Tiger Woods: End Of An Affair – Beginning Of A Nightmare

Five days after he set the media into a frenzy with a car crash outside his home in Florida in the middle of the night, Tiger Woods made a public confession about his “transgressions”.

In a statement on his website, the world’s top golfer said:

“I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.”

It’s hard to understand what would drive a man ‘who has it all’ – beautiful wife, successful career, wealth and fame – to do such a thing – not once, not twice but three times. . .

Maybe it’s because the experience of having an affair an affair can be exhilarating, passionate and romantic.  There can be something exciting about taking part in the “forbidden.”  Being involved in an activity that is considered dangerous or takes place within a ‘dangerous’ context heightens once experience of it. Psychological studies have shown how men rated women more attractive if they met them in a dangerous place like walking across a suspension bridge.

Amongst the gossip of Tiger’s affair, it is alleged that he told one of is lovers that he would leave his wife for her. 

If you are single and  romantically involved with a married person it’s easy to fall for and cling to this promise. 

You want to believe that your lover will leave their husband or wives, yet you feel more desperate when yet another year has gone by in which you’ve had to live a lie and in which you’ve had to spend another birthday or Christmas or New Year alone.

Some experts believe that if a married lover fails to make plans to leave home within the first three months of an affair then he or she will never leave.  Whether that’s true or not, what is true is that the longer an affair goes on, the lower the chances are that the lover will leave his family.

And even if the lover does leave there is no guarantee that they won’t, at some point, take up a relationship with someone else.

While some affairs do seem to end happily for the couple – when you are consumed in the throes of the affair what you forget is that later down the line, the thrill and excitement of the early days of the relationship and the affair turn into the mundane stuff of everyday life and relationships. 

It is often when the new relationship gets to this point or when there is stress or conflict in the relationship, that distrust rears it’s ugly head – “Is my partner having an affair?” 

And even if you do get the person of your desire, don’t think that it is the end of the story.

When an affair ends up in a ‘happy ever after’ relationship, the price of the new relationship is a trail of devastation. Everyone is hurt – extended family relations, friends and also children if there are any.  For the transgressed partner affairs are damaging, destructive, cruel, painful, time-wasting and demeaning. 

And divorces are difficult.  Arrangements with regards to child sharing can get messy. The new romance can quickly go sour as you deal with your new partner’s journey through the divorce – both the physical and emotional side of it.

The other thing to remember is that your new partner’s commitment to your new ‘happy ever after the affair’ relationship may be nothing more than the guilt of having broken up a previous relationship for this one. 

So Let’s Get Real!  The bottom line is that the vast majority of extra-marital liaisons don’t end in a new marriage or relationship. Probably something like 80 per cent or more of them end up unhappily and cause misery all round. 

And the ones that do end up in a relationship are missing the basic foundation of a happy, secure and solid relationship – trust and honesty.

Even if you are sure you wouldn’t want an affair to go any further, in the majority of cases, one of the lovers begins to want something more. Minds get involved as well as genitals. Love develops out of sex. And you or your lover starts to want more time together, and to enjoy more companionship and – frequently – a future.

And the end of the day most of us want to love and be loved.   We want to be in a relationship where we can be ourselves and feel safe.

So if you are single and are in a relationship with a married person, you have to ask yourself some questions:

• Am I fearful of committment? 
• Is there something from my past that is driving my affair?
• Am I substituting pseudo intimacy for real intimacy?
• Do I have some deeply held negative beliefs about my worth and value?
• Do I believe this is as good as it gets?
• Do I believe that deep down inside I don’t deserve to be completely happy?
• Is this what I really want?

“Buddha says, ‘There is no external refuge’ To be free you must go inside. A defining moment of emotional freedom is when you begin to become more conscious of who you are and what your motivations are.”

Judith Orloff (Emotional Freedom p 31)

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