I stumbled upon this article and found many points that very closely paralleled my own life. It is a long read, but I found it more than worth it.

The Article

When K had cheated on me I too went into a fit of uncontrollable rage. "Your self-respect and sense of control over your life get swept away." I dwelled upon what had happened and this manifested in unrelenting anger for quite some time. It wasn't until I started to focus on mending our relationship and accept the fact that she cheated on me were we able to continue growing together. Which we did, and the cheating period no longer was an issue of our relationship, it just became part of it.

I am no doubt mourning the loss of a relationship that I felt was special. Afterwards I was full of anger and doubt, which inhibited me from self reflecting where and when we started to drift apart. Now I fully realize where it went south. For most of this past semester, our relationship was very very good. It wasn't until the very end did we start to generate conflict with one another. This all stemmed from our extemelely busy academic and professional lifes, which limited our ability to be with each other, because of these other strong commitments. Ultimately, neither of us did a lot to show each other that we really did love each other, even though we both did. We both are also very poor at communicating with each other. She would want something from me, but wouldn't really say anything, and when that something didn't happen she would become upset with me. The thing is I did the exact same thing to her. That's an interesting point, because what made us so great was all of the peculiar characteristic traits we shared, but also, that was our biggest problem too. Because the bad characterisict traits like being so stupidly stubborn, worked against each other. We both made it very hard for either of us to figure out how the other one felt about the relationship, and when it finally manifested, too many little problems generated into one huge problem.

Lately I have been exploring the concept of the rebound relationship. The relationship I had with K was true intimacy. When you get out of a relationship, where you have invested so much energy, love, and patience the bond that has been forged makes it virtually unbearable to let go of. This article doesn't discuss the rebound, but it addresses the affair, which both are very nearly identical in their emotional positions. What makes the affair, or rebound appealing is that it offers the "illusion of intimacy without the emotional baggage and responsibility." When you are in a very long committed relationship it will inherently build it's own baggage along with way. And this can put a heavy burden on either of the parties in the relationship.

I have recently been put into the position of the rebound relationship. One thing I registered immediately was how the feeling of intimacy was created. I suspect what this is doing is re-creating the intimacy that I shared in my former relationship. And this intimacy doesn't have the baggage that my former relationship had. This makes the relationship appear to be safe and secure. However, none of this is true.