The passion the two of you felt was overriding to the point that each of you were willing to put your existing relationships at risk. When you were with each other things were practically orgasmic; however, now that you’ve finally untangled yourselves from those old relationships, and are trying to make a go of it as a normal couple, it seems like you’re off kilter. It’s almost as if you don’t have a solid foundation on which to build your relationship. In actuality there nothing almost about it; you don’t have that normal structure on which other couples are able to nurture and develop their relationships and it will be a major hurdle if you’re to succeed.
When the two of you entered into your affair together there were elements related to the danger of getting caught, and the heightened sensations and emotions that come from the secretive nature of the affair. Yet, as the two of you try to move into a full blown relationship those components no longer exist. Once the affair is out in the open the danger and the increased feelings and lust subside, and for the first time you are each looking at the other in an objective way. What happens a lot of the time is each person realizes that while there might be a sexual chemistry, you don’t have much in common, and you also haven’t developed another key component needed for a relationship which is a friendship.
It has been said numerous times, by many people, that what they’re looking for is not only a lover, but their best friend; and if you don’t have both, a long term relationship is usually not in the cards. For a friendship to develop there needs to be a true intimacy on multiple levels which can only happen if you each fundamentally trust each other. The conundrum is that when you’re having an affair with someone the trust between the two of you is flawed because you’re worried that the other person will tell their partner; you’re not really sure how much you can rely on the other person; and on a subconscious level you’re asking yourself about the sorts of values the other person has if they’re participating in an affair with you.
So when you reach the point of trying to move into a relationship each of you will likely have many doubts about the other. You won’t have learned how to best communicate your concerns because the affair you previously were participating in wasn’t conducive to being open and honest. You will also have a great deal of doubt about how truly committed each of you are to and whether you each will be faithful to the other. This is to be expected because of your past affair together, but without a concerted effort by both of you to change the relationship is doomed to failure.
What you each need to do under these circumstances is start things off as if you have only started to date. This will give you the opportunity to truly get to know each other and find out if you’re really compatible or not. It will also allow you the opportunity to learn to communicate in a healthier and open way that you were not able to before. The greater the amount of time you take, the more the trust and friendship between the two of you will have a chance to grow.
Another hurdle you will each have to deal with is your former partners that you cheated on and your families and friends. There is a very high likelihood that your exes will try to sabotage your attempts at a relationship. This may come in the form of placing doubt in the mind of one of you, trying to win one of you back, or doing everything they can to make things hard and difficult. Their pain and sense of betrayal is completely justified and often may cause you to feel guilt which further hinders your success at a relationship. This is not going to be easy and the more you are both able to limit the presence of your exes in your lives, especially in this early period of your relationship, the better.
Your friends and families though may be even tougher to deal with. There’s a high probability that they’ll be judgemental with respect to your affair and thus this will color their acceptance of your new relationship. The only thing you can do is to try to listen to what they have to say and then present your side of the argument and explain to them what happened. You have to be prepared to answer questions that normally you might feel are inappropriate if you want your families and friends to be accepting of your new relationship under these circumstances. Talk as openly and honestly as you can because the more you do the higher the success rate for the two of you to have normal relations with your families and friends.
Lastly, the two of you may have to accept that all you really have together is a hot and passionate affair and not the basis for forming a relationship. Sometimes that’s just how things are, but you can certainly learn from the experience and use it to figure out what it is you want out of a romantic partner; and how maybe the next time you’re finding yourself more interested in another person, it might be better to break off your existing relationship. That way you’ll have a better chance at moving onto to something new in a healthy way and also be able to maintain more cordial relations with your ex.
