Affair!
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No matter how much he tried to forget about it, he couldn't.
The guilt and sense of betrayal was overwhelming.
But every once in a while he'd hear that soothing voice, within himself, trying to reassure him. "Joe, don't worry about it. You aren't the first doctor to sleep with one of their patients and you won't be the last. And you're single. Let it go."
But invariably the other voice would bring him back to reality: "Joe, you're a Veterinarian."
Affair
I have had several affairs! I could say they were all disasters or I could say they were wonderful adventures and I would be correct either way!If you are married, I do not recommend them! Once the intimacy between a married couple has been violated, it can never be repaired. Your spouse may say that they will forgive you but forgiving and forgetting are different things.
Once you open that door you will never be able to close it completely. There will always be a taint to your marriage and it will, most likely, nor survive. Think hard and long before you cheat on your mate! It's NOT worth it!
An affair is a form of nonmonogamy and describes a situation where two or more people are involved in a relationship perceived as inappropriate or that breaches a monogamous agreement between an affair partner and their excluded spouse. What is inappropriate depends on the point of view. Many agreements in a marriage are implicit or unspoken and taken as given until they are breached. The word affair is often a euphemism and in some usages adds glamour to an illicit liaison. Describing a relationship as an 'affair' may be inaccurate or intentionally damaging. It may or may not involve either or both romance or sex. On the Romantic friendship page are numerous examples in popular culture of 'special friendships' apparently without sex. Some are able to be distinguished from an Emotional affair.
Affair has the same word origins as affect - an affair implies bonds of affection, but not necessarily so. Some affairs are premeditatively cold. Some exploitative or designed to extract information by stealth. Some are entered into in order to provide the basis for later blackmail. And some are set up in order to provide grounds for divorce in jurisdictions that do not enjoy no fault divorce laws. That is then referred to as adultery. Affair, in lay and professional usage, does not require any of the parties to be married, though often one is in a committed relationship. Adultery refers more specifically to those in a legal married relationship.
Other uses include describing meetings or other functions, or tasks that need to be completed. For example, one might say, "I have other affairs to attend to at the moment." It may also refer to a particular business or private activity, as in family affair or private affair.
Affair Sex and romance
One connotation in the use of "affair" is for a situation where two people are involved in an illicit sexual, romantic and/or passionate attachment, usually but not always for a limited duration.Some have argued that the wide spread occurrence of extramarital affairs is polygamy by stealth. Some extra-marital affairs continue in one form or another for decades, even as one of the partners to that affair passes through a marriage, divorce and remarriage. Over that length of time one could consider the affair the primary relationship and the marriages secondary to it - a case of serial polygamy or other forms of nonmonogamy.
The ability to pursue serial affairs or marriages in this way whilst safeguarding the conflict of interest inherent in the practice, requires considerable skill in deception and negotiation.
Deception is defined as the "covert manipulation of perception to alter thoughts, feeling, or beliefs". This points to the degree to which the deceiver may breach fundamental conditions of fidelity and transparency assumed as pre-conditions of committed intimate relationships.
Affair is not only used to describe cheating but may also describe part of an agreement referred to as open marriage, which sanctions some extramarital affairs and not others. When one of the non-sanctioned affairs occurs it is described as infidelity and often experienced as a betrayal both of trust and integrity.
When used in this context, "affair" usually implies sexual impropriety, but that is not necessarily the case. For example, in the classic film An Affair to Remember, the love affair in question might be considered acceptable from some moral standpoints. However, an emotional affair can be as devastating for the one who is excluded or betrayed by it as if a full sexual liaison had occurred.
By contrast the film Dangerous Liasons shows many sides to a culture of illicit affairs between the main characters. It explores the escalating costs of covert and immoral adventures. Affairs are sometimes accompanied by scandal.
The linkage of sex and romance with affair provides the basis for entertainment in advertising, art, literature, film, plays and in TV soaps. It can fuel moral crusaders pursuing the myth of monogamy or promoting the value of monogamy.
Affair Political and business
In the most general sense, it can be professional, personal, or public business. An affair, in the political sense, typically refers to any kind of involvement in illicit business by any kind of public representatives, such as in the Watergate affair. Like the earlier definition this is not always the case for example the British Government has a Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which is a perfectly legitimate (and usually honorable) position.Affair Office romance
An office romance, work romance, or corporate affair is a romance that occurs between two people who work together in the same office, work location, or business. The relationship between affair partners at work can be as wide as intern and President; company CEO and member of the Board; supervisor and supervisee; company representative and client; boss and secretary, and so on. And it can be between peers or colleagues at the same level in the organisation.Office romances are generally believed to be unhelpful to the welfare and effectiveness of the business and to the network of relationships that comprise it. Thus they are discouraged and even prohibited by company policy. Both men and women can be guilty of sleeping their way to the top. The suspicion that an advantage is gained by 'sleeping with the boss' in a competitive environment ensures that these transactions occur by stealth. To have a powerful influence on the opportunities placed in one's path, one does not have to engage in sexual intercourse. A special relationship could be enough to gain leverage where business opportunities are in short supply. This fuzzy boundary can be nuanced by practiced players in order to provide denialbility when required. The usual cover-ups include: 'we're just friends' or 'we were just working late at the office' or 'it was just a conference thing, it meant nothing'.
Neither does one have to be directly involved in the affair for the knowledge of it to be useful currency - discretion in exchange for advantage.
Office affairs may involve a power differential in both heterosexual and same sex liaisons. If the affair ends badly it is almost always the least powerful who gives up their job and the more powerful who stays or gets promoted out of the area as a solution. Increasingly employers will insert office romance disclosure clauses in employment contracts. Where the affair or its non-disclosure is in breach of that contract, the clandestine edge is heightened. Perversely this can increase both the excitement of the affair and the later damage to colleagiate relationships and the company's good name. A witch hunt can ensue.
Affairs begin one conversation at a time, often without either party admitting to themselves that they intend a deeper connection. 'It just happened' may be the subsequent claim. In fact, the time between a so-called innocent beginning and the first kiss is usually considerable, but the time between that kiss and sexual intercourse is usually short. People involved in this way can appear to themselves to have landed in trouble very quickly, when in fact there was a slow fuse burning long before ignition. (Shirley Glass 'Not Just Friends')
This process of engaging and disengaging an office affair, requires careful and non-punitive examination at every level of the organisation in order to understand affair dynamics at work. That will assist in preventing breaches of employment contracts where that is possible. The challenges of that process suggest the value of family friendly employment conditions, as quite often it is the betrayed spouse who literally shoots the co-workers believed to have been complicit in the affair.
Usually a number of people are involved in keeping the secret. It is clearly down to each individual - company policy means as little as a marriage contract when it comes to illicit affairs.
