Picture courtesy of Epbizah.
If you have been married for any length of time, it is likely that there have been times when passion and adventure waned. Routine and survival becomes the focus. It is also very likely that throughout the course of a marriage, the passion, adventure, and even the sex becomes routine and mechanical.
It is during these times that one or both spouses may begin to wonder what else they are missing. The eyes begin to wander. Conversation with a coworker or friend of the opposite sex may get too personal or slightly cross the line into the inappropriate. If this lingering around the line continues, an affair is likely to occur. While this affair may not be sexual or even physical, emotional affairs can still be devastating to a marriage.
Since an affair is often not really about the “other person” or even the sex but more about the adventure and the risk, what if you had an affair with your spouse? Add some risk and adventure to your relationship. Spice things up. Role play a bit. If there are two willing participants, go for it.
Feel free to take some liberty with this process in order to adapt it to your situation, and this should go without saying, but this is intended to be used with your spouse, not someone else.
The best way to start this affair is online. Send an email to your lover from a private email account. These can be created through yahoo or hotmail or many other services. Encourage your lover to create their own account as well, to be used exclusively for this relationship. Address the email to a pseudonym for your spouse. The initial email should be inviting and suggestive, but don’t move too quickly.
Part of the adventure and excitement is the wooing and enticing of your lover.
After the conversations have enticed and aroused the adventurous side of you and your spouse, an inconspicuous meeting for drinks or lunch would be arranged. This should occur during the day, either during lunch or when you can slip away from your job to meet your adventurer over coffee. The important thing is that you will meet with your lover and then return to your day. It is also important to keep a low profile with these meetings. Even though you are doing nothing wrong, in the spirit of the adventure, try to avoid being caught.
As the tryst continues to progress, be sure to keep the emails and the casual meetings coming. This will help in blending the affair into the marriage later.
As for the rest of the process, use your imagination and creativity. Here are a few ideas in order to keep adventure part of the process.
- Never meet your lover for “affair sex” at your home. Part of the adventure is finding other places to hook up.
- Agree to not discuss this part of the relationship at home.
- Try to set up a regular schedule of “dates” with your lover.
- Do what you can to meet your lover out of town once in a while.
- Do not discuss your affair with anyone. At least until you and your spouse have incorporated the affair relationship into the marriage.
Enjoy the adventure. However, keep in mind that you will need to blend this part of your relationship back into your marriage.
Here’s how.
First, when the affair has gone on for a while, have a discussion with your lover about their experience during this adventure and share yours. These feelings and thoughts can be incorporated into the marriage going forward. Have this discussion over dinner during a night out marking the end of the affair and the beginning of a newly designed marriage.
Second, this process most likely awakened some passion and adventure within yourself and your spouse. Find ways to keep this growing in you. Feel free to express these passions and adventurous thoughts in the marriage. This will allow for longer lasting passion.
And third, remember that you and your spouse are also lovers. Not just parents, employees/employers, housekeepers, landscapers, chauffeurs, roommates, cooks, and friends.
Marriage is the best place to be yourself, and also the riskiest. Go on, take the risk. You both may enjoy it!
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Oh my gosh, what a great idea! I think at this point in my journey, my husband would welcome the suggestions you gave. A couple of years ago, probably not which is what led (in part) to my imagination wandering to someone else. I think an emotional affair is very hazardous. I still suffer from its consequences. Even though I am in a much better place, I still, at times, have to fight the desire to contact that person that I built up in my head. My imagination made him better than the real deal. Perfect really. So the lesson for others is to not go there. While the comfort may make you feel good, it is fleating and the pain you are inflicting on yourself long term is not worth it. While the way I tried to console myself was all emotional and mostly onesided, it was still very wrong. Try what Corey is suggesting and get your fire going with the one you pledged to love and honor. It’s the right thing to do.
U guys are doing great job and a nble one as well. God Bless you and me tooooooo I just hope someday it will make a difference in my life too……I love my husband more than anything in this world, but unfortunate part is he thinks i dont…….
Someday I wish and hop, we both will undersatnd and will be doing the same stuff….my dreammmmmmm A Happy Couple.
I find the idea intriguing but unfortunately we are recovering from his affair still and one of the things I still have pain around is that she got all of this fun stuff while I got the drudgery. I don’t think I could stomach the idea of following your suggestions due to the images of his affair it would bring up. Any thoughts?
What a bizarre idea. On the one hand it’s flattering, enticing, and intriguing, on another it’s repugnant. I suppose the problem is with the suggestion that an affair can be acceptable. I once (a few years back) read an article with a similar suggestion only it recommended that just before your “date” ended you re-established vocally and physically that you are happily married to your actual spouse (one of the side suggestions was on being different “desired” people.)
@ akakarma: maybe you could do things to feel sexy and attractive – for yourself. If you give yourself the image of marriage being “fun stuff” perhaps the drudgery aspect would fade away. This would be things like on Wednesday nights you go to bed early and wearing something feminine then read, sleep, lounge; or put on music that makes you want to dance while you vaccuum; or dress up for a night out with yourself or girlfriends; or (a personal favorite) slather your hands with a pleasant-scented lotion, wear hot pink cotton & rubber gloves, and wash the dishes in straight hot water. (The hot water massages the lotion into your hands and when the dishes are finished you’ll have silky soft hands.) All of this personal pampering will improve your self-image and therefore your flirtatious relationship with your husband.
It’s a thought.
@ akakarma- Unfortunately, whenever there has been infidelity in a marriage, many things within the marriage become difficult to restore and create. Adventure and passion seem to be some of the last areas developed after such an occurrence. One thing an idea like this post could do is help you gauge where you both are in the healing process. As the healing grows, more of the marriage is reopened and possible. Even more of you own life and imagination is opened more as you grow through life and marriage. Blessings on you both as you continue in life together.
@ liss- If you think of affair in the context of some other person or thing outside of the marriage, it is never acceptable in my opinion. What goes on within a marriage, with two willing participants however, sky’s the limit. As long as both people can be honest and are willing. Marriage can be and is one of the greatest institutions in our society. We were created in relationship and it is in relationship that life has more joy and adventure. Thanks for your comments. I look forward to more. Blessings.
Hi! What a beautiful site! I’m a visitor from zen habits, now happy rss subscriber. This particular post tickled my fancy because of a favorite book of mine, _Manalive_ by GK Chesterton. This quirky and funny book involves, as a sideplot, the kidnapping of a new resident, a young lady, which becomes the talk of the town. Just how and why and by whom (and how often!) she is kidnapped, is the joy of it. Given the subject of this post, of course, you already know the answer…
My husband and I have been married 28 years, have 5 kids, 22yrs to 8 yrs. Yet, even when times are tough and finances are tight, we try always to be good to each other, however imperfectly. We go out weekly on dates, even if it’s just dollar burgers and cruising our local bookstore for an hour – and people sometimes ask if we are newlyweds! We will definitely keep this site on a must-watch list!
What a wonderful Idea! I hope I can drop this hint to my honey
This I beleive is a great idea – and one that my husband and I have participated in. I must share our recent ‘funny’ experience though – we were emailing each other back and forth and my ‘name’ of my email was ‘Angela’ which was the name of a girl he had known when he was younger – i was ‘teasing’ him – and he I – we talked about how we would hook up – We didnt’ speak of it at home at all. He was playing along nicely and one day asked for a picture – (knowing it was me of course) – all of a sudden he receives an ‘facebook’ request from a friend ‘Angela’ – the “long lost” friend. At that moment – he was in shock – he thought for an instant that in fact he was actually communicating with the long lost friend and not me – beleive me – the emails were not appropriate for him to be sendign to her
– Any how we had a good laugh over the coincidence….once he figured it out (the look on his face asking me if i was ‘really’ emailing him spoke volumes for me)
anyhow thought I’d share a funny experience!
To put an opposing opinion out there. This sounds like a poor idea to me. I think so many problems stem from everyone trying to live in fantasy as they try to imagine something better. It is like living in the past by remembering wrongs or worrying about the future. Life is to be lived here in reality, not anywhere else. I would rather pursue how to make here and now exiting and adventurous instead of playing with the “fun” parts of destructive behavior. Plus, it seems to me that you are taking emotions that stem from role playing that it is someone else (even knowing it is your spouse) which slips into the same realm as emotional affairs. Thanks for the blog – I like it.
We actually did this a couple years ago… it was fun, and exciting! We’d drop the boys off somewhere and sneak home for some hanky panky. The fact is, that marriage can become monotonous if you don’t ever spice it up. That did tons for our marriage and I think it would be great to try it again!
@ Eric
I have to disagree somewhat there: One thing that kills a relationship is believing you are ‘good enough’ , since your mate already loves you. I can imagine finding out I really liked my wife with blonde hair (she having worn a wig for our ‘affair’ date) or she finding that I really like her in shorts and sandals (she usually wearing skirts at home). I can see it injecting a bit of the unknown into a relationship that might be on the verge of stale. We often forget, as we become more and more familiar, to compliment honestly (or over-honestly, in fact)
I recall reading an article a few years back, by a partner in a couple who mentioned that when they were newlyweds, the wife would shower twice a day and he would shave twice. Things moved downhill quickly, until one day they realized they were sitting on the couch eating popcorn and picking their noses. They both had this realization at the same time. This led to the thought of going back to their ‘dating’ behaviors, such as dressing up just to watch TV together, and keeping nose-picking private. (My wife, while a wonderful woman, tends to be loudly flatulent at times, which can be rather…surprising when I’m trying to make eyes at her, for example)