Extramarital affairs are most frequently experienced as completely traumatic and immoral in the United States. If a public figure strays from their marriage they are frequently disgraced and fans feel tremendously let down and disillusioned. If this person holds public office, their capacity to lead is frequently questioned, as is their entire character. A spouse who discovers a partner’s affair frequently breaks down emotionally.

In some European countries affairs are experienced slightly differently. There is a sense that affairs happen frequently; political figures involved in them are not vilified by the majority of the population. A spouse who discovers an affair may be outraged, hurt and sad, but might not have a full-fledged traumatic reaction.

In some middle eastern countries women can be stoned to death for having an affair.

Jewish people tend to consider affairs a non-Jewish problem.

In fundamentalist religious cultures of many varieties the idea of having sinned is an added trauma to the one occurring in the relationship.

In some Central American countries it is fairly commonplace for married men of means to maintain a mistress in her own “casita.”

Some cultures consider it the role of the woman to “hold on to her man” and the affair a reflection on her failure to do so.

How do you believe your cultural background has influenced your beliefs and experiences of affairs? Are you in a multi-ethnic relationship? If so, has that lead to problems regarding fidelity?

Looking forward to your comments.

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! You may swing from one extreme to the other; wanting to pull that person back in, very close to you, on the one hand, or get rid of him/her as fast as you can on the other. You want to be alone; you can’t bear to be alone. You want to confide in others; you want to hide what feels like a shameful secret. You just want to sleep, you can’t sit still. This is all normal.

You have experienced a psychological trauma. Chemical processes are occurring in your nervous system that leave you in a state of chronic hyperarrousal which can leave you feeling agitated, anxious, panicked, and sleep deprived. Your rage may feel uncontrollable. You may feel sick, be unable to eat, or stop eating. Your world is suddenly upside down, and narrowed, nothing else seems to exist except the affair. Your body eventually needs a respite from this state and you go numb, nothing seems real, you can’t feel anything and feel isolated and strangely disconnected from others. Then there is a reminder of what happend and you are plunged into the turmoil all over again. This is all normal.

Was I a Fool?

Finding a partner in life who you make yourself vulnerable to and develop a deep level of trust with; who allows you to feel safe in the world because you know they will be there for you and value you above all others, and who is working with you to honor the commitment you have made to each other is a developmental achievement. This achievement involves the ability to trust, and to allow yourself to depend on someone emotionally in some ways like children depend on adults. Current research into successful couples therapy demonstrates that when a couple can learn to be vulnerable with each other and seek each other out during times of emotional distress for comfort, the relationship becomes successful. In other words, your belief that your partner valued you above all others, just as children have that belief of their parents, was an important part of what allowed you to be who you were out in the world. You were not a fool to invest this energy into your partner, even if there were signs that he or she was not as trustworthy or present as you wished. Acknoweldging this reality is terrifying and it is natural to try to preserve a sense of safety in the world by dismissing evidence to the contrary.

Spying

At some point however, the evidence may have become too strong. At that point you may have tried to confront your partner. If they denied the affair, that did not put you at rest. As I have mentioned before, you started to have the sense that the relationship had a potentially life-threatening illness and became obsessed with getting an accurate diagnosis. Going through emails, cell phones, pockets, desk drawers to find confirming evidence of the affair is a natural response. It reminds me of the scene in the movie, Lorenzo’s Oil where Susan Sarandon, playing the mother of a boy who had an illness that no doctor could diagnose spent endless hours on the internet poring through myriads of medical journals until she found the diagnosis and cure herself. You were determined to prove you weren’t crazy, and perhaps save your relationship, or at least, yourself.

What Next?

No matter what the outcome of this discovery, you will only find peace one way, and that way is not easy. The most imporant thing to do is to allow yourself to experience and name your inner reponses as they occur and work with making sense of them over a period of time. staying close to your own needs and feelings and expecting an emotional roller coaster for a while. You need a physical, psychological and possibly a spiritual space in which to do this. This might mean living separately, or with your partner, meeting with a therapist, meditating, journaling, going on a retreat, etc. After your initial outrage, you will naturally have many questions. Most of these will be for your partner, but there is one that is important for you to ask yourself, and that is, “besides the affair, is this a relationship that I, deep down, want?” Do you sense that you want him or her back out of desperation, or a genuine belief that you could have a fulfilling future together? If the relationship that you had before you discovered the affair feels truly worth saving, then there are questions that you will want to be asking your partner. If not, then you have the painful task of facing the reality that the affair was probably what is referred to as an “exit” affair, reflecting a truth for both of you.

If you are someone who has experienced one or more traumatic abandonments in the past that have not been worked through, whether from other partners, parents or siblings, this step is very difficult. Being abandoned again, even by someone you know isn’t right for you, will bring up those past experiences of trauma and make you feel like it is happening all over again. You will experience strong urges to avoid this at all costs. If you find yourself in this position, it is best to seek professional help.

If you have any sense that the relationship might be worth saving and want to start working things out, you will need information. To start to deal with what has happened, you will need to know what happened. Your natural urge will be to want to grill your partner about the affair. This is the first step in working things out for yourself, during which you will continue to decide if you want to work things out with your partner. There is information that you need to know that will help you and there is information you might feel you need to know that will simply be torturous and not assist you in regaining your sense of security. Initially, the most important things to find out are

1. Is the affair still going on? If not, when did it end? Are they still in touch?
2. Is your partner willing to end it? Does this seem believable and realistic to you?
3. How and when did it start?
4. Is your partner in love with with him/her?
5. What does the affair mean to your partner?
6. Was protection used during sex? Have you been expose to STDs?
7. What means did your partner use to deceive you?
8. Is the lover someone you know?

Although I list them as simple questions, each one represents discussions that need space to occur over a period of time.. There are other questions you will undoubtedly have, and there are some that will not help you heal, such as:

1. Questions about explicit sexual details
2. Repeating questions that your partner cannot or will not answer

The first is obvious. Filling your mind with sexual images of your partner and lover will not help you at all. You will struggle with this without getting explicit details, getting the details will just make it worse.

The second type of question is problematic because you may get an “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” that doesn’t feel authentic and you want to pursue until you get the truth. The deception that you realize you have suffered is so painful, you don’t want another minute of it; you feel deserving of complete honesty now. And you are, it’s just that every time your partner reveals more of what has happened they are giving up more control, and this control is what they have been basing their own sense of security on. You can get caught in a cycle in which your partner feels more and more threatened and therefore less forthcoming if you keep hammering away at questions they can’t readily answer. So give it a rest and come back to it later. On the other hand, if your partner really doesn’t remember or know and you keep asking, they may make up an answer to placate you and end the agony for the moment, and that leaves you being lied to again.

With the information you have gained, you are in a position to reflect on what your course of action should be. It is very important that you find support for this from someone other than your partner. Your partner is in no position to help you in this process beyond answering your questions, because they are experiencing the enormous and sudden loss of control that comes with disclosure and may promise things that they can’t deliver in order to restore this sense. Although you are furious, you might feel compelled to protect your partner from the judgment of friends, family and even clergy. It also might be difficult to reveal the fact that you have been cheated on to those close to you, as if it is a bad reflection on you. It is important to think about who you can trust; who will listen to you without judgment and not assume they know what is best for you. Is there someone who can just help you sort it all out? If not, a therapist could be of help.

As I mentioned earlier, it is important to have a space to do this in. If you feel you need space, but don’t take it because you are afraid this will take away your control over your partner’s comings and goings, you will feel better in the short run, but maybe not in the long run.

Is There Hope?

Many couples heal from affairs and find their relationship is better than ever. New channels of communication can open in unexpected ways, and a new closeness and intimacy can develop. A study by Peggy Vaughn found that when the secret comes out, and the infidel reveals everything and takes responsibility for the behavior, 88% of the marriages were healed. However, when the infidel clams up, blames the affair on the marriage or lover and does not take responsibility or answer questions there is only a 55% success rate. You might be thinking this is easier said then done. Therapy can make a tremendous difference in the ability to process, repair, heal and eventually move on from this most difficult experience.

Emotional ties play a central role in most women’s lives. Nature and nurture both contribute to this. For example, research shows that women actually have higher levels of oxytocin, the “love hormone” that makes people feel nurturing and loving. The song, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” is a reflection of the self esteem love provides a woman. The feeling of “not being a man” on the other hand, is usually related to not performing well or being defeated.

It makes sense then, that more often than not, lesbians have love affairs as opposed to extra-relationship casual sexual encounters. Beverly Burch points out that it is the emotional connection itself that is the most hurtful to the betrayed partner. A casual sexual encounter is often less devastating for a woman than seeing her partner starry-eyed over someone else. (In contrast, men tend to not worry about emotional affairs, but are devastated if there was sex, even if it was just a one night stand).

Not surprisingly, the most frequent other person in lesbian affairs is an ex-girlfriend (and the second most frequent is a good friend). Ex-girlfriends frequently stay closely connected after the relationship is over. The bond is special, the love is still there, but mellows over time as the new boundary (of not being physical) is enacted over and over. Still, a new partner can sense this bond and feel excluded. Women differ as to how upsetting this is. If both new partners have or have had this kind of relationship with exes it may be more understandable to each and a feeling of family can develop among the group where trust and respect for each relationship serve to keep anyone from crossing the line. If the betrayed partner, however, is in her first lesbian relationship she may have no way of understanding ex-girlfriend relationships since once most heterosexual relationships end, contact between the couple also ends.

Ex-girlfriends have to work very hard at dealing with loss of coupledom and setting up new boundaries and with the anger, grief and jealousy that are part of ending a relationship in order to stay friends. They frequently come out of this phase bonded in a way that feels like family. And sometimes there literally is a family, if there are children.

Initially, it is natural for the ex to feel painfully excluded and lingering traces of possessiveness when with the new couple. The intensity of these feelings can be confusing and lead to a belief that breaking up was a mistake. The ex may then make a desperate bid for reconciliation even though deep down she is not really certain that she wants to get back together. At this point she may become seductive. If the new couple is having difficulties this can be quite compelling. It can be so comforting to fall into familiar, loving arms when feeling hurt or rejected by the new partner who doesn’t feel as safe precisely because she is new. Add a glass of wine or two and the line has been crossed.

Lesbian relationships can become very focused on emotional security, over time leading to loss of boundaries which can lead to a waning of sexual desire. As Esther Perel puts it, “a fire needs air to burn.” The novelty of a new person, of rediscovering oneself as a sexual being can be extremely compelling.

At this moment in history most lesbians cannot marry. Having a girlfriend or even a partner conjures up a different set of meanings than having a wife. There are firm societal taboos against extramarital affairs that serve as strong boundaries around monogamy. Lesbian relationships, though they may involve everything a marriage does except the certificate, do not have these kinds of societal taboos in place. The relationship is much more dependent on the actual emotional connection between the couple. It is therefore sometimes harder for lesbians to feel the complacency that married couples do when it comes to fidelity and therefore easier to feel threatened by emotional connections with others.

I have discussed some of the painful realities of lesbian affairs. It might be helpful to know that a study conducted by Peggy Vaughan found that 80% of couples were able to heal from affairs if the person who strayed came clean and took responsibility.

It has been said that “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” (Albert Einstein). There is the potential for psychological and spiritual development upon the discovery of an affair that can be a thing of great depth and beauty. Working with affair couples I have witnessed over and over again how channels of communication and understanding can open leading to a new closeness and intimacy that was previously unimaginable.

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.” If you’ve been telling yourself something like this, it probably has been relieving to learn that there is such a thing as an emotional affair. Identifiable patterns of behavior between “friends” that frequently end up in full blown sexual affairs have come to light.

The Pattern

Most of these relationships start at work, on the internet, or in some kind of intimate group experience, such as a spiritual community. The initial attraction is not sexual. Rather, it is the feeling that “this is someone who I can really talk to;” “this person gets me and I get her;” “we are great supports for each other.”

Fueling the connection is the shared interest, for example, work or spiritual growth. However, the conversations eventually become very personal and the talk turns toward relationships, specifically the primary relationship that one or both partners are currently in. Suddenly you find yourself sharing aspects of your marriage or primary relationship that you have never talked about with anyone other than your partner. That may seem a bit strange, but you tell yourself you’re just talking so it is okay. And there is such a need to talk, one that hasn’t been satisfied in a long time.

Gradually the intensity of these conversations grows; whether in person, on the phone or on line, and so does the anticipation of these conversations. The conversations become the thing you look forward to more than anything else during the day, more than seeing your partner, even. And by the way, you are not sharing much about this friendship with your partner, certainly not the intimate things you talk about. But you do find yourself less “into” your primary relationship. After all, you need time to talk to this friend, or check your e-mail or text messages and compose your responses. And this is starting to take more and more time and energy. Never mind that your partner is alone in the kitchen trying to do the dishes and tend to a screaming baby at the same time. Or maybe you’re there in the kitchen but then later sneak out of bed to check your e-mail.

Your partner asks what is wrong and you say everything’s fine. He or she asks about your friendship with this person and you brush off her concerns or get defensive. The distance between the two of you grows, there is less and less chance that the two of you will address what you can now so easily talk about with your new friend. The stage is now completely set for the friendship to become more than friendship.

It’s an Emotional Affair If…

You are talking about intimate aspects of your primary relationship that you are not talking about with your primary partner.

Time and energy are being siphoned from the primary relationship into this new friendship.

Aspects of the “friendship” are kept secret.

You are not comfortable sharing this friend with your partner.

You would be uncomfortable if your primary partner was having this kind of relationship with someone else.

You have more excitement about contact with your friend than you do about contact with your primary partner.

The Surprising Truth About Emotional Affairs

What seems so innocent in the beginning can end up being more damaging to a relationship than some other types of affairs. The most damaging affairs are ones in which the connection is primarily emotional rather than sexual. One-time anonymous sexual encounters are the least difficult for a couple to work through and heal. Some studies show that this varies according to gender. Statistically, women have more trouble getting over the emotional connection their partner had with the lover while men have more trouble getting over the affair if there was sex involved. However, an emotional connection can leave the person involved in the affair more confused about where his or her loyalties lie.

What To Do if You Think

Your Partner Is Having an Emotional Affair

Whether or not you give your partner “a long leash” is not the deciding factor in whether an affair will occur. If the affair is occurring because of relationship problems (and not all affairs occur for that reason,) it is almost always because channels of communication have either broken down or were never developed in the first place.

If you feel uncomfortable about a friendship your partner is having with someone else, it is important to bring up these concerns. Invite him or her to talk about feelings about the relationship between the two of you, specifically, things that he or she previously may have felt uncomfortable talking about. Get clear on what is happening in your relationship that is making you uncomfortable, both in terms of your partner’s withdrawal, refusal to open up, and relationship with the other person. Be clear about what is okay and not okay with you. Ask him or her to read something about emotional affairs. If you cannot get through to him or her, advocate strongly for couple’s therapy.

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 while screaming obscenities and threats at the infidel. Even worse, I have heard stories of parents trying to grab the baby out of each others arms, claiming the baby is theirs and/or threatening to take him/her away. Things can quickly go out of control physically from there, especially if alcohol or drugs are also involved.

It is easy to assume that because infants and toddlers are not able to use language they don’t know what’s going on. However, research has demonstrated over and over again that infants experience exquisite sensitivity to the minute nuances of interpersonal interactions between themselves and their caretakers. For example, an infant who expects to have an experience of gazing into mother’s eyes gazing back at her and is instead met with averted eyes can experience distress and begin to employ strategies to recapture the gaze, such as babbling, fussing, crying, or squirming into a better position to regain the eye contact. Normally there is an interplay between caretaker and infant that renders these strategies successful. The caretaker responds by reestablishing eye contact and the infant learns that s/he can be an effective participant in staying connected and reestablishing a sense of rightness and security with the world. This is one tiny example of the very many important microcosmic interactions that go on all of the time during play, feeding, nursing, going to bed, etc., Most of the time these interactions are successful and occur naturally; parents don’t usually have to worry about learning how to do this correctly.

If one or both caretakers are in the throes of trauma, this systemic interplay can be compromised. The trauma of the discovery of an affair can lead you as a parent to experience increased irritability, anxiety, preoccupations, feeling ungrounded, sick, depleted, empty, and in general less tolerance for any more stress. Holding your screaming baby in order to soothe him or her might have seemed so much easier before. Now it can seem unbearable.

Research has correlated sustained disruptions in the infant’s ongoing felt experience of connection with caretakers with problems in later life such as increased levels of anxiety and difficulties processing thoughts and emotions.

Anything that can be done to decrease the air of tension in the home, and to have available adults who can be physically present and focused on your infant’s ongoing sense of connectedness and emotional safety is extremely important. Taking a few minutes before contact to focus on your intention to connect with your infant and let go of other considerations can be very helpful. If at all possible, staying in close communication with your partner about sharing this important responsibility is best. Reminding yourself that you want to contain the damage rather than allow it to spread can be helpful. If the home environment feels so shattered that you feel you cannot try to work this out, it may be best for your child to stay with a close friend or relative for a few days so that you and your partner can sort things out and figure out a plan for increased support for the family, which might involve living separately for a period of time in order to reestablish a home that feels emotionally safe.

Three year olds are stringing words together and can take you by surprise with what they come out with. Actually, their comprehension far exceeds their ability to represent what they are experiencing with words. In addition to the above considerations, it is important to provide very simple verbal explanations when toddlers want to know why everything doesn’t feel right. For example, “ I’m upset because I think daddy is spending too much time with (name of person if toddler knows him or her, or if not, with a friend). But don’t worry honey, we’re working it out and things will be okay soon.”

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, “This is our problem, it does not involve you and we are taking steps to deal with it.”

It is crucial to set aside some time with your partner to discuss your child’s needs and agree on a plan together. If the discussion strays from the question of what is best for the children and moves into conflict about the affair itself, each partner can take responsibility for reminding the other of the purpose of the discussion. If emotions are running so high that you are unable to do this, it might be useful to get help from a professional.

Frequently the infidel feels so guilty that they don’t feel any right to be included in these decisions, and relinquishes all control of how and what the children will know to the betrayed spouse. The betrayed spouse can feel self-righteous about this and go along with the split. However, the children still belong to both of you, and acting as a parenting team during this time is an overarching way to minimize the psychological damage your child may experience as a result of disclosure.

So Should We Tell Them? And If So, How Much?

If at all possible, the children should not be told. This is the consensus of most family therapists. However, this is only true if both of you truly believe that the children are completely oblivious to what is going on. It is important to remember that this is your problem and not theirs and your goal is to protect them from emotional trauma if at all possible.

Whether they know, or “know but don’t know they know,” should be assessed not only by what they might be saying to you, but also by any changes in behavior or mood that they may be showing, even if you think it’s unrelated. You can read about behavioral and other changes children demonstrate before disclosure in Part I of this post.

Not telling your child about the affair does not mean that it is not important to acknowledge that “we are having some problems in our relationship and are doing everything we can to take care of it.” If your child can tell something is not right, it is important to confirm their experience. What they imagine in a vacuum will most likely be much worse than the truth and they are vulnerable to blaming themselves for whatever they imagine is going on. However, if any of the following conditions exist, disclosure of the fact of the affair itself is very important.

1) If the child has overheard parents talking or arguing about the affair. (It is very tempting to act like that didn’t happen, but that’s a mistake and can lead to alienation between you and your child)

2) If the child has witnessed direct evidence of the affair, i.e., has heard conversations between the infidel and affairee, or seen them together . (It is very tempting to deny what is now obvious, but you really wouldn’t want to be treating your child as if he or she was stupid, or discouraging them from trusting their experience.)

3) If the affairee is likely to make contact with the children, or call the house, or already has a relationship with the children.

4) If the the child has a relationship or goes to the same school as the affairee’s children or spouse.

5) If there is likely to be gossip, or public scandal about the affair. (It adds gasoline to the fire if your child hears about this from someone other than you.)

6) If the child asks if there is an affair. (If they are young it is good to find out what they think an affair is.)

Children need to be told about the affair in language that is age appropriate to ensure that they can understand and process what they are hearing. And there are ways to help them cope once disclosure has happened. How to do this will be addressed in Part III of How Do Affairs Effect Children?

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 are devastated not only by how destroyed their own relationship feels, but also by their children’s reactions. Other couples are in complete denial that the children are effected at all; since the children are showing a lot of support and understanding. In fact, children can get pulled in and become the source of comfort for either spouse. They can be manipulated into taking sides and vilifying one or the other parent. In many of these cases, the long-term effects on these children are not considered and the couple may be surprised years down the road with the amount of rage that the child has about what happened and how they were drawn in, and treated as another adult rather than the vulnerable child that they actually were.

There are reactions that occur while the affair is going on, but before it is disclosed, and reactions once an affair has been disclosed.

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:

Treasured, but used
Being in love gives you the feeling that you are precious and treasured by him, but you cannot help but wonder…if it wasn’t for the sex, would he still want to be with me? If you didn’t make it so easy and perfect when he is with you, by not complaining and making sure you look absolutely gorgeous, by having the house spotless…if you were just your ordinary every day self, the way his wife is, would he still treasure you? If you weren’t providing an escape from another relationship, would he still want you?

Intimate, but isolated
You have a wonderful newfound closeness with this man that you may not have had for a very long time. However, as time goes by he becomes one of the few people you can be intimate with because you cannot share what is most important for you in your life with most others. Friends and family sense you are closed off in some way, and can become confused and discouraged about your relationship with them. You can feel this, yet are afraid it would cause more damage to their feelings about you if they knew.  Your sense of intimacy with your lover can seem more intense when he becomes one of the few people you can really talk to.

Free, but a prisoner
You have been freed from the dating game, from the painful aspects of being single, yet you are tied to his schedule. You find yourself forgoing activities that you used to enjoy that might make you unavailable to him should he suddenly have time to see you. The silence of the phone can feel like the bars of this prison.

Safe, yet in danger
Being in love creates a sense of safety, yet the foundation for this safety feels, at it’s core, shaky. You know he could decide at any time to stop the affair and try to work on the marriage, or that his wife or someone else can find out and blow his cover. You know you are participating in something that is potentially damaging to many people and that there could be repercussions for yourself. You maintain the sense of safety by trying not to think about these realities.

Self-righteous, yet guilty
You tell yourself you deserve to be happy, that you are making him happy. You may even tell yourself you are helping him to be a better husband by the love and comfort you provide. You tell yourself their marriage is already over anyway, or that it’s not your responsibility, but his, since he is the one cheating and you are not cheating on anyone. However, deep down you know you have made a choice to participate in something that can result in devastation for any number of people.

Powerful, yet powerless
You may feel very powerful in your ability to attract a man who is married, maybe with family and cause him to betray this family. Yet as time goes on, it becomes apparent to you that you frequently feel powerless. You may eventually be giving ultimatums,  only to be put off or given false promises. You may find yourself stood up when various situations arise with his family that prevent him from keeping dates. Sitting alone on New Year’s Eve or Saturday night, you feel you have no power at all.

Feeling very good/very bad about yourself
Everyone’s self esteem soars when they experience attracting someone who is attractive to them. However, at the same time you know you are treating yourself as if you do not deserve someone who could be there for you 100%.

Reading the above may bring up strong feelings that you haven’t been aware of before. Participating in an affair necessitates entering an altered state of consciousness where only part of reality can be processed, the part that has to do with pleasure. It’s like being in a trance, complete with it’s own logic. When the full reality begins to hit home, it can be a painful and frightening time. Deep issues can surface, issues that, in the end have to do with your relationship to yourself more than anyone else. If talking to your lover is making it worse, it is important to break your isolation by finding someone who you can trust to talk to.  Therapy can be very useful at this point.

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.

Pitfalls of Affair Relationships

Relationships that start as affairs have many strikes against them.

Many affairs are like rebound relationships. They can arise out of an urgent emotional need, a need so urgent that a thoughtful process of getting to know someone and assessing what kind of partnership the two of you would have is not part of the bonding process. Rebound and affair relationships frequently have rescue fantasies attached to them, these fantasies can be overpowering and cloud your vision.

Sometimes relationships that start as affairs serve as an escape from difficult interpersonal dynamics in the primary relationship. Succumbing to the fantasy that the new relationship will be free of conflict or other emotional difficulties can be a setup for another failed relationship. We tend to repeat patterns over and over until we come to understand ourselves. Learning to see relationship problems as a dynamic between two people, rather than the fault of only one partner is important for the success of any couple.

Trust is the foundation of successful relationships. Another reason why many affair relationships fail is that it is difficult to deeply trust someone who has started the relationship by being unfaithful and deceitful with someone else. You can’t help but understand that their solution to a difficult interpersonal situation was betrayal. In the initial blissful stage, it might be unimaginable that they could do the same thing to you, or that you could do the same thing to them, but once you hit the stresses of real everyday life, things can feel different and much less secure. Imagine you or your partner has to go on a lot of out of town business trips some years into the relationship during a time when you are struggling with conflict. What do you imagine you and your partner feeling?

There is also the issue of not having the support of family and friends. Having long-term successful relationships are difficult enough without trying to do them in a vacuum. Acceptance is usually won over eventually, but it can take a long time. Your new partner may truly be a wonderful person but many friends and family that are close to you are going to be so prejudiced that it will be hard to give the new person a chance. You face going from the bliss of secrecy into a tailspin of conflict with many people at once. Of course, you face this once the affair is disclosed, no matter who you end up with, but it is less awful if you are attempting to repair the damage with your primary partner. This is not to say that you should make your decisions based on what others would think or feel. But it is important to honestly assess your affair and think about whether this relationship could stand this kind of stress. Can the two of you exist in a relatively socially isolated situation for some time?

Losing a long-term partner, even if things feel bad, is still a loss and needs to be grieved. New lovers vary on how willing and able they are to cope with your grief over losing your partner. You may stuff these feelings in order to maintain the new relationship, only to discover down the line that you have many unresolved feelings about your partner that are interfering in your new relationship.

The question of whether the new relationship will succeed relates to what function it is playing in your relationship with your partner. If you have the kind of primary relationship where you initially experienced a significant amount of time where you were mutually in love and satisfied with the relationship and then grew apart because of life stresses or conflict and you entered the affair to experience being in love again, this does not bode well for the long term success of the affair relationship. That is because almost all relationships follow a predictable course of developmental stages, all at some point going through a period of disillusionment which, if you can get through, lets you out into the side of a mature, dependable and sustaining love based on reality rather than romantic idealization. If you deal with the disillusionment by betraying the commitment you have made, then you may not have the tools to navigate this stage which is waiting for you down the road in your new relationship.

Affair Relationships That Have a Better Chance of Success

If, however, your primary relationship/marriage was somehow “wrong” from the beginning; if one or both of you weren’t in love, if it was a marriage of convenience, or if it has been mostly miserable or abusive, if it was simply to escape loneliness or have children, that is a different story, and could truly be about having not been equipped at that time in your life to make an appropriate choice for a life partner. Admitting the reality of these situation is painful because you can still feel very attached (as distinct from connected) to this person and the idea of leaving can fill you with dread of the loss of security this relationship has provided.

In my experience, these relationships are very hard to repair. Meeting someone when you are more mature, know yourself better and have learned how to have relatively healthy relationships (maybe you have been in therapy by now) certainly can bode well for a promising future together. Meeting someone who you are genuinely attracted to and at the same time respect, who you know genuinely cares for you, with whom you share values and at least a few interests, and with whom you can work through conflicts can be a catalyst for not only a great and lasting new relationship with a new person, but with yourself as well.

For example, if, prior to entering your primary relationship, you had the unconscious belief that you were unlovable, or didn’t deserve to be loved, you may have ended up with someone who couldn’t really give you love. If you have changed, but your partner has not, and you now believe you deserve to be loved, (and are truly willing to give love in return) you will be attracted to the kind of person who would be capable of this kind of reciprocity. The whole foundation for your relationship would be quite different than what you have experienced before.

What Next?

With all of this said, I believe that in most cases the most promising path is to separate the question of whether you want to end things with your current partner from whether you want to have a relationship with this new person. If the aloneness that this entails feels too intolerable to you, talking to a professional might be very helpful. Admittedly, it is truly the road less traveled but most often has the richest rewards.

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! You may swing from one extreme to the other; wanting to pull that person back in, very close to you, on the one hand, or get rid of him/her as fast as you can on the other. You want to be alone; you can’t bear to be alone. You want to confide in others; you want to hide what feels like a shameful secret. You just want to sleep, you can’t sit still. This is all normal.

You have experienced a psychological trauma. Chemical processes are occurring in your nervous system that leave you in a state of chronic hyperarrousal which can leave you feeling agitated, anxious, panicked, and sleep deprived. Your rage may feel uncontrollable. You may feel sick, be unable to eat, or stop eating. Your world is suddenly upside down, and narrowed, nothing else seems to exist except the affair. Your body eventually needs a respite from this state and you go numb, nothing seems real, you can’t feel anything and feel isolated and strangely disconnected from others. Then there is a reminder of what happend and you are plunged into the turmoil all over again. This is all normal.

Was I a Fool?

Finding a partner in life who you make yourself vulnerable to and develop a deep level of trust with; who allows you to feel safe in the world because you know they will be there for you and value you above all others, and who is working with you to honor the commitment you have made to each other is a developmental achievement. This achievement involves the ability to trust, and to allow yourself to depend on someone emotionally in some ways like children depend on adults. Current research into successful couples therapy demonstrates that when a couple can learn to be vulnerable with each other and seek each other out during times of emotional distress for comfort, the relationship becomes successful. In other words, your belief that your partner valued you above all others, just as children have that belief of their parents, was an important part of what allowed you to be who you were out in the world. You were not a fool to invest this energy into your partner, even if there were signs that he or she was not as trustworthy or present as you wished. Acknoweldging this reality is terrifying and it is natural to try to preserve a sense of safety in the world by dismissing evidence to the contrary.

Spying

At some point however, the evidence may have become too strong. At that point you may have tried to confront your partner. If they denied the affair, that did not put you at rest. As I have mentioned before, you started to have the sense that the relationship had a potentially life-threatening illness and became obsessed with getting an accurate diagnosis. Going through emails, cell phones, pockets, desk drawers to find confirming evidence of the affair is a natural response. It reminds me of the scene in the movie, Lorenzo’s Oil where Susan Sarandon, playing the mother of a boy who had an illness that no doctor could diagnose spent endless hours on the internet poring through myriads of medical journals until she found the diagnosis and cure herself. You were determined to prove you weren’t crazy, and perhaps save your relationship, or at least, yourself.

What Next?

No matter what the outcome of this discovery, you will only find peace one way, and that way is not easy. The most imporant thing to do is to allow yourself to experience and name your inner reponses as they occur and work with making sense of them over a period of time. staying close to your own needs and feelings and expecting an emotional roller coaster for a while. You need a physical, psychological and possibly a spiritual space in which to do this. This might mean living separately, or with your partner, meeting with a therapist, meditating, journaling, going on a retreat, etc. After your initial outrage, you will naturally have many questions. Most of these will be for your partner, but there is one that is important for you to ask yourself, and that is, “besides the affair, is this a relationship that I, deep down, want?” Do you sense that you want him or her back out of desperation, or a genuine belief that you could have a fulfilling future together? If the relationship that you had before you discovered the affair feels truly worth saving, then there are questions that you will want to be asking your partner. If not, then you have the painful task of facing the reality that the affair was probably what is referred to as an “exit” affair, reflecting a truth for both of you.

If you are someone who has experienced one or more traumatic abandonments in the past that have not been worked through, whether from other partners, parents or siblings, this step is very difficult. Being abandoned again, even by someone you know isn’t right for you, will bring up those past experiences of trauma and make you feel like it is happening all over again. You will experience strong urges to avoid this at all costs. If you find yourself in this position, it is best to seek professional help.

If you have any sense that the relationship might be worth saving and want to start working things out, you will need information. To start to deal with what has happened, you will need to know what happened. Your natural urge will be to want to grill your partner about the affair. This is the first step in working things out for yourself, during which you will continue to decide if you want to work things out with your partner. There is information that you need to know that will help you and there is information you might feel you need to know that will simply be torturous and not assist you in regaining your sense of security. Initially, the most important things to find out are

1. Is the affair still going on? If not, when did it end? Are they still in touch?
2. Is your partner willing to end it? Does this seem believable and realistic to you?
3. How and when did it start?
4. Is your partner in love with with him/her?
5. What does the affair mean to your partner?
6. Was protection used during sex? Have you been expose to STDs?
7. What means did your partner use to deceive you?
8. Is the lover someone you know?

Although I list them as simple questions, each one represents discussions that need space to occur over a period of time.. There are other questions you will undoubtedly have, and there are some that will not help you heal, such as:

1. Questions about explicit sexual details
2. Repeating questions that your partner cannot or will not answer

The first is obvious. Filling your mind with sexual images of your partner and lover will not help you at all. You will struggle with this without getting explicit details, getting the details will just make it worse.

The second type of question is problematic because you may get an “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” that doesn’t feel authentic and you want to pursue until you get the truth. The deception that you realize you have suffered is so painful, you don’t want another minute of it; you feel deserving of complete honesty now. And you are, it’s just that every time your partner reveals more of what has happened they are giving up more control, and this control is what they have been basing their own sense of security on. You can get caught in a cycle in which your partner feels more and more threatened and therefore less forthcoming if you keep hammering away at questions they can’t readily answer. So give it a rest and come back to it later. On the other hand, if your partner really doesn’t remember or know and you keep asking, they may make up an answer to placate you and end the agony for the moment, and that leaves you being lied to again.

With the information you have gained, you are in a position to reflect on what your course of action should be. It is very important that you find support for this from someone other than your partner. Your partner is in no position to help you in this process beyond answering your questions, because they are experiencing the enormous and sudden loss of control that comes with disclosure and may promise things that they can’t deliver in order to restore this sense. Although you are furious, you might feel compelled to protect your partner from the judgment of friends, family and even clergy. It also might be difficult to reveal the fact that you have been cheated on to those close to you, as if it is a bad reflection on you. It is important to think about who you can trust; who will listen to you without judgment and not assume they know what is best for you. Is there someone who can just help you sort it all out? If not, a therapist could be of help.

As I mentioned earlier, it is important to have a space to do this in. If you feel you need space, but don’t take it because you are afraid this will take away your control over your partner’s comings and goings, you will feel better in the short run, but maybe not in the long run.

Is There Hope?

Many couples heal from affairs and find their relationship is better than ever. New channels of communication can open in unexpected ways, and a new closeness and intimacy can develop. A study by Peggy Vaughn found that when the secret comes out, and the infidel reveals everything and takes responsibility for the behavior, 88% of the marriages were healed. However, when the infidel clams up, blames the affair on the marriage or lover and does not take responsibility or answer questions there is only a 55% success rate. You might be thinking this is easier said then done. Therapy can make a tremendous difference in the ability to process, repair, heal and eventually move on from this most difficult experience.