About Affairs

Emotional affair? I thought affairs meant extramarital sex!

He tells me they’re just friends. Am I being too possessive?

Can’t I have friends of the opposite sex?

Isn’t it better to give him a long leash?

Emotional affairs have become a hot topic in the last several years, resulting in much needed clarity for some and complete confusion for others. Conflicts arise in couples where one person’s friendship with someone else leaves their partner feeling neglected and angry , but also confused and uncertain about how to respond. “After all, they’re just business associates having lunch. I shouldn’t be so possessive.” Continue Reading »

This is the third in a series of posts addressing children and affairs. In Part I, I described the effects affairs can have on children; in Part II, I addressed the question of whether or not to disclose the affair to your children and started to discuss ways of doing this that are most helpful. Here I focus specifically on your relationship with your infant or toddler around the time of disclosure.

Unfortunately, the intensity of feeling betrayed and humiliated by your partner can make it difficult to care about anything or anyone else. I have heard many stories of outraged parents holding a screaming baby Continue Reading »

Your Role as Parents

No matter how devastated you are, you are still faced with the task of keeping it together for the children. This can be a double-edged sword. The immediacy and sometimes enormity of their needs can function as a welcome distraction from the pain you are in on the one hand; on the other, you may be feeling depleted emotionally and physically and not have much to give. With regard to the latter, it is very tempting to then turn to the children for support, which is a role reversal that is, in the end damaging for children. Whatever you end up disclosing to your child, the overall message should be, Continue Reading »

In this post I will address how children are effected by affairs. In subsequent posts I will discuss the effects on adult children of affairs and offer suggestions for parents involved in affairs on how to best support their children through this difficult time.

Unfortunately, it is frequently true that when caught up in an affair your relationship with your children is altered in the direction of disconnectedness.

In other posts I have talked about the trancelike state of consciousness that one inhabits during an affair. In this altered state links between actions and consequences dissolve; in the euphoric bubble you inhabit you believe you can pursue an illicit relationship and no one will be hurt because you believe that you can control everything and so prevent this from happening. However, this is a grandiose assumption that more and more requires you to lie to, manipulate and avoid intimate contact with your family, sometimes with irrevocable results.

Many couples I see who are trying to work on healing from an affair Continue Reading »

If you are a single woman that has been seeing a married man for some time and reading this, chances are that you have already gone through the initial stages of infatuation and blinding bliss. In these initial stages you are not wanting to think too deeply about the realities you are creating in your life by pursuing this relationship. But as things progress and the honeymoon period wears off you start to have questions, you bring them up to you lover, but most likely come away with answers that leave you only partially or not at all satisfied. These questions have to do with what you mean to him, whether or not he will leave his wife for you, how he can justify cheating on his wife, whether or not he has done this before, or is cheating on you now. Getting these answers become more and more important as you become more involved and then obsessed with your lover and realize that you are not as central to him as he is to you. (I am using the term “the other woman” as a literary convenience because statistics show that married men have affairs more frequently than do married women. However, most of the following also applies to men who find themselves in this position.)

Rona Subotnik illuminates a list of paradoxical realities that you may find yourself living with as the other woman. Here is my version of her findings: Continue Reading »

I came across an interesting statistic recently; 25% of relationships that start as affairs succeed. Actually, I was surprised, if I had to guess, I would have thought the figure to be much lower. But a statistic is just that, and doesn’t tell you anything about your own individual situation.

Feeling torn between two lovers can be an agonizing experience. Besides the guilt, and fear of discovery, you also know that sooner or later you will have to lose someone you love or have loved. Thinking about this, you may wonder what the chances are that a relationship that starts as an affair will succeed. Continue Reading »

If you have just found out your partner is having an affair, you are probably in shock and feel as if the floor has opened up under you. Suddenly, there is an emergency and a strong need to take some action right away; you may have already left or thrown your partner out, or you may feel on the verge of doing so. But this may not bring you any real relief.

Your sense of safety, of trusting your own experience, of your place in the world, has suddenly been shaken to the core and the person you usually turn to for help is the very person who is the cause! Continue Reading »

If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, has it made a sound? The intrigue this question provokes is related to a central idea in postmodern philosophy, which is; a phenomena cannot be truly perceived apart from the context in which it is situated. A very obvious example of this would occur in a visit to the zoo, where we watch animals and think we are seeing true animal behavior. But what we are seeing are animals behaving in cages while experiencing being observed by humans. Their behavior is altered in ways that prevent us from knowing their most true nature. What has this got to do with undisclosed affairs? Continue Reading »

Most likely if you are reading this you have been struggling with whether to tell your partner for a while. It’s natural to feel paralyzed, and unable to think deeply about your options. The issues involved can seem endlessly complicated; any route you take resulting in emotional upheaval for everyone involved and your relationships will probably be altered in ways that you cannot predict or control. The situation is less difficult if you are clear that you want to leave your relationship for your new lover, but if you have now realized that in fact, you have made a mistake and want to save your primary relationship, or if you don’t yet know who you really want to be with, Continue Reading »

I am setting up this blog because I find myself increasingly moved by the efforts of my clients who chose to work through the devastating effects of affairs, whether individually, or in couples and by the profoundly deepening connections that this work can bring, almost as if the couple is discovering each other for the first time. I would like to create a space where those concerned with extramarital or extra-relationship affairs can learn about them and share their own thoughts and feelings. I will join in with comments also, as well as more extensive entries. However, I cannot provide any advice or analysis for individual situations on this site. I am a psychotherapist with 27 years of experience in private practice in Walnut Creek, San Francisco and Albany.

To start, you may wonder how prevalent extramarital affairs are. Unfortunately, there are no good answers, as studies conducted on the frequency of occurrence in marriages show results ranging from 15 - 75%! The data also shows Continue Reading »