THE HARD ROAD BACK FROM INFIDELITY

It can deliver a fatal blow to a relationship, but therapists say couples stand a good chance of overcoming the trauma

Marriages fall apart for many different reasons, but one of the most common and most challenging to overcome is the discovery that one partner has “cheated” on the other.

I put the word cheated in quotes because the definition of infidelity can vary widely. Though most often it involves explicit sexual acts with someone other than one’s spouse or committed partner, there are also couples torn asunder by a partner’s surreptitious use of pornography, a purely emotional relationship with no sexual contact, virtual affairs, even just ogling or flirting with a non-partner.

Infidelity is hardly a new phenomenon. And marriage counsellors report that affairs sometimes occur even in happy relationships.

According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, national surveys indicate that 15% of married women and 25% of married men have had extramarital affairs. The incidence is about 20% higher when emotional and sexual relationships without intercourse are included. As more women began working outside the home, their chances of having an affair have increased accordingly.

Volumes have been written about infidelity.

The written word

Two excellent and illuminating books are among the most recent: The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel, a New York psychotherapist, and Healing From Infidelity by Michele Weiner-Davis, a psychotherapist in Boulder, Colorado. Both books are based on the authors’ extensive experience of counselling couples whose relationships have been shattered by affairs.

The good news is, depending upon what caused one partner to wander and how determined a couple are to remain together, infidelity need not result in divorce. In fact, Ms. Perel and other marriage counsellors have found, couples who choose to recover from and rebuild after infidelity often end up with a stronger, more loving and mutually understanding relationship than they had before.

“People who’ve been betrayed need to know that there’s no shame in staying in the marriage — they’re not doormats, they’re warriors,” Ms. Weiner-Davis said in an interview. “The gift they provide to their families by working through the pain is enormous.”

Process of healing

Ms. Perel concedes that “some affairs will deliver a fatal blow to a relationship.” But she wrote: “Others may inspire change that was sorely needed. Betrayal cuts to the bone, but the wound can be healed. Plenty of people care deeply for the well-being of their partners even while lying to them, just as plenty of those who have been betrayed continue to love the ones who lied to them and want to find a way to stay together.”

The latter was exactly the position a friend of mine found herself in after discovering her husband’s affair. “At first I wanted to kick him out,” she told me. “But I realised that I didn’t want to get divorced. My mother did that, and she ended up raising three children alone. I didn’t want a repeat of my childhood. I wanted my son, who was then 2 years old, to have a father in his life. But I also knew that if we were going to stay together, we had to go to couples counselling.”

About a dozen sessions later, my friend came away with critical insights: “I know I’m not perfect. I was very focussed on taking care of my son, and my husband wasn’t getting from me whatever he needed. Everybody should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. We learned how to talk to each other and really listen. I love him and respect him, I’m so happy we didn’t split apart. He’s a wonderful father, a stimulating partner, and while our marriage isn’t perfect — whose is? — we are supportive and nurturing of each other. Working through the affair made us stronger.”

As happened with my friend, most affairs result from dissatisfaction with the marital relationship, fuelled by temptation and opportunity.

One partner may spend endless hours on work, household chores, outside activities or even social media, to the neglect of the spouse’s emotional and sexual needs. Often, betrayed partners were unaware of what was lacking in the relationship and did not suspect that trouble was brewing.

Or the problem may result from a partner’s personal issues, like an inability to deal with conflict, a fear of intimacy, deep-seated insecurity or changes in life circumstances that rob the marital relationship of the attention and affection that once sustained it.

But short of irreversible incompatibility or physical or emotional abuse, with professional counselling and a mutual willingness to preserve the marriage, therapists maintain that couples stand a good chance of overcoming the trauma of infidelity and avoiding what is often the more painful trauma of divorce.NYT