Thank you for your letter. Let me start by saying this pattern is more common than many people realize. There are varying opinions on why feelings and reactions evolve this way, but there are a couple of things that may be playing into it. First, the revelation of an affair is indication that your marriage is on shaky ground, and your increased desire for sex may be one way of “staking your claim,” consciously or unconsciously, and regaining the ground you feel you have lost. You may—again, not necessarily consciously—desire increased intimacy with your husband because you are afraid to lose him.

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Second, there are many people who, for various reasons, associate love with extreme emotions. When those individuals get into relationships that are relatively “easy” and “normal,” they can and sometimes do lose passion for their partners. When something happens to heighten emotions, it can serve as a spark of sorts and passion can, as a result, be reignited. Based on what you described about the trajectory of your relationship, it sounds like you might be inclined—again, possibly unconsciously—to equate intensity with love. While maintaining passion is important for a relationship, it is also not reasonable to maintain high levels of intensity long-term. In the course of everyday life, over time, intensity may diminish and passion may wane. Part of the challenge every couple faces is how to have a strong, passionate union when life’s many demands creep in.

When something happens to heighten emotions, it can serve as a spark of sorts and passion can, as a result, be reignited. Based on what you described about the trajectory of your relationship, it sounds like you might be inclined—possibly unconsciously—to equate intensity with love.

During this confusing time, despite the intense feelings you’re having, you are asking yourself some valid and serious questions that deserve to be carefully examined before you make any rash decisions. While it is well within the realm of “ordinary” to have your passion reignited in a situation like yours, it is worth deeper examination to understand why you responded this way and if you want to continue this pattern. The other questions you are asking are also important to sit with; the trust in your relationship was breached, and that takes significant time and effort to repair. Are you both willing and able to do that? If you do choose to stay together and work things out, how will you deal with the dynamics at play and work to maintain passion without crisis? Another question that bears examination is if your relationship style is best suited for monogamy; it sounds like you both once enjoyed a more open or “swinging” style that inspired passionate feelings reminiscent of what you’re feeling now.

Your husband made his choices and surely had his reasons, and exploring his experience of this as well as yours in a safe, nonjudgmental, therapeutic space likely would serve him, you, your relationship, and ultimately your family. Your situation is complex, but there are many therapists who specialize in sexuality and relationship concerns. I strongly suggest you seek out a skilled therapist who can assist you in navigating your path, whatever you decide. Best wishes along the way.

Sincerely,
Lisa

Thank you for reaching out and asking these important questions. I appreciate how hard it is to ask for help and I’m really glad you did. I am going to share my thoughts on your situation as candidly as possible.

You say, “I’ve never cheated on my wife,” and I would venture that you are talking about never having had sexual contact outside of your marriage. However, there is another side to infidelity that many people are unaware of or fail to acknowledge—the emotional affair. An emotional affair is when a married or committed partner turns to an individual outside of the partnership to fulfill emotional needs. The situation you are describing with your coworker sounds like an emotional affair, especially because it appears that your wife is not aware of the type and amount of contact you have had with this woman.

While affairs may progress in any number of ways, they don’t generally “just happen.” Affairs happen by a series of small compromises: sharing secrets with someone other than your partner; doing things with someone that more often than not should be reserved for your partner, such as going to the movies or having nice meals out; and hiding behavior. Eventually, many people find themselves in an all-out affair. While I’m not suggesting that you are having an affair, you are certainly on a slippery slope, and it is apparent that this “friendship” is taking a toll on your marriage. Even if nothing has happened yet, there is a very real possibility that could change very quickly.

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There are a few significant things that make a relationship with someone outside of a partner so enticing. For one, it’s new. As anyone who has ever purchased a new car can attest, the newness of the car is exciting. You can’t wait to show it off, tell everyone about it, and you burst with excitement every time you drive it. After a while, however, the newness wears off and you get accustomed to it. Then, you become more aware of its quirks and maintenance costs. At this point, some people will trade in for a newer car to try to recapture that feeling.

In marriage, the concept is the same—when you met your wife, it was new and exciting. Now, after 32 years, two children, two grandchildren, and a life together, the newness is gone. The excitement has worn off, and you know this woman like you know yourself. I suspect that is part of what makes the relationship with this other woman so exciting—it’s new. There are new things to learn, explore, and share, while with your wife you may be feeling like you’ve been there, done that.

Starting a new relationship after a long marriage can be exciting, but I must caution you that the friendship you describe is steeped in fantasy; almost every new relationship is. At this point, your life with your wife is full of responsibility and with the daily tasks of living—the bills, kids, grandkids, work, college tuition, and household chores. The relationship with the other woman doesn’t have any of those components now, but should you choose to end your marriage and start a life with her, those elements will be present along with the added challenge of blending families. Before you make any big decision, it’s important to step back and look at this from a realistic perspective, beyond the fantasy and romantic idealization.

Finally, you state that you want to be happy and that you’re concerned that you will lose the opportunity to live your days in happiness. From my perspective, happiness is an internal condition. Viktor Frankl reminds us that the “last of the human freedoms [is] to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” You are making your happiness contingent on what happens in your life and your relationships, when your focus really ought to be on how to find fulfillment, happiness, and joy in your life on your own. If there is one thing that is constant in this life, it is that nothing stays the same. Therefore, the highest task of living, in my opinion, is learning how to surf the waters of life and maintaining an inner sense of peace, joy, and happiness … no matter what is happening.

You do not have an easy choice to make in this situation, and I would encourage you to seek out someone to talk with you about this. A good therapist can help you navigate the waters and help you become aware of things you may not presently see.

Best wishes in the journey,
Lisa

Thanks for your question. Six years is a long time to be living with this kind of uncertainty! And not only is this situation more common than you might realize, but the concept of certainty, or security, is often at the heart of this existential dilemma—which is something all of us want and need, though it often proves elusive.

When we begin an affair with someone who is unavailable (via marriage or otherwise), there is certainty in the fact we definitely want him or her but can’t. This creates a very specific kind of focus around the question, “Will he or she leave or not?” If the answer is “yes,” very often it seems to be “evidence” of our worthiness: that we and not the other woman (or man) is the winner. We may start to feel resentful of our lover’s spouse, thinking he or she doesn’t deserve the one we love. There may be guilt, too, or most likely a mixture of conflicting feelings and desires.

Then one day it happens, and he or she is ours—except the imagined happy life we’d been yearning for isn’t exactly all that; it may even be more complicated, our feelings difficult to untangle. It’s common that, rather than wanting the partner to choose us, we find ourselves preoccupied with “proof” that the past will not repeat itself, that our beloved will not leave us for someone else.

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The reasons for this are varied, and some or none or all of what I’m about to say will apply to your situation. Take what you like and ignore the rest. But just know that this kind of thing happens more often than is discussed (for obvious reasons).

There is a safety (i.e., certainty) in becoming involved with someone who is unavailable; we can love while focusing on the wanting, rather than the vulnerability that comes with actual availability. I don’t think we’re to blame entirely; this arrangement usually fits a template of our early experiences where caregivers were sporadically or consistently unavailable. It is absolutely thrilling to be chosen over an “outside” person, in a reversal of what we experienced earlier, where caregivers appeared more interested in things besides us (another child or family, for instance), which of course is a terribly painful abandonment that follows us into adulthood in the form of insecurities, needs, hopes, etc. To be chosen over another appears to be a reversal of abandonment that lands us on solid relational ground at last. We can then finally create or co-create the well-founded home we have dreamed about.

But how solid is it? After all, we might then ask, “Well, if he or she left his/her spouse before, who’s to say he/she won’t do it again?” Behind or beneath this question are a slew of factors that I think may be worth some serious reflection, either alone, with a trusted friend, or with a counselor. I would suggest doing this before going to your husband to verbalize any concerns.

It can be disconcerting that certain fears never go away. We learn to live with them, tolerate them, but they can never be banished, especially if we experienced relational traumas early on, such as abandonment, neglect, or abuse. We may have felt unabandoned when he or she chose us, but the underlying fear—because it is rooted in our own histories and psyches—hasn’t been banished, leaving us to wonder if we may, in fact, be abandoned yet again. The “proof” we were seeking is not, it turns out, as iron-clad as we hoped; there are no guarantees he or she won’t leave us for someone else. (There is never such a guarantee, actually.)

The traumatized, wounded part of ourselves needs to be heard, and this is, in part, a way of announcing itself. The critical voice within may attack us (or our partner) for the “wrongness” of what happened (“how could you be so selfish or reckless,” etc); there may be guilt about how this relationship has come to be, but most often this, too, is connected to the terror of abandonment (i.e., a repetition of actual past abandonment), and our yearnings for connectedness are suddenly subject to self-doubt, and questions arise about whether we’re worthy of happiness. (“You’re not all that; you’re a cheater, too,” and so on.) Of course, certain qualities or behaviors of our partner may stoke these fears, but if we truly, at the core, did not trust this person, we would never have pursued him or her. These fears are spurred for the most part by the historical trauma I’m discussing herein. We may zoom in like a laser on possible “signs” of such abandonment happening and interpret them as such, stoking our anxieties, but the cause of it is usually a terror of yet another experience of being left behind.

It’s something of a cliché in our pop culture to believe that (as Sting once sang), “if you love someone, set them free.” But the existential truth, I believe, is that we really do have to give our partners the dignity of their choices, and your partner has chosen to be with you now. That same respect is due us, since I believe that the majority of us are not malevolent and are, in the main, doing the best we can. Why not give the relationship a chance? It probably has a better chance if you take the risk of trusting him; otherwise, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy where fear and anxiety suffocate any chance you might have. We can’t always help who we love; the point is to understand our choices rather than simply give them the thumbs-up or -down. I think the more important question is why we choose who we choose, rather than it being “right or wrong” (which only obscures the deeper issues).

Of course, once you have a clear sense of what those underlying motives are—once you understand what “your side of the street” looks like in terms of facing your inevitable psychological demons—then you might be able to reveal your vulnerabilities to your partner and verbalize what does and doesn’t help you in your personal quest for healing. (For example, “Do you mind telling me where you’re going for the time being? I appreciate you indulging me in this as I work on myself.” As opposed to, “Where are you going? Who are you seeing? What are you up to?”) Our partners can greatly support but cannot replace that healing process. In a way, we need these types of things to show us where the healing needs to occur. The danger is in expecting that a relationship can supplant past injuries. Vulnerability is inevitable.

Paradoxically, making peace with the worst of the past seems tied to a more secure future. Thanks again for writing.

Best wishes,
Darren

The initial aftermath of affair exposure is a critical time in the life of an intimate relationship. What you say or don’t say can make a big difference in the outcome of your partnership.

Let’s start with what you shouldn’t say. You should not say your affair “didn’t mean anything.” Do not yell, get angry, raise your voice, play the victim, blame your partner, blame your affair partner, or blame your kids. The only person you should blame is yourself. The goal is to take responsibility and be accountable for your actions in a way that is genuine, respectful, and remorseful.

There is a story to your affair which your partner will very likely want to hear. She or he may want to know everything. If so, you should go slowly in the unfolding of the story. Watch for his or her reaction when you talk about the affair; every detail may not be necessary in order to communicate the key elements of the infidelity. Be considerate and watchful of providing details that will only hurt your partner more. Emotional sensitivity is required even if your partner claims he or she wants to hear everything. Use your best judgment. Remember, this is a person you love and hope to love in the future.

Even though you are feeling shocked, exposed, and ashamed, don’t shut down and go silent. You probably don’t know what to say to help soothe and calm your partner. But it is important that your partner not have to drag information out of you. Before you begin the process of telling your story, check with your partner to determine if it is a good time. You may need to postpone the discussion depending on her or his mood and emotional reactivity. Your partner’s world has come unraveled, and you need to begin the process of cleanup. Your need to be proactive cannot be overstated. Some assumptions you can make about the situation: your partner is very angry, hurt, and lost. In addition to some other questions he or she may want answered, your partner wants to know why, how, and for how long. He or she may ask questions such as,“How could you hurt me like this, where did you meet, who initiated the relationship, who else knew about it, when did it start, and is it still going on?”

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You need to be proactive and get this discussion going. You may not want to create an emotional storm and begin sharing all the information you went to great lengths to hide, but you must. Your partner is in pain, and the only one who can address the suffering is you. You should not answer any question with, “I don’t know.” Whenever I hear someone say this in response to a question about the affair, I push them to think harder about the reasons behind the betrayal. “I don’t know” is the intellectually dishonest and emotionally safe response. Of course you know why, but chances are you have never had to answer that question and are afraid telling your partner may hurt him or her. The thinking behind the “I don’t know” answer is really “I don’t want to tell you,” “I don’t want to think about it,” or “I’m afraid to tell you because I may incriminate myself further.” From your partner’s perspective, if you made a decision that put your relationship at risk, you had better have a good reason for doing so. Being drunk, bored, or angry is not a good reason to have an affair.

As the unfaithful partner, you will need to spend some time thinking hard about why you engaged in the hurtful behavior. The explanations and reasons for the affair are likely many, and will require serious reflection to determine how you strayed so badly off course. If your partner wants answers immediately and you don’t feel adequately prepared to provide them, give him or her a time and a place when you will be ready to tell the story. The sooner you are honest and forthright with your partner, the sooner you can begin the process of repair.

If you need help in putting your story together, contact a mental health professional for assistance.

Thanks for writing in. Gosh, I’m sorry you’ve been through such an emotionally brutal experience. I can’t imagine the blow of losing a girlfriend and an allegedly good friend at once, in this manner. It sounds like you had some suspicion that something was amiss, but when you asked your alleged friend directly, he lied.

I would not be surprised if you are experiencing some kind of posttraumatic stress from such an experience. Because relationships are so crucial to our sense of self and security in the world—especially intimate relationships—having our trust and emotional safety shattered in this way would naturally be extremely distressing and perhaps traumatic. Sleep, appetite, and other functionality is sometimes affected. Perhaps your other relationships are being affected, in terms of wondering who you can and can’t trust. Being lied to so baldly would completely scramble trust even in our own perceptions and sense of reality since what happened contradicts so dramatically what we thought we were seeing.

This may account for the self-blame on evidence in your question, when you “feel like an idiot” for trusting. That harsh self-condemnation is the result, I suspect, of trusting your own self-experience with people close to you—who often serve at least in part as reflections of ourselves, our sense of who we are and what we can have faith in—which, now shattered, leaves you with self-doubt over what you thought you were perceiving.

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However, you are not responsible for the heinous behavior of these two. Taking you at your word (and I see no reason not to), I see no trace of any reason for them to have treated you so shabbily. I imagine this to be another reason for the self-doubt and self-condemnation you express, because our loved ones are often mirrors for us: when someone we trust and love treats us badly, a possible instinctive reaction is, “What am I, chopped liver?” It sounds like these two colluded in deception and abusive behavior, and of course such betrayal would be intensely injurious to anyone’s self-esteem.

Of course, being a therapist, I am going to suggest therapy in the spirit of seeing this episode as trauma. Often, such experiences will revive historical doubts and losses or previous crises of faith, if we have had other betrayals in the past. I think having a safe place to vent and process all kinds of understandable emotional reactions could be quite healing. Rage, grief, shock, hurt, and fear of future betrayals are but a handful of the normal human reactions you might be having, and the safe space of therapy can provide an outlet. You may need to vent about this over and over for a long time, and this is OK; don’t worry about “boring” the counselor or therapist. These losses take time to process and heal.

You might also want to look around for support groups, even online. Perhaps there is a group, either locally and in person or online, that offers support for those who have been betrayed in this way.

Finally, I wouldn’t be in a super hurry to start pressuring yourself, or feeling pressure from others, to “forgive and move on.” Forgiveness is a more complicated subject than meets the eye, and often presented in highly idealistic terms. In principle, of course, it is a beautiful thing. But people often rush to forgive others for hurts that aren’t fully understood or acknowledged, even by the injured person; superficial forgiveness may be espoused while hurts and resentments unconsciously simmer and continue to impact the personality—exploding when the person is re-traumatized in parallel ways.

I am not “against” forgiveness, of course, and find it ultimately to be liberating (and probably necessary in the long run). But it is not as neat and tidy as presented on bumper stickers and inspirational Facebook posts. There is a nice saying from Al-Anon: “Acceptance is not approval.” One can accept what has happened, without acting vengefully and in a spirit of moving forward, but there’s something to be said for learning from harmful behaviors (dishonesty, selfishness), remembering so as not to repeat them. Sometimes others show us what not to do.

Thanks for writing, and I wish you the best in your journey of healing. I hope you find a girlfriend and friend who treat you with the honesty and integrity you deserve. I suggest you treat yourself as a very good friend who is suffering, which is more consideration than you received, sadly, from the two who betrayed you.

Kind regards,
Darren

I see it all the time in my work with divorcing people: the anger, bitterness, and frustration felt when one partner betrays or deceives the other with little or no remorse for their actions.

If you’re waiting for an apology or some explicit expression of remorse from your ex, pull up a comfortable chair and get ready to sit for a while. The ability to repent for an act of betrayal requires a level of evolution that most people never aspire to reaching. Saying I’m sorry means admitting fault, as does acknowledging that the action has deeply hurt another person. Both require courage and a deep capacity for empathy and compassion.

Waiting for an apology you may never get will keep you stuck, unable to move on with your life. When the need for an apology becomes connected to healing, the focus becomes your ex as opposed to yourself. It leaves you in a powerless place because you will never be able to will your ex into giving you what you so rightly deserve.

So the work for you becomes more about how to relinquish the need for an apology, accountability, or remorse, which will enable you to move on and begin picking up the pieces of your life.

Here are five steps to relinquishing the apology you’ll never get:

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1. Acceptance: Accept that life isn’t fair, that the process of divorce is riddled with inequities. Life, love, and relationships are not about being even, and you cannot make someone do something for you even in the name of love. Start to focus on how you can live with never getting the acknowledgment you deserve instead of what it means to not get it. This is one of the hardest things to do because it feels like the other person is getting away unscathed. Remember that this is about integrity; it’s not about who wins or loses.
2. Awareness: Awaken to the truth of the person you’re dealing with. If your partner shows little or no remorse, then they may possibly be lacking empathy. Empathy is a human capacity that makes it harder to hurt other people. You may not have noticed it until now, but if you think back, it may be that a lack of compassion and empathy is not out of character for your ex. Get real with your expectations, and open your eyes to the truth of who you’re dealing with.
3. Let go: Work on detaching emotionally from the expectation of an apology. Your need for an apology or remorse is directly connected to your emotional attachment, which makes it impossible to let go of the need to be acknowledged and honored by someone who has betrayed you. When your ex’s actions don’t matter and don’t define your experience, you are well on your way to letting go. Ask yourself if you want to be emotionally attached or if you would rather be set free from that connection. Meditate on how much energy you’re expending on this issue, and then come to terms with whether getting what you are hoping for would change anything for you.
4. Self-reflect: Sometimes, focusing on your ex’s actions (or lack thereof) is a way to move away from focusing on yourself. What can you take responsibility for, and what can you learn about yourself from this experience? Inner wisdom will allow you to rise above this petty situation, and you’ll feel empowered in your own process. Reflect on why you need an apology or to see remorse, and why that has become such a determining factor in your ability to move on.
5. Reframe: Your ex’s lack of remorse does not devalue your pain and suffering. Betrayal is not measured by the act; it’s measured by the pain it causes the person being hurt. Sometimes, we think the level of remorse equals the crime, but some people have horrible regret for even the most benign acts. Reframe your ideas about remorse and apologies as things to appreciate if they happen, but not essential to your process. A lack of an apology is more a reflection of the person not giving it than of the person who was wronged.

You find yourself in a fraught situation: your partner has just learned about your affair. Feelings of panic, anxiety, fear, shame, and guilt overwhelm you. You aren’t sleeping well, maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop, worried that every conversation will lead to your partner telling you it’s over. You have some decisions to make: should you stay or leave the relationship? If you decide to stay, there are some realities you must accept—specifically, the repair process could take a couple of years. It will require a lot of emotional and behavioral work.

Think of it this way: repairing an affair is like trying to rebuild an investment account after having made a series of short-sighted trades that wiped you out. You feel pressured to save and reinvest quickly to recreate what you had, but just like with a financial investment, relationship investments cannot be rebuilt quickly. At first, your balance is zero. It is through your efforts that the balance in the account grows. Just as all of your spending decisions will affect how much you are able to deposit in your retirement account, the daily decisions you make about your relationship will result in how quickly you build up your relationship account.

The unfaithful partner must accept the reality of the slow repair process. Just when everything seems to be going well and you are hopeful that forgiveness will come soon, your partner may be triggered by a thought, event, or feeling and be thrown back into the well of anger and despair. Continue to think of it as an investment account. Checking the balance every day won’t make it grow faster. What does make it grow faster is making everyday choices that please your partner.

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Love is behavioral—it takes attention, attunement, regular and healthy communication, compromise, and a willingness to play the long game. Short-sightedness in relationships is a self-inflicted wound. Do not cut corners by passing up chances at affection or emotional connection, or by rationalizing that unhealthy behaviors don’t count or won’t be noticed. When in the process of repair, the unfaithful partner must act from an understanding that everything he or she does matters. Your actions and words will serve to either help rebuild your relationship or contribute to its breakdown.

The partner in the process of repair needs to accept that he or she may be under the microscope. You will be watched, assessed, and perhaps feel like you are under surveillance. Before allowing this to upset you, remind yourself that you created this situation.

You may be wondering what really helps in rebuilding trust in your relationship. From my perspective, relationships are repaired mainly through small gestures. Trips to romantic destinations and expensive gifts may seem like obvious ways to increase trust, but they’re not. Trust is developed by engaging in trustworthy behavior on a regular basis.

To help you clean up your relationship mess, here are some suggestions that may increase trust between you and your partner:

1. Cut out the secrecy. Your partner may want to have your passwords for your phone, banking, credit cards, and social media accounts. This may feel invasive and unnecessary to you, but to your partner, this gesture sends the message that you get it. Hurt partners often gain reassurance by engaging in the process of “checking.” Many hurt individuals greatly dislike the act of checking up on their partners because they genuinely want to trust you. Reading emails and text messages can make the hurt partner feel parental. It’s an uncomfortable situation for both parties, which is why it often stops shortly after it starts.
2. Increase your availability. If your partner contacts you, make every effort to either answer the phone, text, or email back immediately. If there were frequent communication dark periods during your affair, your partner will respond to your unavailability with increased anxiety, which leads to lack of trust.
3. If after ending the affair you are still contacted by the affair partner, tell your partner of the contact. You may resist doing so out of fear it could lead to a fight, but if he or she finds out later about any further contact between you and your affair partner, trust will be weakened.
4. Be honest about why you chose to have the affair. One way to not make the same mistake twice is to understand why you made the choices you did. Sharing the truth can be and often is very painful, but it is a vital aspect of the repair process.

Going through a breakup is one of the most difficult experiences we can have. Heartache, grief, and confusion, mixed with feelings of powerlessness or even betrayal, can bring out the crazies in all of us. It can be hard to focus and function, making daily life overwhelming.

If you are going through a breakup, my heart goes out to you. I’ve been through it and I know how overwhelming it feels.

Here are my five top tips for moving on:

1. Cease ALL Contact

One of the biggest mistakes people make is fooling themselves into believing they can still be friends with their ex—right away. It may be possible down the road, but in order to get over someone, it’s best not to see them, speak to them, or know anything of them for a long time. You can’t simply switch off your romantic feelings toward someone and view them in a platonic or neutral way overnight. Continuing to stay in contact prolongs pain by allowing you to be hopeful. And having hope for reconciliation keeps you stuck in the transition and won’t allow you to get past the pain.

Zero contact means the obvious: no texting, talking, or getting together. But it also includes the covert: voyeurism and cyber-stalking, positioning yourself to “bump into” your ex by hanging out in places they go, communicating with his/her friends, or fabricating reasons to see each other, such as returning a toothbrush. [fat_widget_relationships_right]

2. Remember You ARE Lovable

We tend to bash ourselves after a breakup. We think of everything we believe we did wrong to drive the ex away, reminding ourselves of all our regrettable actions. We inflate our flaws and tell ourselves we aren’t good enough for the ex. This makes us feel unlovable and that we are somehow excluded or disqualified from winning in love.

It may be true that you tend toward a specific behavior that is not so appealing and it could have become the deal-breaker for the relationship—but even if that is the case, your behavior is not you and it is something you can change. YOU are still lovable. And the right person for you will appreciate all that you are.

3. Focus on the Big Picture

So often when someone breaks up with us, we tend to focus on all the positive things about the person and the relationship. This makes us pine for them even more, and we long to be with them for all those amazing qualities and times we had together. We relive the happy times and focus so vividly on the wonderful qualities of our ex.

If you allow yourself to step back, you will be able to see the whole picture. There were problems or unhealthy dynamics in the relationship, parts of your ex you didn’t like, and unpleasant feelings you had that you ignored. When you find yourself focusing on the wonderful parts, you will feel distraught, but if you shift your focus to include the unpleasant truths of your ex and the relationship, your emotional state will respond accordingly.

To solidify this, write a list of all the negative qualities of your ex, the parts of the dynamic you didn’t like, and how you often felt in the relationship. This is to help ground you in reality and not remain starry- eyed. You will soon come to understand that your ex did you a huge favor!

4. Look for the Lessons

When a relationship ends, people tend to get stuck in the idea that they wasted time. This kind of thinking puts us in a victim position, which can feel extremely powerless.

As tough as it can be to look within right now, it will help more than you can imagine if you are able to reflect on yourself in the relationship. If your ex is at fault or to blame for the relationship going wrong or ending, then you have no control in this situation and it will absolutely feel like a waste of time.

Dig in! Really try to take responsibility where you can, without condemning yourself, of course. If you can own up to your contributions that caused the relationship to sour, you will be able to learn the lessons this relationship was meant to teach you. And though it is a hard lesson to come by, it means you didn’t waste time at all. You will be more prepared and whole going into your next relationship, and both of you will benefit from those hard-earned growing pains.

If you take the time to write your findings, you may actually see a pattern emerge. You may come to see that your role in this current relationship looked very similar to previous relationships as well. Allowing yourself to see patterns of behavior means you can finally be clear about how to be healthier in the future.

5. Take Care of Yourself

If taking care of yourself means reaching out to friends or family, then do it now! You may tend to isolate when going through a tough time, so staying connected to your staunch supporters is vital to your recovery. They know you may not be great company right now, and that is OK.

On the other hand, if you tend to avoid your sadness by being social, drinking too much, or working a lot, you may need to provide yourself some downtime. Time alone to fall apart and grieve will help you move through this time quicker.

Make sure you are eating well, getting enough water, sleep, and exercise, and continue engaging in the activities that bring you pleasure. It may be tempting to forego all of that in self-punishment or self-pity, but it will truly only make you feel worse.

The quickest way to the other side of a long, dark, and scary tunnel is straight through. Embrace your reality, feel the feelings (you won’t melt), fall apart, and be a mess. Such a response is natural and congruent to the situation you are in right now. If you didn’t have these feelings, I would say you didn’t much care for the ex or the relationship.

If you feel yourself trying to take the long way around the tunnel to avoid feeling the feelings, please know that it will prolong your pain and you may get stuck. You can’t drink, eat, shop, exercise, or party your way around this pain, and if you try, you may just end up with another problem on your hands.

Please know:

You will feel happy again.

These unpleasant feelings will pass.

You will experience love and connection again if you remain open.

You are worthy and deserving of love.

With compassion,

Hilary

Thanks for your question. I can only imagine your bewilderment and confusion; things are humming along fine and suddenly, out of nowhere, your wife is asking you to play the “keys in the bowl” game from the 1970s. It sounds like you have a strong marital connection and are completely taken aback by the question, which is understandable. I would feel the same in your shoes.

Here is the key quote, far as I’m concerned: “She says it would be ‘just sex,’ we would make the rules in advance, no feelings involved. It sounds so simple but I am not sure that is how it works.” Frankly, I’m not sure that it works, period. To my mind there is no such thing as “just sex.” We westernized, Cartesian types seem to think we can neatly separate mind and body, but this is a conceptual fantasy that I think has to be done away with. Emotion is irreversibly intertwined with every facet of our being. Even being extremely intellectual has emotional overtones; lack of emotion (coldness, sternness, etc.) is itself an emotion or affect, as we say in psychology. This “no feelings involved” doesn’t make sense because clearly your wife is expressing some desire (i.e., a feeling) for a new sexual experience. The question is, why?

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Because of the intensely physical nature of sex, we tend to think of it as outside the spectrum of the day-to-day relationship—its own special category. I find, though, that the couples who relate together mate together. Sex is on a continuum that includes the mundane interactions of paying bills, housework, schedules, and so on. It puts too much pressure on a couple to have a somewhat routine existence drained of spontaneity and playfulness and then expect sparks in the bedroom. My hunch—from a distance, of course—is that your wife feels something is missing and wants to go outside the relationship to find it. Why is that? What is she not finding between the two of you that she needs to take such an emotional risk of bringing another partner into it? And it is a risk, no matter what anyone says. Sex involves desires that are unconscious, and the latter is always a wild card (which is part of sexuality’s exciting appeal). Of course, my attitude would be different if you were in favor, but you’re obviously strongly opposed.

Are there ways in which she can express some of those desires with you? Is she afraid of hurting your feelings by not saying something or making a request for something new? Is this request for openness a round-about way of expressing dissatisfaction? Are there ways you two can “shake things up” a bit in the romance and sex department? A weekend away, a dance class, a vacation, a little role play? Is there a part of her she wants to let out but is afraid? (Not to be cynical, but I almost wondered when I read your letter if she already had someone in mind.)

You might want to have a serious talk with your wife or even seek some couples counseling to help her understand how unhappy this idea is making you, and how rattled and bewildered you are in light of it. I think you owe it to yourself, and the marriage, to do all you can to try and seek together, rather than separately, a solution or compromise that allows you both to find satisfaction; you have that rare successful marriage that has endured for many years, and that is definitely worth protecting. It would be tragic for it to slip away due to lack of understanding or withheld feelings or desires. Thanks again for writing.

Best,
Darren

Feeling angry is an incredibly natural response to the feelings of betrayal that come from infidelity. Your husband broke your trust. Your relationship has been damaged. All of this is very real and comes with legitimate emotional reactions.

Anger is a powerful emotion, and it can mask other feelings. I’m guessing you are also tremendously hurt. Anger may feel like a safer way to manage your pain, but it will slow your healing. Admitting and confronting the pain behind the anger is essential, and it requires vulnerability—which is hard when you are dealing with this kind of breach of trust.

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Time, of course, helps in the healing process. I wonder, though, what it is you might need from your husband to help you with that healing. I’m guessing that right now apologetic words and acts of contrition are not helping you let go and move on. Often, when we have been hurt, we need to feel that the other person truly understands the pain we are experiencing and gets how serious the emotional pain and betrayal really are. Your husband may think he has accepted responsibility and gets how hurt you are, but it can take time for the empathy you need to feel from him to actually be heard and felt in a meaningful way. Until that happens, the rest of the healing—grieving, letting go, reconnecting—can’t really move forward.

There are many ways people choose to apologize, and some really are better than others. “I’m sorry” alone rarely makes us feel better. “I’m sorry for everything” can also feel general and unsatisfying. If, however, we hear, “I’m sorry for doing [specific action] and making you feel [accurate reflection of feeling],” we can feel understood and see that person showing empathy and taking responsibility, which helps us move forward.

While you are waiting to feel that empathy, however, there are steps you can take to reduce your distress. Although your husband’s actions created this situation, his actions alone won’t necessarily change it. Ultimately, that is because other people cannot make us feel a certain way—we have a part in choosing our own reactions. What we feel often comes from the meaning we make of an event. What does this affair mean to you? What are you telling yourself about it?

For example, are you telling yourself that his affair means he doesn’t love you or doesn’t love you enough? Are you dealing with fear that it will happen again? Are you stuck on the message, “I didn’t deserve this. How could he do this to me? This isn’t right”? By uncovering those messages, you can look at the ones that are keeping you stuck in a place of anger and work to let those go. This will take time and work. You can’t just flip the angry/not angry switch. Having an open conversation with your husband about the time you need to work through your thoughts and feelings can be helpful. Letting him know what you need from him during that time can help engage him in the healing process and also start the two of you working toward becoming partners again.

One common message that betrayed spouses struggle with is, “It’s not fair. He/She had an affair and ‘gets away’ with it because I want to stay married.” That is a fallacy that keeps you stuck in an angry, resentful place. In truth, nobody is getting away with anything. Both of you have lost the relationship you had. You are suffering, and he is likely aware that his actions are at the root of that suffering. If he cares about you, that awareness is a source of pain for him. Also, you “get” to be the forgiving spouse, and he is stuck being the one who “did you wrong.” That’s not a fun role to play no matter how deserved it might be. I don’t say this to minimize your pain. You are entitled to feel angry and hurt. If, however, you are able to recognize that he may be in pain as well, you may have an opportunity to connect with each other.

The past cannot be undone. So, you are faced with a choice. If you truly want to stay with him and rebuild a relationship together, you are going to need to choose to let it go. You are going to have to focus on the good that is between you, to let the balance of a life together outweigh the pain of infidelity. You are going to have to connect with each other on a deeper level and recognize that you are both suffering without focusing on laying blame for that suffering at his feet.

The impulse to lash out and hurt when we’ve been hurt is very human but ultimately not helpful if you want to reconnect. You say you don’t want to lose him, but something has been lost. The relationship you had prior to the affair is lost. It is OK to need some time to grieve that loss. It is also OK (and I strongly recommend) that you get some help with all of this. I urge you and your husband to find a couples counselor who can work with you on how to reconnect after an affair. You can build something together, and it can be something beautiful, but it will be something new. You cannot go back to the place you were before, and wishing for that is going to keep you stuck in this place of pain and, yes, anger.

Best of luck,
Erika

Cheating is an emotionally charged topic. When we hear of an affair, our immediate response can feel like a punch in the stomach. We empathize with what the betrayed partner must be going through. For most of us, in those moments, we feel aligned to that person because we either know from experience or can imagine what she or he must be feeling after such a revelation.

We may become triggered, wondering if our own relationship is vulnerable to an affair, and how we would get through such a traumatic experience. We may even decide we no longer want to associate with the partner who cheated, and cut off all ties or distance ourselves.

No relationship is immune to infidelity. Research has shown that oftentimes partners are not looking for affairs, but they gradually slide into one because the opportunity presents itself. Some relationships may be more susceptible than others, because of factors such as keeping separate social circles or having demanding careers that require travel or excessive time away from home.

An often-overlooked risk factor making a relationship vulnerable to infidelity is the presence of one or both partners having a “people pleasing” personality type.

[fat_widget_right]What does people-pleasing have to do with cheating?

Pleasers tend to share a commonly held set of assumptions:

• Who I am, what I think, how I feel, what I need or want, and what I care about are not as important as everyone else.
• My point of view isn’t valid or correct.
• Everyone else comes before me.
• If I speak up for myself or share my true self with others I may be rejected.
• Conflict is scary and should be avoided.
• I must be who others want or expect me to be—and do what others want or expect me to do.

In a relationship of any kind, these assumptions translate into behavior and feelings that look like this:

• Agreeing to things you may not agree with, and then possibly being upset with yourself for the incongruence
• Doing things for others you don’t want to do or have time to do, and then feeling resentful or taken for granted and taken advantage of
• Keeping thoughts and feelings to yourself or withholding your truth, and then ruminating about it, or expecting others to read your mind or body language
• Acquiescing or surrendering your position to your partner, and being upset you aren’t getting your needs met
• Withholding bits of the truth to avoid conflict
• Saying everything is fine, when your behavior clearly shows you are not fine (passive aggression or silent treatment)

Pleasers often end up in places they do not want to be: they marry the person their parents adore; they propose because that is the next logical step; they have babies because their spouse is ready for parenthood. Pleasers may stay in a relationship because that is what they feel they are supposed to do.

They live their lives by assumptions, and in the end do not really have a strong sense of who they are and what they want. They are often in a lot of emotional pain. Though they may feel hurt, resentment, and confusion, they do not actively acknowledge it within themselves.

Over time, the pleaser disappears in the relationship. They have been forsaken for the “should”. And when both partners are not showing up and representing themselves as two distinct individuals the, relationship can become ripe for an affair.

Which Partner Is at Risk for Cheating?

Well, that depends. The pleaser may cheat because she is extremely unhappy but doesn’t have the skills and sense of worth to speak up. Instead of using her voice to express her needs to the other partner, her pain may lead her into the arms of an attentive or exciting other. This may come after an awakening or realization that she is discontent or that her current partner is not a match for her after all.

Maybe the pleaser begins to assert himself, but the tracks are too deeply grooved and the other partner is not responsive to the pleasing partner’s new protests. He may be shut down and shut out more firmly than before, so any attempt to correct the imbalance leads him to the conclusion that he is stuck in an unchanging, painful dynamic. Turning away from his partner to fulfill his needs is much more appealing.

It can also be the non-pleasing partner who, over time, gets bored with the lack of challenge or resistance to being in relationship with a pleaser. There can be little push back or debate with a pleaser. The pleaser becomes invisible because who he or she is as a person is not adequately represented in the relationship.

The non-pleasing partner may feel suffocated by the needs and symbiotic pull (enmeshment) of the pleaser and can’t get enough time alone. An affair can be an act of defiance—a declaration of “I need some space.”

The Antidote

While there is no failsafe measure to protect against a breach of the marital walls, moving toward truth telling and away from pleasing will certainly help to minimize some of the risk. When both partners show up every day sharing the truth of who they really are, they create a strong, secure attachment to one another.

They acknowledge and are able to respond to each other’s separate and distinct needs. And this affirmation of both partners within the relationship keeps some of the holes filled so they are less likely to be filled outside the marriage.

As a clinical psychologist and certified addictions counselor, I see husbands, wives, and partners in individual or couples therapy on a daily basis grappling with the decision to leave or divorce their spouse or partner. Therapists have long referred to the three “A’s” of divorce as legitimate reasons to consider ending a relationship when the behavior of one’s partner is clearly destructive, abusive, or there is no reason to believe it will improve. Psychologists have suggested that the top three reasons for divorce are abuse, addiction, and affairs.

Researchers have long reported that financial problems are the top area of conflict for most couples, and that communication is the second most-cited reason for marital discord. While that may be true, these problems pale in comparison to the severe and devastating consequences resulting from abuse, addiction, and affairs.

When people ask me whether they should leave their partner or initiate divorce proceedings, very often it is because of one of the above. Any one of these issues, in and of itself, can be severe enough to make the answer to this question simple, yet it is an intensely personal and complex choice and the decision must be made in the context of careful consideration for oneself, one’s family, and the state and federal laws pertaining to the behavior. It is of utmost importance that, when faced with a partner who is engaged in these behaviors, one consults a professional and receives support, education, and counseling.

These are not decisions that should be made in a vacuum—or alone. As the social creatures and pack animals that we are, we have evolved over time to need and rely on social supports to better understand ourselves and the situations in which we find ourselves. Seeking help and support is a necessary, if not sufficient, first step in making the right decision for ourselves when coping with addiction, affairs, or abuse.

Many people do recover. While keeping safety in mind first and foremost, any one instance of the three “A’s” may be something that couples can bounce back from if they receive enough help and support.

[fat_widget_left]One person with whom I worked found that she began to have feelings for a man she met online who was living in another state. She had no physical relationship with this man, but she continued to be connected with him for two years in what she later determined to be an emotional affair. When she and her husband finally entered couples therapy, she was able to confess her feelings for this man and her “emotional infidelity,” and end the affair promptly. She was able to work on what led her to stray from her husband and to articulate the ways in which she felt she was not getting her needs met at home and in their relationship, and they were able to make changes in order to save their marriage.

Another case of forgiving a violation of the three “A’s” involved a couple in which the man was physically abusive. He would block his wife’s exit from a door when she wanted to leave the house, jealously hack into her email, listen to her phone messages, and place restrictions on when she could go out and with whom she could spend time. At one point, he shoved her and she fell, almost bumping her head on a coffee table. While these are considered abusive behaviors in most states and punishable by law, the couple was able to learn about the definition of abuse—physical, sexual, and emotional—and the man fully engaged in individual and group counseling. He found a local therapist who ran groups for men with anger and physical abuse problems, enrolled in that program, and worked hard on himself for two years to save his marriage and family.

Often, couples enter counseling when marriages are on the brink and it becomes clear that one or both partners need individual counseling before the couples work can be successful. This last case is an obvious example where individual therapy would be essential at the start. The husband in this instance began individual therapy and conjoint group therapy, focusing on anger management and coping skills. Most importantly, he was able to identify and stop the abusive behavior, and the couple was able to resume their progress in couples counseling. After significant time and work, they were able to salvage their relationship and the marriage. This involved the wife’s ability to forgive and trust her husband again, of course, but also the husband’s ability to express his anger toward her in a more acceptable, healthy, and helpful way. The wife certainly needed her own individual therapy before she was even close to being willing to begin the couples counseling.

Addiction may be no different from affairs and abuse in this regard. When one’s addiction is severe, it is clearly grounds for ending a relationship or getting a divorce, but by no means is this always the case. When a husband, wife, or partner adequately addresses his or her drug and alcohol issues or other addictive issues, such as shopping addiction, gambling, or love or sex addiction, a couple can recover from the hurt, shame, and consequences of the addictive behaviors.

Many people are familiar with the quote, “We’re not responsible for falling down, but we are responsible for getting back up.” This is a wonderful analogy for the “disease” model of addiction. If you are walking along, don’t see a hole, and you fall in it, it isn’t your fault. It is, however, your responsibility to get up, to get out of the hole or ask for help. An individual with an addiction is not responsible for having the disease. It is sometimes a hereditary illness, a brain disease characterized by chronic relapse with psychosocial, biological, personal, and cultural origins. However, once someone knows that they have an addiction, they are responsible for picking themselves up, getting treatment, avoiding people, places, and things associated with their addiction, and working a program of recovery involving therapy, meetings, and the use of a support network such as a 12-step fellowship.

A few important things to remember: The three “A’s” and the behaviors surrounding them need to cease right away. In some cases this can be a work in progress, but in others it can’t. Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse needs to stop immediately. Some of these behaviors are obviously illegal and nonnegotiable. There is no way to continue an affair and work on one’s marriage at the same time. Individuals need a comprehensive assessment and evaluation to determine the appropriate level of care and to engage in the level of treatment and support that will keep them and others safe. After this is determined, if treatment is not working adequately and that level of treatment is deemed insufficient, then the individual will need to step up his or her treatment to a higher level of care.

Often, separation is a good idea as couples learn about the addiction, affairs, or abuse. A healthy separation can enable individuals to focus on their treatment and come together as needed when both are ready. This sort of separation enables both parties and their family to recognize that recovery is an individual’s responsibility and it is also a family affair. Whether children or extended family know explicitly about what is going on, to be sure, they are all affected. So when an individual begins recovery, so too does the family, and each member of the family may need support and/or counseling.

It is a spouse’s or partner’s responsibility to communicate to his or her partner what is acceptable and what is not. It is also incumbent on a spouse or partner to become educated about the law, about the disease of addiction, and to learn as much about the psychological underpinnings of the three “A’s” and these sorts of behaviors as possible. It is a partner’s responsibility to communicate as clearly as possible about what he or she believes is going on and to insist that his or her partner get help.

Rarely is anyone able to work through these sorts of problems without the support of professional help. Finding someone to help you and your spouse these days is very easy, however. GoodTherapy.org’s therapist directory is a great place to start. You can also contact your local city or state psychological society or association. Speak with a physician or friend you know who has been in counseling and ask them or their therapist for a referral. Most local therapists are willing to consult at no charge over the phone to help you determine if they might be a good match for you or your spouse.