African Press International (API)

Clara Muiruri

Affairs aren�t about sex. They�re about boredom and temptation. They�re about feeling neglected, disrespected, stressed, afraid or taken for granted. They happen when someone in a relationship stops feeling valued or appreciated. Sex is often the least important issue on the table. Or so the theory goes.

I�m sorry to burst the bubble, but I believe affairs are about sex. Obviously. The single thing that differentiates a man�s, or a woman�s, affair from their relationship with their best friend is the sex.

Sex is the source of a relationship�s energy, the glue that binds it together. Chemistry, lust, love at first sight: The initial imperative driving every new relationship is physical not emotional. In the beginning, you scarcely know each other in any meaningful sense, whatever romantic nonsense you tell yourselves.

This is why a sexual betrayal is so devastating. In one terrible blow, it strikes at the heart of a relationship, destroying your self-esteem and sense of self. Having your partner turn from you to another woman is so insulting. Instantly you are rendered dull and undesirable.

Six years into my marriage, I discovered my husband was having an affair � I overheard him whispering sweet nothings to another woman on the phone. A little digging soon unearthed proof of his betrayal, which had been going on for a year.

I was lacerated with grief. How could he do this to me? How could he put us, and all we�d ever meant to each other, second to his desire to sleep with someone else?

I had a successful career, I�d kept my figure, our sex life was as dynamic as it had always been. Yet his affair was telling me I didn�t measure up. However much I loved him, he didn�t love me. At least not enough to stay faithful.

But I told myself he hadn�t left me yet. Perhaps this fling would burn itself out if I kept my head. I had never believed that an affair had to destroy an otherwise good relationship. I knew that good men made mistakes; that sex wasn�t the same as love. And so I sat on my hands for more than a year without confronting him.

In that time I learned that adultery is so much more than the breaking of a promise. It destroys not only your present and your future, but also your past. When did our lives stop being real? When was the smile first faked, when did love become a lie?

Women often tell one another that an emotional betrayal � when a man cries on the shoulder of a female friend � is worse than sexual infidelity. After all, a lover who shares his hopes and fears and dreams with another woman, however �innocently�, rarely has any emotion absent.

They know that in a mature, committed relationship, most problems can be resolved with understanding and patience. Few are na�ve enough to believe that a long term relationship is ever roses all the way. Inevitably there will be rough patches, but there are few issues that can be resolved if both parties are willing.

Except infidelity. I had thought I could separate my husband�s affair from the good in our relationship, that I could focus on our family and close my eyes to his sexual betrayal. But all the time, picturing them in bed together ate like acid into my soul.

Infidelity is the one act that changes everything. When you commit to a relationship, with or without the benefit of a ring, you don�t promise never to dance with anyone else. You don�t swear not to tell your problems or confide your secret ambitions to anyone but your lover. It�s not assumed you�ll never find a member of the opposite sex fascinating again. You do, however, promise not to make love to any of them.

Effects of adultery

It would be simplistic to suggest that infidelity has to mean the end of every relationship. It�s painful, but adultery can lead you to examine relationship problems that you�d been ignoring and to build something new, stronger and better out of the ruins.

But for most people � and I was one � even one affair creates too much hurt to heal. I stayed for a year, hoping our relationship could recover, but in fact I withdrew from it completely. It was the only way to protect myself from the anguish.

We had sex, but it was silent, angry sex. We talked, but only about trivialities. We couldn�t share anything real because of the elephant in the room that neither of us dared acknowledge. In the end, my husband left me, not because he was in love with another woman, but because I had become emotionally absent from our marriage.

His infidelity undermined our entire life. It made a lie out of our relationship, and if I had stayed in it, it would have made a liar out of me.

source.standard.ke