I want to make him/her hurt as bad as I hurt!
I want my partner know how it feels!
So you’re thinking of having a revenge affair. I understand. I thought about doing that too. After all …
Why play by the rules anymore? Playing by the rules didn’t get me what I wanted.
Why shouldn’t I have some fun?
Wouldn’t it help them to understand what it feels like to be hurt?
And besides my self-esteem and sexual identity are crushed. I need to know that someone else would desire me!
You are free to do whatever you want. It’s your life, and you will live with the consequences of the choices you make.
Facts about revenge affairs
Having a revenge affair is going to make your life worse, not better. Revenge affairs don’t work.
We have a revenge affair to make ourselves feel better, but we end up feeling worse. It ends up doing more damage. It’s disastrous.
There are people in our culture who believe that monogamy is unrealistic and everyone has affairs, and obviously, if that’s a personal belief system, they’re going to have affairs.
Affairs are not about someone waking up one day and thinking.
"Today I’d really like to hurt my him/her. Now let me see. What means, an evil, terrible thing can I do to hurt them. I know I’ll have an affair. That will really get them!"
That’s not how affairs generally happen, but that’s what a revenge affair is. They are actually having an affair with the intention of hurting their partner.
When you have a revenge affair, your spouse doesn’t feel the same level of betrayal. Instead they generally end up feeling better. There is something inside human beings that feels we need to be punished, to pay a price for our wrongs. If we pay a price, we think we can be forgiven, restored, and released from our guilt.
If the betrayed spouse has a revenge affair, the unfaithful spouse got their punishment. The price has been paid. Their guilt is diminished. They feel better about themselves. So the revenge affair does not have its intended outcome.
Revenge affairs also fail to make the initially betrayed spouse feel better, like they think it would. They think, “He/she got to go out and have all that fun. I’ll go out and have that fun too.”
The problem is, when you go out and have an intentional affair it’s usually not that fun. When the initially unfaithful spouse first has their affair there is a thrill and an excitement as they gradually slide across boundaries.
When you go out to a bar or go to a singles site to meet somebody, and you’ve decided “I’m just going to go sleep with somebody!”, you’re full of anger and pain. You don’t get to experience the fun of an affair. Revenge affairs don’t give you the thrill, excitement or the chemical high.
Instead you feel scummy, especially after.
The thoughts that kept me from having a revenge affair were …
“How does me becoming a lesser person make things right?
“What kind of person am I if I allow my spouse's bad choices to cause me to make bad choices too?
“I’m not going to lower my standards just because they lowered their standards."
“I’m not going to lose my dignity just because they made a choice to lose theirs.”
Sometimes the unfaithful partner wants you to go out and have an affair, so you can be “even.”
Two wrongs still don’t make a right.
If you think a revenge affair will make you feel better after you do it, YOU ARE WRONG. It will make you feel worse and possibly be the biggest mistake of your life. Remember once it’s done, you can never go back.
There is also the issue of the other person you have the revenge affair with. You will be using this person in a selfish way, and that person didn’t do anything to you to deserve that.
The greatest revenge is kindness which is not easy after all of the mistake and will put yourself at better level than your partner who've done that to you, and with that kind you end up rewarded! And you should think about it.
Cheers!
