What does it feel like to get away with an affair?

Affairs are common, but they’re a bit like plumbing. We only become aware of them when something goes wrong. We learn about the cheating partners who were caught out, the marriages that imploded or the celebrities whose dalliances made headline news.

But for all the affairs that are discovered there are others that remain secret. There are one-night stands, short term affairs, even extramarital love relationships that linger on for decades.

So, what does it feel like to have an affair and get away with it?

Andrea*, a forty-year-old small business owner, has been married for fifteen years and had an affair that lasted for three months.

“I am neglected in my marriage,” she told me, “and this man supported me like nothing else. When I was with him, I felt revived, like I’d been dead all the time.” Since the affair ended, she has missed her lover terribly. And the hardest part, she says, is managing this in secret.

“Normally when people break up they have a support network around, they have people who will look after them. In this there is nothing. The pain has been the worst I’ve ever experienced. I was crying in front of my kids, because you just can’t keep it in all the time, but you can’t explain it. They asked, ‘Mummy why are you sad?’ and I had to make up an excuse.”

Andrea felt tremendous guilt during her affair, and "a lot of shame at the end", but this is not true of everyone who strays.

Sarah*, a lawyer in her late thirties, did not feel guilty about her affair with a colleague several years ago. “My husband had depression and was unable to be a proper partner to me. I was desperate for intimacy and my lover made me feel amazing. He really did save my sanity at the time.”

In the countless online forums in which users discuss their affairs most offer excuses and many express little or no remorse.

My husband refuses to kiss me, they write, or My wife isn’t interested in sex, or, My husband is emotionally distant, or, My partner is overseas for most of the year.

The lack of guilt can seem jarring, but many relationship experts argue that this does not represent some kind of emotional bankruptcy. Sex advice columnist Dan Savage believes that married people should, in certain circumstances, "do what they need to do to stay married and stay sane". This is true, for example, if one spouse is unable or unwilling to be sexual, if one spouse is ill or dependent on the other or if there are financial or parenting reasons to remain in an unhappy partnership.

Elisabeth Shaw, CEO of Relationships Australia NSW, says the experience of "getting away with" an affair depends on the type of affair it is and reasons for the affair in the first place. Some affairs lead to positive change, while others lead to a realisation that the marriage needs to end.

A person may move on fairly easily from an affair that is brief or opportunistic (for example, a fling on a business trip), or from one which involves experimentation or self-discovery (say, living out an unfulfilled sexual fantasy).

However, Shaw warns: “The overall effect on you afterwards is very different if you’ve spent time feeling bad about your primary relationship and if the new relationship feels like the love you have always wanted. How do you come back to the primary relationship and move on?”

Some spouses, including Andrea, use what they have learned in their affair to try to improve their primary relationship.

“I realised that there is no depth to my marriage,” she told me. “I have identified exactly what has been missing and I have communicated exactly what I need to my husband.” Andrea is hopeful that her secret affair will mark a turning point in her relationship.

Still, as Shaw explains, “many people who have affairs feel morally compromised by their behaviour. They see their affair as an indication that they should not be in the marriage.”

Sarah got away with her affair with a colleague but decided to leave her husband about a year after it ended.

“I didn’t leave my husband to be with my lover,” she said. “I left because I realised just how lonely I was in my marriage.”

Her ex-lover returned to his wife.

*names have been changed