The 7 Types of Affairs

In this article: the Institute’s 7 Affair Types · the Affair Profile (type, stance and form) · why the type matters for recovery · where to go next

Every affair hurts. But affairs don’t all happen for the same reason, and they don’t all heal the same way. A single drunken night after a work conference is a different problem from years of secret hook-ups, and both are different again from an affair that grew slowly out of a marriage where nobody had touched or talked in years.

The Infidelity Recovery Institute groups affairs into 7 Affair Types, by their main driver: the thing underneath the affair that made it possible. Most affairs have one main driver, and sometimes a second. Blends are normal, and an affair can start as one type and turn into another.

Understanding explains; it never excuses. Knowing the type doesn’t change how deeply the betrayed partner has been hurt, and the affair was always a choice. What the type changes is the route: what needs attention first, and what helps or hinders recovery. In the Institute’s Healing Order, the question “why did this happen?” comes after the betrayed partner has been heard, never before.
The 7 Affair Types 1Situational 2Avoidance 3Disconnection / Desire Gap 4Serial Conquest 5Entitlement 6Revenge 7Sex Addiction Relationship-driven (1–3, 6) · Individual-driven (4, 5, 7) · blends are normal

Not sure which fits? Take the free Affair Type Quiz

Type 1: Situational

An affair of opportunity rather than a search. It is often a single episode or a brief contact, with alcohol, travel or a low moment in the mix, and a boundary that slipped. There is usually little emotional involvement with the affair partner, and remorse comes quickly.

What usually helps: full honesty about what happened, a clean ending, and clear new boundaries around the situations that made it possible. It is often among the more straightforward recoveries, though the betrayed partner’s shock is no smaller for that.

Earlier versions of the Institute’s model called this the Accidental or One-Night-Stand affair.

Type 2: Avoidance

Driven by the couple’s emotional style. There are two versions:

  • Conflict avoidance: partners are frightened to be anything but nice. Differences get buried, resentment builds quietly, and the affair breaks the silence.
  • Intimacy avoidance: partners keep each other at a distance through frequent fighting. The arguments are the most intense moments they share, and real closeness never gets a chance.

What usually helps: using the crisis as the push to face what was avoided: learning to raise problems early, argue safely and let each other close. The outlook is good when both partners take that on.

Type 3: Disconnection / Desire Gap

A quiet relationship in which affection, sex or closeness had withered, sometimes over many years. Partners became co-parents or flatmates, and one of them found attention or desire somewhere else.

What usually helps: healing the affair first, in the Healing Order. This is the type most easily heard as blame, so the order matters most here. The long disconnection is named later as a separate injury that deserves its own repair, never as the cause of the affair. Then the couple rebuilds emotional and physical closeness on purpose.

Type 4: Serial Conquest

Many brief affairs over the relationship, driven by a need for validation and the thrill of pursuit. The person matters less than the “win”.

What usually helps: change has to come from the involved partner, who usually needs individual specialist work first, alongside or before any couple work.

Earlier versions of the Institute’s model called this the Philanderer affair.

Type 5: Entitlement

Success, status or admiration create a sense that ordinary limits don’t apply. Life is kept in sealed-off boxes. Underneath there is often an inner emptiness that achievement never quite fills.

What usually helps: recovery becomes possible when the involved partner truly sees the other person’s needs and lets go of being exempt from the rules. Individual work usually helps that happen.

Type 6: Revenge

An affair driven by anger at an earlier injury, such as the partner’s own affair or a deep humiliation.

What usually helps: both partners owning their own choices and breaking the cycle of hurting each other back. One affair never cancels out another; each injury needs its own repair.

Type 7: Sex Addiction

A repeated pattern of sexual behavior the person can’t control despite harm, used to numb or change their mood: affairs, paid sex, pornography or hook-ups that continue despite promises to stop. It is not mainly about the relationship.

The term “sex addiction” isn’t in the main psychiatric manuals, but it is the name most people recognize, so the Institute uses it. The World Health Organization’s ICD-11 describes the condition as Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder.

What usually helps: specialist help for the involved partner first, starting with an assessment by a therapist trained in sex addiction (for example a CSAT). Couple work joins later. The betrayed partner deserves support of their own too.

Your Affair Profile: type, stance and form

A type on its own isn’t the full picture. The Institute describes every affair with three parts:

  1. The type: the main driver, and a second one if there is one.
  2. The involved partner’s stance: recommitting, torn, or leaving. Two common combinations have their own names:
    • Split Self: a relationship-type driver plus a torn stance. The involved partner feels pulled between two lives and keeps changing their mind. Recovery can’t really start until the affair is ended cleanly.
    • Exit: any driver plus a leaving stance. The affair may be a way out of the relationship rather than the problem itself.
  3. The form: emotional, sexual, online, or a mix. Form is how it happened; type is why. An online affair can be any of the seven types, and it is a real affair: secrecy and broken agreements are what make it so.

Earlier versions of the model listed Split Self and Exit as types of their own. They are now profiles, because they describe where the involved partner stands, and that can sit on top of any driver.

If you’re the betrayed partner: if your affair looks like Avoidance or Disconnection, you may hear an accusation in it. It isn’t one. The choice to have the affair belonged to your partner. Looking at the relationship comes later, and it goes both ways.
If you’re the involved partner: be honest, not flattering, about your type. If you see yourself in Serial Conquest, Entitlement or Sex Addiction, the most respectful thing you can do for your partner is to get individual specialist help alongside any couple work.

Where to go next

The 7 Affair Types and the Affair Profile are the Infidelity Recovery Institute’s own model, building on the work of Emily M. Brown (Patterns of Infidelity and Their Treatment) and Frank Pittman (Private Lies). Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder is described in the World Health Organization’s ICD-11 (6C72).