When a long-term relationship is in the doldrums, a short, exciting fling with an attractive stranger can seem particularly appealing. It might seem just the boost you need to appreciate each other again – but it could also trigger the end between you.
The situation is a familiar one – you go to a party and meet someone you are instantly attracted to. You talk, laugh, dance – at the end of the evening you fall into bed together. Then perhaps you see each other a couple of times more, no strings attached. Shortly afterwards you part and it becomes a wonderful memory.
That kind of thing could happen to anyone and it rarely causes problems – except, that is, if you are already deeply involved with someone else.
Brief encounters, casual affairs, one-night-stands – they happen all the time, but most often to single people who are searching for a partner, or who are between affairs.
The fact of being committed to someone, because you are married or in another long-term relationship, does not mean that you become blind to the attractions of other people. We meet people we are attracted to all the time. It can be a powerful sexual attraction or something gentler – meeting a person you really want to spend time with.
Brief encounters do not have to be sexual – you can lunch together, see films together, or just spend hours talking over a drink in the pub. But even in an apparently platonic relationship there is often a sexual undercurrent. If you find yourself reluctant to mention an innocuous incident to your partner, probably, you were sexually attracted to the other person at some level.
When you are involved with someone else, a brief sexual encounter is usually unexpected, and for that reason quite unpremeditated. In the case of a one-night-stand it might happen out of the blue, when circumstances are right. It is only afterwards that you have time to give it real thought.
The most harmless kind of fling is usually one that happens in this way. You might be on holiday, or away on business, and you meet someone you like who feels exactly the way you do.
Then it can appear to be fun, harmless and a real tonic – a glimpse into another kind of life.
It is less likely to affect you, your partner or your relationship if it happens like this – away from home, without you having to lie or change your routine. It is not to be recommended but can be excusable.
Sometimes, though, a brief encounter will happen during a bad moment in your relationship – when you are feeling low in confidence, or perhaps going through a ‘midlife crisis’.
One danger that can occur in a brief encounter is when the two of you do not view it the same way. You may agree at the outset that you want a casual fling with no strings attached, but then something happens. One of you starts hoping for more and the affair becomes messy and ugly with tears and recriminations.
There can be other dangers too. Even after the briefest of pleasant flings, it is a rare person who does not wonder if it was wrong to do it. Some would say that it was not wrong if it made you feel happy and caused no pain or distress to anyone else. Others would say that it was indeed a breach of trust.
