And you start looking for the right one, outside your marriage. And now that you have found that someone, you are not sure what you should do. A woman happily married for over 10 years began to feel resentful towards her husband because she was feeling unaccomplished in life. Watching her husband thrive in a professional career while her days were filled with household and parenting chores made her feel extreme dissatisfaction. However, remember it is never too late. This woman went on to get a degree in counselling and is practicing with several regular clients. It is never too late to achieve your dreams.
3. You start feeling invisible
On one side there is your spouse, for whom, no matter how many surprises, confessions of love, special dishes, small efforts to take care of their needs you pull up, they ‘never’ notice you. And worst, they fail to appreciate you. Being taken for granted is one of the biggest issues in a long-term marriage and if this is the case in your relationship maybe you need to sit down and have that conversation with your husband.
4. Happiness leaves the marriage
One of the most common reasons why you start falling in love with someone else other than your partner is that marriage becomes more like a dull courtroom. Years after being married, you realise that the ‘happiness’ has left your marriage gradually. There is no excitement when you are together, only an unending march of imparting duties and taking care of kids, family, job. Therefore, you start falling for someone who makes you feel alive. It might start as an innocent friendship but before you know it, things start spiralling into something deep and intimate and you are in love with someone outside your marriage.
5. The nostalgia of the early butterflies-in-the-stomach days
Some part of you remains stuck in the good old days of the past. You miss the thrill, the rush of adrenaline and the heartbeat of the early days of courtship and love. But nothing of that sort can happen in your marriage anymore, you have lived out that honeymoon phase. So you start seeking that adventure with someone else outside your marriage. Remember, there are many ways to bring back the excitement in your marriage and make your husband fall head over heels in love with you again.
6. There was no real love
Major illusion busting time. What you ‘thought’ was love was, in fact, a combination of lust, passion, heat and infatuation. There was never any real emotional bonding. So once those layers started peeling off from your marriage you started falling out of faith in your marriage and simply blame it on lack of love
7. Boredom creeps in
When a marriage functions on routine, boredom starts to find a way in. It is the ‘same things’ that you both do every day without fail, and you start feeling like there is no excitement, no thrill. You two become too comfortable with each other, and comfortable with the boring married life you are living. Does being married guarantee sex and desire? No, it doesn’t, in fact, if anything the opposite happens. That can make you look outside your marriage – to fight the boredom, to have something new. And because you are bored, you do not mind taking irrational risks.
8. You are emotionally vulnerable
Many of us face challenges in life, and these challenges sometimes make us emotionally vulnerable. Emotionally depressed people are more likely to build hope on fragile foundations. That is the risk they are willing to take with their lives, sometimes in the form or innocent-sounding emotional affairs. However, there is still a chance that you have found your true love outside your marriage.
Is this true love or just infatuation?
So, before you tear your hair out, suffer from insomnia or ruin those beautiful pages of your diary, ask yourself two very simple questions. First, why did you marry this person who is now your spouse? Second, are you really happy? (We are going to leave the deep question of ‘what is love’ to the Greek philosophers). Was it because of your parents’ decision or the fear of being lonely? Whatever may be the reason, sooner or later love always finds a way to bring you and your partner closer. It is upon you to hold that love and never let it go. You might not have been immediately in love with each other, but surely you must have worked your way towards it, gradually, step by step. What happened then? Why did you stop loving each other midway? Coming to the other question, your relationship equation with your partner is bang on. Your level of understanding and compatibility is impeccable. You can almost read each other’s mind when it comes to doing something. He is a doting father; you are a devoted wife and a mother. You are a model couple. You have everything that a normal, married couple has – a stable income, a house, savings account, children and good social status. But after a long day, when you go to sleep, you feel an emptiness within you. With a jolt you realise, you aren’t happy, in spite of all that outward luxury. The answers to the two questions are two of the many reasons why you start having feelings for someone else while married.
What To Do Once You Fall In Love With Someone Else While Married?
You have to find a way, either back or forward. You cannot keep on betraying your partner, you cannot live a double life and you cannot deny yourself true love.
1. Consider the consequences
You have to deal with falling in love while you are married and ask yourself a few difficult questions. Marriage is an important commitment. It is a union of two people. Before taking any decision, you might want to consider its effects on the lives of all those connected to you and your partner. It can get especially complicated when affairs start between married people. Can you be sure that the person you are in love with is willing to take responsibility for his love? What repercussions will your action have on the future of your children? When it comes to marriage, love isn’t the only ruling factor. You have to make certain difficult choices as well, whether they make you happy or not.
2. Forgive yourself
You cannot undo your feelings once they have developed for someone else. Extramarital attraction exists and cannot be ruled out. But you can certainly forgive yourself. If you wish to make your marriage work, then you have to put a stop to your feelings, forgive yourself and move forward. Remember, we are all imperfect and make mistakes.
3. Build an attitude of gratitude
Has it ever occurred to you that instead of looking at all that you have lost you can choose to be grateful for all that you’ve received? Try doing that once and you will find yourself in a much happier place in your marriage. Instead of thinking about the degree, you did not get, think about the practical learning you have gained along the way. Instead of thinking of all night you could not be out partying, think about the beautiful family you have raised together.
4. Love is about giving too
Love is not always about receiving love or being loved. Real and true love is finding joy in the endless tale of loving and sharing love. Once you get out the preconditioned mindset that your partner must make you feel loved, cared for and respected you will find out how thoroughly misguided you were on the concept of love. And once you start giving more love to your married partner you will start receiving it too. As human beings, we do not always have control over our feelings and whom we fall in love with. It is more important to know whether we have chosen to place our love with the right person or not. Nothing good has ever come from being strongly dictated to by our heart. So if you fall in love with someone else while being married, make sure that person is really who you want.
