Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl and girl likes boy too. Boy and girl fall in love but somewhere, somehow, something just goes wrong and feelings get hurt. Dayan Masinde takes you through 18 steps revealing  how people start having affairs in relationships.

Step 1: You are deeply in love with your partner, you can’t keep your warmth from each other.

Step 2: A storm arises between you and your partner; maybe you argue more, distance separates you, misunderstandings, financial constraints or your partner gets sick.

Step 3: Because of the storms you start noticing your partner’s flaws.

Step 4: You start to feel entitled to something better.

Step 5: Suddenly you notice someone who can give you better. The new someone is attractive.

Step 6: Because you still love your partner you tread cautiously with this new someone, lying to yourself you know your limits but the boundary lines become blurred lines.

Step 7: You magnify the goodness of your new someone but magnify the faults of your partner. You pick more fights with your partner, secretly siding with your new someone.

Step 8: You slowly get sucked in by the new someone; one escapade leads to multiple ones, one long hug leads to a caress, one kiss leads to making out, making out leads to sex, sex leads to secret planning for more sex.

Step 9: You stop building much of what you have with your partner, you start building the affair more; you spend more time with and more effort on the new someone.

Step 10: Your partner notices a changed you, that you don’t look at him/ her with the same eyes. You appear combative, your partner also changes, holding back, adopting to this new you, suspicious and scared.

Step 11: You avoid your partner, avoid your spiritual leaders, avoid your true friends who will confront you. Guilt eats you up.

Step 12: You justify why you are having the affair especially to yourself. You battle the guilt with useless excuses.

Step 13: To deal with the emptiness brought by the guilt, you turn more and more to the affair. You meet the new someone even more, you throw caution to the wind, you don’t care, sex in the affair heightens, you sex even harder, thrill in the affair is at its peak. You turn to your new someone feeling only he/ she can understand you, only a criminal understands and hides a criminal, “Us against the world”

Step 14: After reaching its peak, the affair begins to have bitterness, it crumbles. You see it cannot last, you begin to want real love not lust. Your new someone wants something real too and definitely not with someone like you who would cheat. The thrill and excitement expires. Your new someone meets with you less or no more at all.

Step 15: You remember the wonderful partner you used to love. You now recall the good traits not the faults of the partner you abandoned.

Step 16: You desperately try to charm your legitimate partner back only to realize your partner left unfaithful you a while ago.

Step 17: You lose your partner and also lose the affair. You lose your dignity, honor, respect and your actions hurt others; sadly, especially your children if you have any.

Step 18: You regret and wish you can undo what you did. If only you put effort in seeing the good love through the storm than chasing after an illusion. For something temporary you threw away a good love, was it worth it?