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After people are caught cheating, how many times have we heard them say, "I didn't mean to do it, it just sort of happened"? As much as we would like to believe that behind an act of cheating no intentions were meant to hurt or betray the person we are with, this, unfortunately, is not the case. No matter how much we try to deny it, cheating is a decision that we make knowingly and fully aware that what we are doing is wrong. Infidelity is never something we stumble upon but it is instead a series of ignorant choices. Let's break down the step-by-step process of how affairs truly start and the many red flags we often dismiss when playing with fire:
Your needs aren't being met by your partner. It always begins with something not being quite right in your relationship. And often times it is due to the fact that for one reason or another your partner is not fulfilling your need/s. When you are at this stage, you either decide to keep working on your relationship until things get better or you simply leave things to be the way it is.
Someone else fulfills your needs. If you have chosen to leave things to chance rather than working on the relationship, what is left is for that unmet need of yours to be open for someone else to fulfill it. When another person comes into the picture and presents your need on a silver platter (without you even asking), that person will instantly appear like the hero you have been waiting for.
Enjoying that person's company and wanting to see them more. You begin to go out of your way to spend as much time with them as possible. You might feel some form of guilt for enjoying their company a lot more than you probably should but you choose to ignore the red flag and continue to go on about your way.
Keeping things away from your partner (the start of emotional cheating). You begin to see this person without your partner's knowledge whereas before you would be completely honest and open about everything. Again, you know this is already overstepping the boundary because if the shoes were on the other side this would completely be unacceptable but nonetheless you still do it anyway.
Confessing your feelings to that person. It is not enough to simply have feelings for someone else, but you take it one step further and by this stage you actually want to do something about it, hence, you decide to confess. This is when you find yourself being much more honest with this person than you are being towards your partner.
The physical act of cheating. By this point, an affair has already bloomed and you are in the thickness of it all. You may think that the physical act of cheating is the beginning of infidelity, however, your indiscretion started two steps before this stage when you decided to hide things from your partner.
