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An affair is a sexual relationship, romantic friendship, or passionate attachment in which at least one of its participants has a formal or informal commitment to a third person who may neither agree to such relationship nor even be aware of it.
A romantic affair, also called an affair of the heart, may refer to a sexual liaison or more emotional relationship between two people who may have sex without expecting a more formal romantic relationship, an affair is by its nature romantic. [1]
The term affair may also describe part of an agreement within an open marriage or open relationship, such as swinging, dating, or polyamory, in which some forms of sex with one's non-primary partner(s) are permitted and other forms are not. Participants in open relationships, including unmarried couples and polyamorous families, may consider sanctioned affairs the norm, but when a non-sanctioned affair occurs, it is described as infidelity and maybe experienced as adultery, or a betrayal both of trust and integrity, even though to most people it would not be considered illicit.
When romantic affairs lack both overt and covert sexual behavior, yet exhibit intense or enduring emotional intimacy, it may also be referred to as an emotional affair, platonic love, or a romantic friendship.
Extramarital affairs are relationships outside of marriage where an illicit romantic or sexual relationship or a romantic friendship or passionate attachment occurs. [2]
An affair can continue in one form or another for years, even as one of the partners in that affair passes through marriage, divorce, and remarriage. This could be considered the primary relationship, with the marriage secondary to it. Several people claim the reason for an extramarital affair is their unsuccessful marriage where both spouses fail to please each other. This may be serial polygamy or other forms of nonmonogamy. [3]
The ability to pursue serial and clandestine extramarital affairs while safeguarding other secrets and conflict of interest inherent in the practice, requires skill in deception and duplicitous negotiation. Even to hide one affair requires a degree of skill or malicious gaslighting. All these behaviors are more usually called lying. [4]
Deception can be defined as the "covert manipulation of perception to alter thoughts, feelings, or beliefs". The presence of deception may indicate the degree to which the deceiver has breached fundamental conditions of fidelity, reciprocal vulnerability, and transparency. Sometimes these are explicit or assumed pre-conditions of a committed intimate relationship. [5]
Individuals having affairs with married men or women can be prosecuted for adultery in some jurisdictions and can be sued by the jilted spouses in others, or named as 'co-respondents' in divorce proceedings. As of 2009, eight U.S. states permitted such alienation of affections lawsuits. [6] Affairs with the consent of their significant others may not be considered infidelity or adultery.[ citation needed ]
The appearance of computer-mediated communication introduces a new type of communication and consequently a new type of "affair". There are various kinds of computer-mediated communication that differ in some significant aspects: one-to-one or group communication formats, interrelating with anonymous or identified people and communicating in synchronous or asynchronous formats. [7] Online affairs combine features of close and remote relationships.
Ben Ze'ef argues that an online affair is a unique kind of affair—termed "detached attachment", or just "detachment"—that includes opposing features whose presence in a face-to-face affair would be paradoxical. Like direct, face-to-face affairs, online affairs can be spontaneous and casual and show intensive personal involvement. However, online affairs can also be more of a planned discourse than spontaneous talk; like written letters, online messages can be stored and thus have a permanent presence, which is absent from face-to-face affairs. [8]
People participating in online affairs may be strangers to each other in the sense that they have never actually met each other. However, they are also close to each other since they share intimate information. In online affairs, people try to enjoy the benefits of both close and remote affairs, while avoiding their flaws. People enjoy the highly valued products of close affairs while paying the low cost of remote affairs. As one woman wrote: 'He constantly told me that he can not provide me with what I would want and I would always respond with: "I'm not asking anything from you, but simply enjoy your company"'. [9]
An internet relationship is a relationship between people who have met online, and in many cases know each other only via the Internet. Online relationships are similar in many ways to pen pal relationships. This relationship can be romantic, platonic, or even based on business affairs. An internet relationship is generally sustained for a certain amount of time before being titled a relationship, just as in-person relationships. The major difference here is that an internet relationship is sustained via computer or online service, and the individuals in the relationship may or may not ever meet each other in person. Otherwise, the term is quite broad and can include relationships based upon text, video, audio, or even virtual character. This relationship can be between people in different regions, different countries, different sides of the world, or even people who reside in the same area but do not communicate in person.
Adultery is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and shares some similarities in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to public morals, undermining the marriage relationship.
Deception is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. This occurs when a deceiver uses information against a person to make them believe an idea is true. Deception can be used with both verbal and nonverbal messages. The person creating the deception knows it to be false while the receiver of the message has a tendency to believe it. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight of hand as well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception, as in bad faith. It can also be called, with varying subjective implications, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, ruse, or subterfuge.
In social psychology, an interpersonal relation describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences. Relations vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or trends of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.
Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety.
Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.
Infidelity is a violation of a couple's emotional and/or sexual exclusivity that commonly results in feelings of anger, sexual jealousy, and rivalry.
Open marriage is a form of non-monogamy in which the partners of a dyadic marriage agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual or romantic relationships, without this being regarded by them as infidelity, and consider or establish an open relationship despite the implied monogamy of marriage. There are variant forms of open marriage such as swinging and polyamory, each with the partners having varying levels of input into their spouse's activities.
A relationship breakup, breakup, or break-up is the termination of a relationship. The act is commonly termed "dumping [someone]" in slang when it is initiated by one partner. The term is less likely to be applied to a married couple, where a breakup is typically called a separation or divorce. When a couple engaged to be married breaks up, it is typically called a "broken engagement". People commonly think of breakups in a romantic aspect, however, there are also non-romantic and platonic breakups, and this type of relationship dissolution is usually caused by failure to maintain a friendship.
Virtual sex is sexual activity where two or more people gather together via some form of communications equipment to arouse each other, often by the means of transmitting sexually explicit messages. Virtual sex describes the phenomenon, no matter the communications equipment used.
An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of romance or love. Intimate relationships are interdependent, and the members of the relationship mutually influence each other. The quality and nature of the relationship depends on the interactions between individuals, and is derived from the unique context and history that builds between people over time. Social and legal institutions such as marriage acknowledge and uphold intimate relationships between people. However, intimate relationships are not necessarily monogamous or sexual, and there is wide social and cultural variability in the norms and practices of intimacy between people.
Non-monogamy is an umbrella term for every practice or philosophy of non-dyadic intimate relationship that does not strictly hew to the standards of monogamy, particularly that of having only one person with whom to exchange sex, love, and/or affection. In that sense, "nonmonogamy" may be accurately applied to extramarital sex, group marriage, or polyamory. It is not synonymous with infidelity, since all parties are consenting to the relationship structure, partners are often committed to each other as well as to their other partners and cheating is still considered problematic behavior with many non-monogamous relationships.
Sexual jealousy is a special form of jealousy in sexual relationships, based on suspected or imminent sexual infidelity. The concept is studied in the field of evolutionary psychology.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to interpersonal relationships.
Extramarital sex occurs when a married person engages in sexual activity with someone other than their spouse. The term may be applied to the situation of a single person having sex with a married person.
The term emotional affair describes a type of relationship between people. The term often describes a bond between two people that mimics or matches the closeness and emotional intimacy of a romantic relationship while not being physically consummated. An emotional affair is sometimes referred to as an affair of the heart. An emotional affair may emerge from a friendship, and progress toward greater levels of personal intimacy and attachment.
A committed relationship is an interpersonal relationship based upon agreed-upon commitment to one another involving love, trust, honesty, openness, or some other behavior. Forms of committed relationships include close friendship, long-term relationships, engagement, marriage, and civil unions.
Relational transgressions occur when people violate implicit or explicit relational rules. These transgressions include a wide variety of behaviors. The boundaries of relational transgressions are permeable. Betrayal for example, is often used as a synonym for a relational transgression. In some instances, betrayal can be defined as a rule violation that is traumatic to a relationship, and in other instances as destructive conflict or reference to infidelity.
Workplace relationships are unique interpersonal relationships with important implications for the individuals in those relationships, and the organizations in which the relationships exist and develop.
Friends with benefits relationships is a term commonly used to reference a relationship that is sexual without being romantic. Typically, these relationships can be between people that consider themselves platonic and friends. These non-committal relationships can be short term, or evolve into serious romantic relationships. FWB relationships are enjoyed by both women and men, which is in contrast to casual sexual encounters, more prevalent among men.
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