It is not difficult to find a married man / woman in an extra-marital affair who states that he / she has entered this affair for the sake of emotional support only. He / She is not interested in Sex! Is he / she speaking the truth or is he / she lying?

I believe that he / she is lying. But i may be wrong. People who believe that he / she is not lying, please answer this simple question. Why can't this person look for a friend of the same sex ? Can't a man get emotional support from another man ? Can't a woman get emotional support from another woman?


Note: Had posted this topic in India but could not get any comments.

Both.

They might not be aware of their true motives or what's truly motivating them to specifically seek out someone of the opposite sex for gender specific emotional support.

They may only have been made aware of a pain, or something missing, when it was pointed out to them by interacting with someone, and being around that someone simply lessened that pain, or helped fill what was missing, so they just pursued more of that while ignoring the ancillary social expectations or rules.

People aren't constantly totally consciously aware of exactly what they are doing and why.

When you go to the bathroom do you remember each step of your potty training and everything your parents told you as to why you should use the toilet rather than your pants? Do you recall everything you ate or drank within the last hour, day, week, month, year, lifetime, that might be having an effect on why you have to use the bathroom right at that moment, in that way?

Do you say to yourself "I just drank this glass of ice tea. So in precisely 2.3 hours I shall have to micturate approximately 10 oz of liquid primarily composed of water and salts. I am going to seek out a urinal contained within a men's bathroom facility."

Or do you say things like "I should pee before we leave," or, "Oh man, I gotta pee." or, "you know what, now that you mentioned it, I have to pee too."

Would you be lying if you stated you used the women's bathroom to pee because you liked the way it smelled and it was cleaner?

Would your wife be justified in being upset that you used the women's bathroom because she thought you just wanted to catch women with their pants down?

Yes, and no.


Because of puberty.
Because after puberty different genders are seen to offer different things and people naturally respond differently to different people and different genders in different ways.

People interact with the world emotionally and then try to explain it.
People are finite and limited and not aware of themselves in their own entirety.


You can't force emotional support.
You can't just say "I'm going to get emotional support from another guy," and then magically feel emotionally supported by another guy.

People interact with other people and that causes emotional reactions that are positive, negative, or neutral.
People chase the positive ones and then at best try to mitigate the negative effects of their behavior in doing so.


Maybe not the kind they want or need.
Maybe only with a lot of effort, time, focus, drawing away from the relationship she's in.

Thanks a ton mate for your comments and i really appreciate your efforts. Also, you have put across your views logically and i agree to almost everything that you have stated. After reading your comments, i have realized that it is a complex topic and is not as simple as it seems.

Looking forward to more views on the same!

Excellent observations from ciretom, except for the stuff about toilet training. Went off course a bit there, I think.

What I wanted to put in, is that this is one of those "funny" parts of human life that actually makes an infamously derided quote from Star Wars seem insightful. I'm thinking of the one where Obiwan tries to explain away the fact that he stated falsely that Luke's father was "betrayed and murdered" by Darth Vader, by saying it was actually true, "from a certain point of view."

My observation is related to ciretoms. He talks about how lots of people only THINK they know why they do what they do, and that's true. It's ALSO true, that a fair number of people really do go through experiences in their lives, which take them to a psychological "place" such that they really DO view the affairs that they have, or even affairs that their official mate has with others, as being positive acts.

I've run across people who cheated in order to establish their equality with the person who they still intended to remain with. From their point of view, the cheat allowed them to feel valuable enough that they could truly offer something important to the one they really did love. That sort of thing.

Naturally, the tricky part about that kind of odd, subtle thinking, is that though it might really BE true for the person who did the cheating, unless their target mate chances to be in exactly the right frame of mind to agree with them to the core of their soul, it will completely kill things for them.

shades of gray no not the book..



or narcissistic tendencies
the 'have your cake and eat it too' peops of world

amoralistic

call it want ya want to

I love my spouse but....I still need ______

and yet feel no qualms or guilt over fulfilling their needs
and do not feel they are harming anyone by doing so

it is the " do whatever makes you happy" mentality
irregardless of whether or not it causes harm to anyone else

and it is in fact this tidbit that is used as justification for not telling the truth

well it would only hurt her if she knew
when in fact it may also hurt him financially and he may lose his home, loss of reputation, his children, their trust and loyalty and for goodness sake what would the neighbors say


same holds true if it was a woman doing the cheating