The Irony is Painful

Although there are probably numerous scenarios that led to an affair, I believe most of it reduces down to feeling an emotional void or hole and allowing yourself to fill it in an illegitimate way.  In my marriage, I felt ignored, unappreciated, unloved.  Then someone else noticed me, appreciated what I did, and it made me feel loved.   Well, once the affair was revealed and that illegitimate love was ripped away, those initial feelings, longings, heartaches from before the affair were NOTHING compared to the heartache, loneliness, and rejection that I felt afterward.  I went from significant heartache prior to the affair, to feeling loved (although illegitimate), to devastating rejection… even hatred once the affair was revealed.  The pain that I experienced was so intense it seemed to constrict every vein in my body.  If one could only truly understand how an affair is only going to cause things to be so much worse for them personally (let alone those left in the wake of the sin), it would make them turn and flee!