Infidelity is the most frequent reason couples seek professional help.
When a partner chooses to be unfaithful, his or her partner loses trust,
is deeply wounded, and is uncertain about the future of the
relationship.
Most couples begin their committed relationship with promises of sexual
and emotional loyalty. Yet, as the numbers verify, fifty percent of both
men and women are now straying from those once sacred vows.
Partners break that most crucial trust agreement for many reasons.
People, situations, challenges, and unexpected experiences are different
each time. Most of these people did not enter their relationships with
the intent of cheating. The majority of them feel terrible about giving
up their personal integrity and hurting the one they have loved the
most, yet personal factors took them down that road.
Secrets
Affairs are most often secretive and separate relationships that take
time, energy, and loyalty away from the primary relationship. When an
ongoing relationship is struggling, the magnetic pull of novelty and new
romance can be very tempting. The established partnership may be unable
to compete with the naughtiness, excitement, and lust of a clandestine
tryst.
With so much at stake, it would seem perilous for people to risk their
primary relationships and personal integrity by choosing infidelity.
They have to choose deceit, live a double life, and risk the negative
judgment of people who matter. And most are not proud of what they've
done. Why then do partners stray so often?
Motivations
Some individuals have always lived their lives in separate compartments.
Perhaps they made their commitments to change that style in their
primary relationship, but then returned to their old habits. Affairs
require that room for them has already been created before they happen.
Partners considering an affair have usually already begun keeping
information and activities separate so that the space that makes infidelity possible
has already been created.
Others find themselves entangled in a diminished, hopeless relationship
they did not consciously intend, but now live within. They do not feel
they can leave, but cannot live with the ways things are, and don't see
any other options. Finding satisfaction elsewhere is their solution.
Still others, suffering years of abuse, neglect, or conflict, experience
a clandestine relationship as a haven from failure, and use it to heal
long-standing wounds in their primary relationship. Many times those
relationships start as a rescuing friendship that transforms over time
into intimacy.
Some, of course, just like multiple partners but don't want to give up
the security and comfort of their primary relationship. Those people are
usually sequential infidels, adept at the process and rarely caught.
Many fall into a relationship with someone they have known for a long
time. If their primary relationship is under stress, temporarily
unsatisfying, or unavailable, the alternate relationship takes on an
attraction that becomes sexually magnetic.
Escalation
As time goes by, infidelity becomes harder to deny. The unusual
behaviors escalate; unexplained absences, hidden telephone or credit
card bills, intensified irritability, sudden needs to get away for a few
minutes on a seemingly unnecessary errand, and phone calls that come at
odd hours with no one on the other end. Their clandestine lovers may
begin putting pressure on them to be more available.
As the partners' suspicions increase, they will usually start asking
questions. Radar blips have begun going off everywhere, and friends,
encouraged by the growing awareness, provide actual confirmation. The
deceived partners who have ignored warning signals now feel humiliated.
The adulterous partner's first responses to the growing inquiries are
often irritation, excuses, and reverse blaming or invalidation. If they
feel any guilt, it is usually expressed as outrage. "How could you
possibly think I would do something like that?" Or, "Why wouldn't I be
staying away more. This relationship is totally unsatisfying." Sometimes
even, "You're completely off your rocker. What are you smoking? Maybe
you need to get a life." Or the very occasional, "Thank God you finally
know. This situation has been killing me." The affair is the first
betrayal; the denial to the partner is the second.
Caleb's Story
There are people who believe that infidelity under any circumstances is
not a viable option. Whether it is a personal code of honor, deep love
for the other, or the unwillingness to subject themselves to the
discomfort of living a double life, they choose to remain faithful to
their partners.
I treated a young man in his late twenties who was one of those people.
Caleb and Mary Margaret were devout Catholics who married when they were
both in their early twenties. They had four daughters in six years and
lived in devotion to each other, their family, and their religious
beliefs.
She came out the back door of a shopping mall just after closing time on
Christmas Eve and did not see the man behind her, or feel the impact of the
blow. Though emergency personnel were there in just a few minutes,
she never regained consciousness. There was no way she could have avoided
the attack. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Every day since the attack, Caleb visited her in the hospital, fixated
on the monitor that displayed the lack of brain activity. Overwrought and exhausted from working two jobs and raising
four little girls, he ached for the support and warmth he had lost.
After a year had passed, and there was no hope of her recovery, Caleb
fell into a deep depression. Those who knew him encouraged him to find a
new partner to help raise his young girls, but he was resolute in his
devotion to his wife. Though he knew in his heart she would never be
whole again, he gazed daily into her vacant eyes, searching for the soul
he once held beloved. She survived for four years, and he never wavered
from that commitment.
Caleb came to me two years into his vigil. He needed help in maintaining
maintain his faith through the loneliness of his solitude and to help
his children prepare for the death that would come. When Mary Margaret
died in his arms, I was in the waiting room with his two older girls,
standing by to help the family process their grief. Never did he regret
his years of devotion, or the sacrifices he had made in his personal
life to stay faithful to her.
Is Healing Possible?
Though the tragic quality of Caleb's sacrifice is one that most people
never have to face, many others share his commitment to fidelity. Not all partners can resist the
temptations that may occur when their relationship is strained or when
they rationalize to themselves that a specific situation warrants the
breaking of trust.
Whether that particular relationship is amenable to healing depends on
many factors, and the answers to the following questions can help the
partners get a better grasp on what they may need to do to begin that
process.
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Is the unfaithful partner blaming the other partner for the affair?
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Did the couple have a quality relationship before the affair?
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How long has the couple been together?
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Did either of them have prior affairs in this or past relationships?
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Did they really love and trust each other before this happened?·
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What kinds of childhood experiences are being relived because of
the affair?
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Did the person who was unfaithful want out, anyway, and has picked
this way of making it happen?
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Who is the other lover and what was he or she told of the existence
of the committed relationship?
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Will the other lover want retribution if he or she has been dropped?
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Is this the first time this has happened in this relationship?
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Is the other lover a friend of the couple?
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Was it a one-night stand or a long-term love affair?
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Did the affair happen during a time of relationship stress?
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Is the person having the affair remorseful or self-justifying?
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Would he or she really be happier with this new person, rather than
trying to fix the relationship?
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Was anything going on in the established relationship that fueled
the reasons for deceit?
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What does the betrayed partner want now?
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Is there enough energy in the relationship for healing?
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Do both partners want the relationship to survive?
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Does the guilty partner realize the severity of what he or she has
done and willing to do what is necessary to gain forgiveness?
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Does the injured partner have enough love left to get past blame and
punishment?
None of the answers to these questions is meant to justify betrayal
or to suggest that this breach of trust is easily repaired. But they
are important variables that help determine if the relationship has
any chance to recover.
Outcomes
There are many possible outcomes once an affair has been discovered:
permanent separation, a guarded promise of better behavior in the
future, genuine revelation of what caused the affair and a new kind of
possibility as a result of it. If the couple decides to stay together,
how they create future trust will depend on the humility of the person
who strayed, and the ability of the partner to forgive and move on. A
first-time affair will have a better chance of being healed if the
straying partner really cares about his or lover, and feels badly about
what has happened. A casual affair, rationalized by personal hunger and
need, that invalidates the trust of the relationship, and has no
concomitant remorse, doesn't bode well for the future.
The responses of the partner who has been deceived play a large part in
the outcome. Some are more lenient about infidelities because their
culture accepts them as a way of life. Others can bear physical
infidelity if the external relationship was not about love. I've
observed some relationships that have so much else going for them that
the partners aren't willing to give each other up even when someone else
remains in the picture. In some rarer cases, the affair is a "wake-up
call" that spurs the couple to a re-evaluation of their relationship and
eventually to a renewed commitment.
Some partners actually allow occasional infidelity as an accepted part
of their relationship, but insist that honesty be the primary value, and
no threats to the committed relationship are allowed. They both live by
the same maxim, "I don't care what you do, just let me know what's going
on, don't fall in love, and don't bring home any diseases."
Lingering Echoes
Unfortunately, of the literally hundreds of patients I have worked with
whose lives have been disrupted by affairs, I have seen many
relationships survive but very few thrive. The primary relationship is
irrevocably altered and essentially over as it was. Something too
important has happened, and the scars can persist for many years, even
when the partners enter into an active process of healing.
It takes a long time, a very determined and sincerely remorseful person,
and a forgiving partner, to help resolve an infidelity. The process is
slow and often hindered by the injured partner's angry accusations and
painful recollections, and the straying partner's inability to maintain
caring under the barrage of rage. Getting to the other side of an affair
with hope and commitment for a better relationship is often much easier
with a competent professional on your side.