The revelation of a partner’s
affair is a serious crisis in a relationship.
It undermines trust, causes great pain to the hurt partner, and often
brings the relationship as a whole into question. While it is difficult to know precisely how
many relationships experience infidelity, studies as a whole suggest that
between 18-20% of married couples, and 30-40% of unmarried couples have
experienced infidelity. There are
societal factors that make it increasingly challenging for couples to maintain
fidelity in a committed relationship.
Among these are: more permissive sexual attitudes, population shifts to
larger communities with greater anonymity, the increased availability of
internet pornography and cybersex, changes in the status and roles of women
towards increasing financial independence and higher positions of power, and
the fact that the traditional in-tact family is less and less the norm. While these risk factors do exist and while
infidelity can occur even in a good relationship, there are ways that personal
recovery and healing of the relationship can occur. In this article I will share the key factors
to recovery that I’ve learned in working with couples struggling with
infidelity.
Infidelity in a relationship can happen
for different reasons; there is not just one kind of affair. The range of affairs include:
·
one night stands
·
emotional affair
·
sexual addiction
- a series of affairs
·
a single
long-term affair
·
as a reflection
of the unfaithful partner’s
insecurities, unmet needs, internal
conflicts
·
as a means of
exiting the relationship
·
as a response to
difficulties in the relationship
These different scenarios
will have different implications for each partner and for the couple. A therapist can help the couple make sense of
this crisis in the relationship - an important first step.
Affairs are traumatic/painful for the
hurt partner and can affect each person differently.
·
Some will view
the discovery of a partner’s affair as a negative reflection on their
worthiness, acceptability.
·
Some will begin
to question the validity of their judgement, feelings, intuition, and begin
doubting themselves more.
·
Some, in response
to feelings of shame/humiliation, will withdraw from supports, and will isolate
themselves.
·
Others may
experience the understandable urge to retaliate, seek revenge as a way of
releasing intense anger or to protect from further hurt.
·
Others may try to
escape these painful emotions by burying their feelings, moving quickly to
forgiveness, putting the experience behind them or ending the relationship.
·
Most will
experience increased doubts - questions about their partner and about the
future of the relationship itself.
A therapist can create a safe
environment that allows hurt partners to face the shock and pain of the betrayal,
to resist the urge to make quick decisions about the relationship or to
retaliate destructively at the unfaithful partner. The therapists non-judgmental, non-pressuring
presence can assist hurt partners to not bury or hide from their feelings, to learn
to trust their intuition that warns them that ‘something isn’t right’, and to
carefully understand their own feelings and needs.
If unfaithful partners have any
intentions of saving their relationships, it is their responsibility to acknowledge
the pain they have caused, to resolve any doubts or misgivings about commitment
to their partner, to stop the affair in order to create any hope of rebuilding
the relationship, and to do the hard work of regaining the hurt partner’s
trust.
A therapist needs to be aware
that often the individuals in a couple do not have the same agenda for the
relationship. Although one partner may
want to continue the relationship, the other partner may have real reservations. A therapist needs to be sensitive to this
possibility and be available to meet individually with each partner to assess
each partner’s interest in continuing the relationship. The therapist’s ability to understand each
partner’s state of mind and to help the partners confront doubts, conflicted
feelings about committing to the relationship will help the couple be clear
where they stand with each other.
An important complicating
factor occurs when unfaithful partners have difficulty letting go of the affair
and committing to the relationship. It can happen that unfaithful partners may
have difficulty letting go of someone with whom they experienced something
needed at a certain time in their lives. In addition, the unfaithful partner
may experience guilt over ending the affair, abandoning or deserting someone
who provided something positive to them. Since it is probably expecting too
much for the hurt partner to be patient and understanding of these conflicts,
this is where a therapist may be helpful.
A therapist’s non-judgmental presence can provide the space for
unfaithful partners to resolve their reluctance or guilt about ending the
affair, or to mourn the loss of the positive aspects of the affair in ways that
don’t create more distrust and damage to the relationship.
Finally, once trust had been
broken, it can only be regained through concrete action, behavioral changes
that reassure the other “you’re safe with me, I’m committed to you”. Verbal
reassurance alone won’t accomplish this. The hard work for the unfaithful
partners involves pushing themselves beyond their normal comfort zone, taking
initiative, making sacrifices that communicate to their partners “I’m not
trying to sweep this under the carpet”, i.e., that they are diligently working
to understand the reasons for the affair(s). A therapist can help the
unfaithful partners manage feelings of guilt, shame, or a desire to spare the
hurt partners further pain. This can lead to defensiveness, or impatience with
or avoidance of the hurt partners’ questions about the affair, or to pressuring
the partner to prematurely trust or forgive, or to put the affair in the past.
This will only leave hurt partners with lingering uncertainty about “when the
axe will fall again”.
Once the hurt partner has been convinced
that the affair has ended, that partner faces the difficult decision of giving
the relationship another chance.
The hard work for hurt
partners involves their willingness to give the other the opportunity to regain
trust, and to work with that partner to build a better relationship. This isn’t
easy when one has been deeply hurt, and involves the risk of further
disappointment and pain if things don’t work out. There is the factor of the
couple’s lifestyle and social relationships, which will be severely impacted by
a separation or divorce. It becomes even
more difficult when children are involved.
Hurt partners need to consider all these factors in deciding what is
right for themselves and their families, what they can live with, their
personal limits. A relationship with a
therapist can provide the space for hurt partners to consider all these factors
without external pressure or advice (which can come from well-meaning family
and friends) to make a premature decision about the relationship. Hurt partners
may need the aid of a therapist to overcome fears of rejection or of
disappointing others in order to voice their doubts, needs at the time, to
assert what is required from the unfaithful partner to feel safer and
emotionally secure, and to hold their partners accountable when they are not
doing enough.
If the affair has ended, and the couple
chooses to give the relationship another chance, therapy can provide an
opportunity to identify and understand pre-existing problems in the
relationship and help the couple make careful decisions about their future.
Affairs are often symptomatic
of longer-standing problems in the relationship that have been difficult for
the couple to confront in their own. This can be due to the lingering effects
that important, but difficult, relationships earlier in life (parents,
siblings, and extended family) have on each partner’s sense of self and what
they can expect from or are entitled to from others in relationships. These
lingering effects - on self-worth, sense of entitlement, willingness to be
close, fears off trust - can inadvertently undermine a couple’s efforts to
build a foundation of understanding, trust and love. Although discovery of an
affair is an extremely painful and damaging crisis in a relationship, it
provides an opportunity for the couple to understand problematic patterns of
relating to each other, and deeper personal insecurities or conflicts that
interfere with developing closeness, trust, and confidence in their ability to
manage normal conflicts and the ups and downs of a relationship. A therapist
can provide a safe environment where strong emotions are acknowledged and dealt
with in ways that help the couple engage in constructive dialogue about the
affair, what it means to their relationship and work together to make careful
decisions about their future.
