Good for you setting up the fish tank, T! Dont minimize your work on independence. Every part is important.
Just found this and thought it was a good read.
Relationships that start as affairs have many strikes against them. Many affairs are like rebound relationships. They can arise out of an urgent emotional need, a need so urgent that a thoughtful process of getting to know someone and assessing what kind of partnership the two of you would have is not part of the bonding process. Rebound and affair relationships frequently have rescue fantasies attached to them, these fantasies can be overpowering and cloud your vision. Sometimes relationships that start as affairs serve as an escape from difficult interpersonal dynamics in the primary relationship. Succumbing to the fantasy that the new relationship will be free of conflict or other emotional difficulties can be a setup for another failed relationship. We tend to repeat patterns over and over until we come to understand ourselves. Learning to see relationship problems as a dynamic between two people, rather than the fault of only one partner is important for the success of any couple. Trust is the foundation of successful relationships. Another reason why many affair relationships fail is that it is difficult to deeply trust someone who has started the relationship by being unfaithful and deceitful with someone else. You can’t help but understand that their solution to a difficult interpersonal situation was betrayal. In the initial blissful stage, it might be unimaginable that they could do the same thing to you, or that you could do the same thing to them, but once you hit the stresses of real everyday life, things can feel different and much less secure. There is also the issue of not having the support of family and friends. Having long-term successful relationships are difficult enough without trying to do them in a vacuum. You may stuff these feelings in order to maintain the new relationship, only to discover down the line that you have many unresolved feelings about your partner that are interfering in your new relationship. The question of whether the new relationship will succeed relates to what function it is playing in your relationship with your partner. If you have the kind of primary relationship where you initially experienced a significant amount of time where you were mutually in love and satisfied with the relationship and then grew apart because of life stresses or conflict and you entered the affair to experience being in love again, this does not bode well for the long term success of the affair relationship. That is because almost all relationships follow a predictable course of developmental stages, all at some point going through a period of disillusionment which, if you can get through, lets you out into the side of a mature, dependable and sustaining love based on reality rather than romantic idealization. If you deal with the disillusionment by betraying the commitment you have made, then you may not have the tools to navigate this stage which is waiting for you down the road in your new relationship.
