2. They Will Hurt More Than Just You

Aside from lying and deliberately deceiving those around you, there are often far more sinister reasons why secret relationships are in fact meant to be kept "secret" in the first place. You may be causing irreparable damage to many different aspects of your life in the process.

For example, you or your partner may be involved with someone else or are in fact married and cheating on your spouse. Or perhaps the two of you work together and a relationship would mean that one or both of you could lose your jobs. There's also the possibility that one or both of you are in a situation where those around you wouldn't approve of this kind of illicit relationship.

Not only does a secret relationship often hurt others, particularly the people you care about, it can also end up hurting you on various levels. It can take a toll on your self-esteem, and you may start feeling inadequate, sad, or like a bad person because of the secret nature of your relationship.

3. Sustainable? Yah Right

If you're thinking about entering a secret relationship, it's important to understand that things often don't end up staying secret for long. If you're looking to have your secret relationship actually work in the long-term, it's better if you deliberately bring out the truth in the short-term. If you truly want your relationship to survive, you need to enter the relationship with the full intention that it'll one day be out in the open — sooner rather than later.

Entering a secret relationship should give you some pause just by the very nature that it's meant to be a secret, and this can help to clue you in that this isn't the best idea for you, your partner, and the people you care about. However, if your goal is to make the relationship work, the veil of secrecy has to be something that both you and your partner want to remove at some juncture.

While it's your decision if you'd like to be in a secret relationship with someone, it's no secret that you should fully understand the potential consequences beforehand.

A previous commitment is not the only reason why love may become secret. Sometimes the situation is ruled by convenience, as happens with celebrities who have to keep their relationships a secret so they do not lose followers. Sometimes there are other kinds of pressures, familial, work, or social, that force a relationship to remain a secret.

In any case, this type of love is secret because it is forbidden in some way. And it is precisely this element of prohibition that adds a special seasoning to those feelings. The relationship cannot develop in a “normal” way. It is necessary to start a sort of “parallel life” to keep that love going.

The charm of the forbidden

All prohibitions are, at the same time, an invitation. This is so because in the human mind, prohibition activates desire. Don’t you feel more interested in a movie if they tell you that it was censored in several countries? Don’t you look at that door that says “DO NOT ENTER” with greater interest? Don’t you long to be one of the people who can go through it?

The forbidden exercises a natural charm because it allows us to see, up close, something that we are lacking. So it is precisely this lack that gives rise to desire. For this reason, prohibition and desire are two sides of the same coin.

When we are talking about love, things get even more exciting. Prohibition turns into fuel for the flame, even if it is very small at first. Obstacles transform into stimuli and risks end up being seen as enticing challenges. The very risk of the relationship makes you fall in love. But be careful: playing with fire so much, we may end up being consumed by it.

The danger of secret love

The first danger of a secret love is obviously that it might be discovered. We can assume that if it is secret, it is because the consequences of revealing it may end up being very serious. There is nothing secret that will not be revealed, and there are very few cases where the truth remains a secret for a long time.

Of course, many lovers also experience these revelations with a certain excitement. They betray the commitment that they have with their partner, but they also unconsciously want “to be caught” in the act. This is part of a confusing game to test limits with the official partner or to undermine them and balance the scales that all relationships have to some extent or another.

The second great risk is that you are literally playing with your own feelings and those of others. The true and only reason for the relationship may lie within the charm of the risk. It is not love that brings you together, but the intention to challenge the forbidden. The bad thing is that within this “game,” almost always, all of the parties involved come out hurt to some degree.

Finally, the risk of secret love is that when the time comes, they neither allow us to grow nor do they make our lives better. They end up being chapters where we behave like children who do not want to obey. But when everything is out in the open, what remains is simply having tasted the charm of the forbidden…and the time we wasted on that fleeting pleasure.