Regardless of where an affair falls on the affairs continuum, it exists because it meets important emotional needs. The one-night stand meets emotional needs when one spouse is temporarily separated from the other spouse. And the one on a trip is not the only one vulnerable - the one who is left alone is also likely to have an affair. When these spouses are separated and, therefore, have unmet emotional needs, they will often find someone else to meet them.
The spouses of those who engage in one-night stands are often doing a fairly good job meeting emotional needs when the wayward spouse is home. But when the spouse is not at home, the needs cannot be met. The betrayed spouse may trust the wayward spouse to be faithful because they have never honestly discussed the temptations that exist.
The soul mate type of affair can begin when a spouse works long hours or is often away on business trips. But these affairs can also begin because a spouse fails to meet important emotional needs even when at home. In Jon's case, part of the problem was that he did not spend much time at home, and another part was that when he was at home, he was too tired to meet Sues emotional need.
I'm not saying that a betrayed spouse is totally to blame for an affair. I'm simply acknowledging the fact that unmet emotional needs make a spouse vulnerable to the temptation of an affair. In many cases, a person's failure to meet his or her spouse's emotional needs is unintentional.
Jon failed to meet Sue's emotional needs because he did not understand how important they were to her. He was putting all of his energy into a career that he thought would make their whole family happy. He was usually too exhausted when he got home from work to meet Sue's emotional needs for conversation and affection. Because these were important needs that were left unmet, Sue was vulnerable to Greg, who was able to meet needs that Jon did not.
Love, a Powerful Emotion
Unmet emotional needs provide the necessary conditions to set an affair into motion. But what really complicates the situation is the way we can be affected by those who meet our most important emotional needs - we may fall in love. And it's the feeling of love that usually causes affairs to spin out of control.
Right after Jon discovered Sue's affair, Sue was willing to give up her relationship with Greg and she tried to avoid seeing or talking to him. She even gave up her position on the Lake Restoration Committee to get him completely out of her life. But her emotional attachment to him was very strong. All she could think about was being with Greg. She missed the way he met her important emotional needs, but there was more to it than that. She was in love with him.
Love is a very powerful emotional reaction. It's love that motivates us to marry someone. And it's love that keeps us happily married. But it's also love that makes ending an affair extremely difficult.
Love certainly determined Sue's conduct, especially after her affair was discovered by Jon. When I asked her why she couldn't leave Greg, she answered, I love him, Was that it? Was Sue willing to risk her hushand's happiness and her children's future simply because she was in love? I'm afraid so. Her love for Greg was all it took to throw her life and the life of her family into chaos.
How did Sue come to love Greg? And why didn't she love Jon anymore? To help explain what creates and destroys the feeling of love, I invented the concept of the Love Bank.
The Love Bank
You and I have within us a Love Bank, and each person we know has an account in it. The Love Bank helps us keep track of the way people treat us. When people do things that make us feel good, "love units" are deposited, and when they do things that make us feel bad, love units are withdrawn.
Suppose someone makes you feel comfortable when you are together. Ka-chink, a love unit is deposited into their account. If you feel good with that person, two love units might be deposited. Feeling very good might warrant a three-love-unit deposit. Or if the person does something that makes you feel so good you are likely to remember it for several weeks, four love units might be deposited.
You can see how someone who is consistent in making you happy could eventually accumulate quite a large account in your Love Bank. And the higher a person's account is, the more emotionally attracted you are to that person.
But just as people can deposit love units, they can also withdraw them. Someone who makes you feel uncomfortable will withdraw one love unit from their account. If that person makes you feel bad, two love units are withdrawn. Feeling very bad results in the loss of three love units. And if you feel so bad you will remember the experience for a while, four love units will disappear from the account. If someone withdraws all the love units he or she ever deposited and then goes on to drive the account deeply into the red, you find you are repulsed by that person.
The feeling of attraction to someone is the way our emotions encourage us to spend time with people who treat us well. When someone makes us happy, our emotions associate that person with happiness, and we want to be with him or her. Similarly, when someone makes us consistently unhappy, our emotions usually tell us to avoid that person.
When a certain threshold in the Love Bank is reached with someone of the opposite sex - say a thousand love units - the emotional reaction we call romantic love is triggered. It's not just attraction that we feel, it's incredible attraction. We don't simply like the person, we are captivated by the person. We feel wonderful when we are together and often feel terrible when apart. The feeling of love is unmistakable and overwhelming.
As long as your account in someone's Love Bank stays above the romantic love threshold, he or she will be in love with you. So how can a couple keep their Love Bank balances high enough to experience romantic love? By making large deposits regularly. And the best way to do that is to meet each other's emotional needs. Unless couples meet those needs, their love for each other cannot be sustained throughout life.
Unfortunately, when a Love Bank balance drops below the romantic love threshold, a siren does not go off, warning us of the danger. Instead, we simply lose the feeling of love we had for our spouse. This loss of love is usually regarded as the normal settling in of marriage partners to a more mature relationship. But actually it is the beginning of serious trouble.
Jon let his account in Sue's Love Bank fall well below her romantic love threshold. He stopped meeting her emotional needs, and over time, all of the love units he had deposited during their courtship and early marriage drained out. On the other hand, Greg's account in her Love Bank soared well over her romantic love threshold. He met the needs that Jon failed to meet and deposited love units every time he was with Sue. The result was that she loved Greg and didn't love her husband, Jon.
The feeling of love that Sue had for Greg, and her loss of love for Jon, made marital reconciliation very difficult. Greg had a huge emotional edge on Jon. Whenever Sue was with Jon, his low Love Bank balance made her feel uncomfortable, so she really didn't care to be with him that much. On the other hand, Greg's Love Bank balance made her feel terrific. So she looked forward to every moment they could be together.
As long as Greg kept his Love Bank balance high by continuing to meet Sues emotional needs, Jon's efforts to make Sue happy would pale in comparison. It's very difficult for a person with a depleted Love Bank account to compete with someone with an overflowing account. Jon came to understand his disadvantage all too well in the months ahead. So what will happen to Jon? I'll tell you more in the next post. At mean time, you can check out How To Satisfy A Woman Everytime for more details.
