Causes of Affairs – 3 Reasons for Affairs in Marriage

If your partner cheated on you, it’s only natural to, not only be incredibly hurt, but also to wonder what are the common causes of affairs.

There are lot of reasons for affairs. Most cheaters will be more than happy to tell you why they were so dissatisfied with the relationship.

However, instead of getting caught up in what they say or what you think are the specifics of your situation, here are a few common threads that tie almost all affairs together.

Here are 3 big causes of affairs:

Dissatisfaction with the relationship

This biggest cause for affairs is dissatisfaction with the overall relationship.  We all have “emotional needs.”  These could be things like feeling respected, being loved, or feeling as if they can trust their spouse.

Don’t Let an Affair Ruin Your Marriage

If these emotional needs are not met, then when a third person enters the picture who does meet these emotional needs, this will cause an inexplicable attraction or infatuation.

From there it is a slippery slope from harmless crush to flirting and a full-blown affair.

The best way to avoid this kind of problem is to focus on dealing with the unmet emotional needs in your relationship before a problem like this gets out of hand.  Don’t be afraid to talk to your partner and share with them how you feel.

Growing apart

We all change as we travel through life.  The simple things that brought us together and sparked our relationship may not be enough as we mature.  As we gain more life experiences and change, we may have less in common with our partners.

Much like the case with unmet emotional needs, when we find someone who seems to have a life vision that is more in synch with us than our partner, it is common to go back to those feelings of infatuation that come with the beginning of the relationship. This is one of the biggest causes of affairs.

Although you can’t really stop your partner from growing apart from you, you can avoid this from leading to cheating by taking the time to connect with them often and understand their thoughts and feelings behind their experiences in life.

Even if we don’t share the same goals in life, we do share the same feelings and emotions in our lives.  We all feel happiness, sadness, frustration, and bliss and these emotions are the things that can connect us and keep our relationships fresh and rewarding.

Feeling dissatisfied with life

When one partner feels dissatisfied with their life, they may look for reasons to spice it up and bring a thrill back into a boring life.  Sometimes the affair has nothing at all to do with the relationship, but has more to do with the individual.

If your life is dull and boring and it just feels like you are sleepwalking through your life, you may feel the urge to cheat as an outlet for a thrill or excitement to breathe life into your day-to-day existence.

The best way to avoid this is to have both you and your partner work at maintaining goals of your own in life.  This keeps you both from stagnating and feeling too bored with life that you feel tempted to cheat for the thrill.

There are really quite a few reasons for cheating, but these are just the common causes of affairs.  I don’t believe the saying that “once a cheater, always a cheater.”  If you simply take your relationship out of an environment that results in an affair, you can really break the cheating pattern and save your marriage from the agony of an affair.

If you’d like to learn about the causes of affairs and how to move on afterwards, also check out my article on how to survive an affair.

Check Out This Free Advice to Save Your Marriage After an Affair