People describe affairs as “feeling alive again.”
I have seen this across cases, cultures, ages.
Is it the secrecy?
Or
The suspended reality?
Or
The absence of responsibility?
Affairs में लोग “ज़िंदा” क्यों महसूस करते हैं?
और क्या ये aliveness सच में टिकता है
या बस nervous system stimulation होता है?
Everybody’s thoughts please…
I know this feeling and I’ve told you all also I suppose.
My day job is a marriage and “Exploring Consciousness “ through Amarantos my extra….
I think it is because where there is restriction there is an innate bliss in breaking those boundaries because the Atman is infinite.
But coming to the earthly part of this question, untrained / immature minds, are ever seeking new adventures and nothing eventually satisfies them.
For one who is a victim in this, it could be an opportunity provided by the Almighty to exercise the muscle of “Walking out”
Depending only on oneself and not go down to the extent of becoming a door mat
@kobrakulsh In my opinion,it could be from a need /longing to feel complete from external sources.This feeling may arise due to one’s own inferiority complex,low esteem,low self worth etc.
In some cases,it also could be about exploring the unknown and/or the forbidden.
Interesting question. But if one truly goes deeper and reflects, I suspect the fascination with affairs begins to fade.
What often feels “alive” is the dopamine rush of secrecy—heightened by novelty and the absence of responsibility. That combination can make anything feel special.
Marriage, on the other hand, brings responsibility: the willingness to stay, to sacrifice, to carry weight. That is where real love is tested and formed.
Affairs don’t ask for that. And perhaps that itself might be the answer.
This is a deeply thought-provoking question.
I believe there are several layers to why affairs feel alive, and I will try to touch on a few of them here. My own quest to understand childhood trauma and its long-term impact has brought me to these reflections.
1) Let’s look at individuals who find themselves in one or two affairs.
Generally (not always), people with unprocessed childhood wounds with one or both parents tend to attract life partners who mirror those unresolved wounds. The partner unconsciously becomes a reflection of what remains unmet inside.
Take a child who grew up with an emotionally unavailable parent. That child is now a fully grown adult, but the needs were never met. The inner child still carries unspoken expectations, and those expectations get projected onto the current life partner.
Here’s the fracture:
An adult partner cannot meet a child’s needs.
A child wants a mother or father, not a spouse.
Over time, this creates a crack in the relationship. The adult self feels dissatisfied, and the inner child senses rejection again. A double fracture forms.
Now this person steps into the world say it office, friendships, gatherings, and encounters someone who feels attentive, warm, or deeply caring. And suddenly, something ignites. Why?
Because that care speaks directly to a primary, childlike need: to be seen, held, chosen. The fascination isn’t random. It’s the subconscious responding to an unmet need.
This is why affairs often feel intoxicating. It’s not just secrecy or suspended reality—it’s what the inner child has been starving for.
Yes, there are also people who knowingly or unknowingly manipulate these unmet needs. But that doesn’t erase responsibility. The person engaging in the affair often knows it’s wrong and yet feels powerless against the pull.
I’ve worked with clients in extramarital affairs who carried immense guilt, yet felt an almost compulsive craving for the other person. And when we looked closely, it was never just about physical intimacy.
It was about:
– being cared for
– being prioritised
– being emotionally engaged with and being appreciated
In essence, it was a child craving love from a primary caregiver.
When we worked directly with these inner child parts, helping them feel seen, soothed, and reparented, something profound happened. The craving didn’t need to be resisted. It melted.
Because once the child no longer outsourced love, the child also did not need someone external to fulfil them or make them feel complete.
2) Another important category is individuals who are not in one affair, but in multiple affairs.
Here, the affair itself functions as a coping mechanism, much like substances or alcohol. The “high” doesn’t come from emotional connection alone; it comes from the pursuit, the validation, the conquest. Each new person brings a surge of excitement, being admired, desired, and chosen. This creates a kick. But once the novelty fades and emotional depth is required, boredom sets in. The person returns to baseline emptiness, and the person seeks another affair, not because the previous one failed, but because the high expired. What they are chasing is not love, but stimulation, regulation, and relief from an underlying inner void.
These are the few arenas I worked with. A client can be helped if they are ready to see through.
@kobrakulsh it’s the taste of the forbidden fruit that tempts people! It’s their escape and break from their routine. It’s their सुकून 
very well explained in a song. Venu Sir please excuse the language of the song, apologies in advance 
please don’t approve the post if you feel language is crude as it’s not pure Hindi it’s चिंदी = चालू हिंदी.
जाना ना हो जहाँ वहीं जाता है
दिल उल्लू का पट्ठा है
Another one, which I think I am more aligned to, with so many years of clinical practice is…
the “aliveness” may not be about the other person or freedom,
it may be about contrast.
The human nervous system adapts very quickly.
Predictability, even safe predictability, becomes background noise.
Responsibility, routine, familiarity, start regulating us… but don’t stimulate us.
Then an unexpected emotional experience enters… secrecy, uncertainty, waiting, risk.
The brain releases dopamine + adrenaline and the body interprets that surge as life.
So what is felt as deep love can partly be heightened nervous system activation.
Not fake… but chemically amplified.
That’s why conversations feel deeper, eye contact feels intense, small gestures feel profound because the mind is filling gaps with imagination, not living shared reality yet.
And once daily life enters viz.. bills, moods, habits, mornings the aliveness often drops, not because love died, but because novelty ended.
So sometimes people aren’t choosing between two people…
they’re choosing between regulation and stimulation.
N this makes the question less moral and more aware:
Am I drawn to this person or
to how my nervous system feels around uncertainty?
This awareness alone may change many decisions.
Venu sir,
I do have one more angle which I often see in my sessions…
Sometimes the “aliveness” in such connections is not only about breaking restriction… it is also about meeting disowned parts of ourselves.
In long-term structures like marriage, roles slowly become stable, responsible one, strong one, patient one, provider, caregiver… and parts of the personality go underground… the playful, desired, reckless, vulnerable, admired self.
Then suddenly someone appears who mirrors this hidden self back to us. The body may not read it as a person, but may be as permission.
So the intensity may feels like love, destiny, even spiritual connection… while psychologically it may be integration trying to happen from the outside.
This is why it may feel so alive coz for a moment the psyche feels whole again.
The difficulty in this is, if this wholeness depends on another person’s presence, it becomes compulsion and not freedom.
In that sense, the “walking out” you mentioned and the “looking within” are actually the same invitation to reclaim the lost parts without needing the situation that awakened them.
Maybe aliveness isn’t wrong… we just sometimes locate its source in the wrong place.
Venu sir, I like the way you brought both dimensions together… the Atman’s urge for expansion & the very human restlessness of the mind.
I agree with what you say that aliveness comes from breaking a restriction, makes a lot of sense… sometimes what people call “love” is actually the relief of stepping out of a structure where one stop feeling for themselves. So the person becomes symbolic, but the experience is really about expansion.
And yes, the earthly side is important too. An untrained mind keeps chasing intensity because it mistakes stimulation for connection… until eventually nothing sustains it.
Also, about the other person getting an opportunity to practise walking out also feels very real. Painful, but real. Coz many a times healing isn’t holding tighter, it is about regaining self-respect and choosing not to collapse into becoming a doormat.
It’s uncomfortable, but maybe that’s where love turns into growth… for both people, in very different ways.
What depth in each one of your edifying words
@arumugam.vembu @hc2101 @ramyaa 
I’m truly overwhelmed. You made my weekend so special.
Thanks for posting this @kobrakulsh
Ever grateful to the blessed masters for bringing you all into my life where else will i find such excellence with heart i don’t know.
Having met a few more clients since the last time i shared my take. I also feel that like in technology even in humans communication is the key.
Making the time to communicate, else systems fail. Resilient systems are those in which there is a redundancy to ensure communication will never fail.
So coming to relationships, if they are not “mendable” then “walk out” is a better option. But to start with every attempt must be made by both the partners to communicate their feelings and their needs . This will help them put out the little fires and build a relationship that will survive the onslaught of temptations that are bound to come in each one of through the course of life.
totally agree with the regulation and the stimulation part @kobrakulsh
Thank you so much Ramya❤️
My thoughts !
Affairs activate the brain’s reward system.
the nervous system interprets:
“This could be lost” = “This must be valuable.”
The forbidden element creates heightened attention.
Heightened attention feels like intensity.
Intensity feels like aliveness.
But intensity ≠ intimacy.
It’s closer to a thrill response.
In most affairs:
It’s a curated version of two people.
they meet in moments of:
It’s like living inside a highlight reel.
That suspension of ordinary life removes friction.
And friction is what usually dulls long-term relationships.
So the affair feels like oxygen.
But it’s oxygen in a vacuum chamber.
Responsibility grounds you.
Grounding stabilizes the nervous system.
But stability doesn’t always feel exciting.
In long-term relationships:
In affairs:
You are just feeling.
And pure feeling without burden feels intoxicating.
Mostly nervous system stimulation.
Why so !!
Affairs typically activate:
This cocktail creates:
High arousal + High emotional focus
Our body interprets that as:
“I am alive.”
But aliveness rooted in instability is fragile.
When secrecy is removed,
When reality enters,
When logistics appear—
The same dynamic often collapses. Because what was fueling it wasn’t deep safety. It was heightened activation.
Many people in long-term relationships are not actually bored.
They are:
An affair temporarily restores:
That reactivates dormant parts of identity.
So the person thinks:
“I’m alive again.”
But often what’s happening is:
“I am seen again.”
Usually no — not in its original intensity.
Once an affair becomes public or turns into a full relationship:
And then the question becomes:
Is there real compatibility?
Is there emotional maturity?
Is there repair capacity?
Without those, the intensity fades.
Affairs often aren’t about the other person.
They are about:
The “aliveness” is often a protest.
A protest against stagnation. !!
Exactly!! Turns out validation is a powerful aphrodisiac. It releases oxytocin- the bonding hormone, which creates warmth, closeness and trust that equals to the feeling of being seen= special!
Hey Monesh 
Read your reply……
and honestly felt like you just opened the brain’s chemistry lab report of a love affair.
But let me add my therapy room version of it… where people don’t come with neurotransmitters..… they come with tears, guilt and
“mujhe samajh hi nahi aa raha mere saath kya ho gaya”.
और एक चीज जो अक्सर sessions में दिखती है… कि Affair partner हमें वो देता है जो spouse ने देना बंद नहीं किया….. बल्कि
हमने महसूस करना बंद कर दिया.
क्योंकि long relationship में love comfort बन जाता है और human brain comfort को love मानना बंद कर देता है
तो हम excitement को love समझ लेते हैं
और safety को boredom…
The most interesting part in your reply is… Affair अक्सर attraction नहीं होता
It is emotional rebellion.
इसलिए जब affair खत्म होता है
लोग कहते हैं “उससे नहीं..… उस feeling से अलग होना मुश्किल है”
क्योंकि वो feeling actually
उनकी dormant identity थी.
तो मेरे हिसाब से affair का formula:
Not a better person
Not deeper love
Not soulmate
Unexpressed self + suspended reality = aliveness illusion:smiley:
और जब reality वापस आती है
तो या तो marriage टूटती है
या illusion.
Rarely both survive.
Loved your breakdown Monesh
You explained science…
I added my clinic experience
