There is one thing that consistently causes the bottom to drop out from underneath a couple. It can rob them of their relationship, their peacefulness and happiness, and even their sense of themselves. It can cause people to question the basic good qualities about themselves, and the world, that they had faithfully assumed. Infidelity. Adultery. An affair outside the relationship.
What constitutes an affair?
While a long time ago an affair simply referred to any sexual or romantic relationship, these days the word has very specific connotations: Infidelity. An affair is a relationship outside the one that the person had previously committed faithfulness to.
However infidelity can still mean different things to different people. In fact, it seems that the definition of infidelity continues to expand. It can apply to chatting to people online, sexting (or even simple texting), connecting on an emotional level with someone, watching porn, or being active on dating apps.
And what of relationships that are not necessarily monogamous? Many people who are in open or polyamorous relationships can feel disenfranchised from the grief related to infidelity. In general, society considers monogamy the standard, and many people can’t understand how ‘infidelity’ can be an issue in these cases. But of course it can.
All relationships have explicit or implicit boundaries. When these are crossed, a promise is broken.
So how do we encompass all of these situations and behaviours with one word? Well, regardless of the words used, they all have certain things in common. A good definition of an affair, or infidelity, should include the following features:
- A secretive relationship.
- An emotional connection.
- Sexual attraction.
The secrecy is key. Even when the existence of the relationship itself is known by all parties, if points 2 (emotional connection) and 3 (sexual attraction) exist, and if both or either are withheld from the other partner, then it is an affair.
Why do affairs happen?
A common and often implicit assumption is that if someone cheats, then there is something wrong in your relationship, or there is something wrong with you.
Statistics about infidelity can vary widely — particularly since the definition can get so complex — but a common one reported in Western research is that around 50% of people will admit to having had an affair. In 2014, one infidelity-dating website reported that one million visitors logged on from Australia every month.
That’s a lot of people. It kind of makes you wonder… if around half of the population admit to having had an affair, that means almost all relationships are affected by infidelity, whether past or present. With numbers so high, can we really say that this is pathological? That there is something ‘wrong’ with most relationships, or with the people involved?
People who ‘cheat’
At Mental Health & Family Wellbeing Services we see many couples who have experienced infidelity in their relationships.
We find that many people who have had an affair are not pathological cheaters or liars, nor are they people with no morals, or no sense of what’s right and wrong.
Rather, people who have affairs almost always believe strongly in monogamy and a relationship built on trust and respect. They are often people who have been faithful for a long time. At one point, though, they made a decision that moved them away from these values.
They found themselves experiencing conflict between their strongly held values and their actions, and behaving in a way that risked everything they cared about and had worked for.
For what?
If these values are so strongly held, and their relationship so important to them, why did this person risk it all by being unfaithful, and having an affair?
For people who have been betrayed by their partner, this question can be a torment. They find themselves asking their partner this question over and over again, in various ways. Why? Where did we go wrong? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with me?
People find themselves first accusing their partner of being inherently untrustworthy. Afraid of commitment. Selfish and disrespectful. Self sabotaging.
Then, when that conversation is over, the accusations turn inward. I’m not good enough. I wasn’t attentive enough. I was not sexy enough. I didn’t put in enough effort.
The thing is, regardless of which accusations, towards which person, are true, generally we find that they are not why the affair happened.
The function of the affair
In talking with people who have committed infidelity, we try to find out answers to such questions as: What was the function of the affair? What purpose did it serve? What did it mean for you? What were you seeking, what did it provide you?
When looking at the question “Why?” in this way, we tend to find that affairs are an attempt to answer the problems of loss, of something missing, of an unfulfilled longing.
Sometimes it is emotional connection. Sometimes it is the feeling of being young and vital. Sometimes it is freedom, or independence, or novelty, intensity, power, or a strong sense of identity. Often it is an attempt to bring back a part of yourself that feels lost.
Unfortunately, no matter the answer, an affair is a betrayal. For the person who has been betrayed, asking these questions can be painful, and can even trigger anger. These questions can seem to put the person who committed the betrayal in the position of being a victim, like they are seeking to solve a problem beyond their control. Of course this is not true: The person who made the decision to solve this problem by having an affair also made the decision to break trust and cause pain; but that is rarely the intention.
However, seeking to understand the function of the affair is one of the steps necessary to heal from it.
How do we heal from an affair?
The hurt and betrayal felt once an affair comes into the open goes very deep. It can feel impossible to recover from, and for many couples, this proves to be true. The affair can point to a deep disconnect in a relationship which itself has grown too much to repair, and the relationship ends. But sometimes an affair brings to light issues which can now be explored and resolved. With willingness, a couple can recover from an affair.
In fact, many couples who have gone through affairs stay together, but that does not always mean the wounds have been healed. A couple who explores how they got where they are with genuine openness, vulnerability, and the willingness to listen, explore and respond, is going to have a very different outcome to a couple who sweep the affair under the rug, seeking to avoid further pain.
Seeing what an affair can give us
It is an ironic twist that once the secrets and lies are uncovered, and conversations about them can happen, that these conversations tend to be more open and honest than any a couple has had for years. With the worst deceit exposed, couples suddenly find themselves free to bare it all. Things that seemed shameful or worrisome are nothing compared to what has actually happened already. It is an opportunity to share thoughts, feelings, needs, hopes, and desires that may have been unexplored and unspoken for quite some time.
This is where an affair can be seen as an opportunity in itself. It is a crisis that can be used to facilitate huge leaps of growth in a relationship. It is the culmination of things having gone wrong; of the accepted status quo simply not working. This is where asking certain questions – seeking understanding of how you both got here – can highlight the way for things to get so much better.
And often, though it can be hard to think about, an affair can rekindle lust. For the person who committed the adultery, the fear of loss can be a catalyst for desire. For the person who was betrayed, knowing that their partner, who until this point had been categorised as familiar and therefore not exciting, was desired by another, can reopen their eyes to facets of their sexuality that had gradually become closed with time.
Many couples don’t quite make it to this point. Some never make it past seeing the infidelity as the end-point of a gradual abandonment, an unforgivable break, an intentional mortal wound. The hurt is too great to allow for an open-minded exploration, an acceptance of the suffering that each partner was feeling before it came to this.
What can we do to get there?
So let’s take a step back. The affair has been discovered. The initial hurt has been expressed, and the dominant question is, what now? Is this relationship over? Is it possible for us to heal from this? What can we do to recover?
For the unfaithful party
If we look at infidelity as a form of trauma, which much of the literature does, we know that the first step towards healing is for the perpetrator to accept responsibility for their actions, and acknowledge their wrongdoing. For the person who had the affair, this means two things.
The first is for them to end that outside relationship, and cease all contact with the other party (or parties), immediately. It is up to them to commit wholeheartedly to repairing their bond with the person who was betrayed, and proving that this relationship is their highest priority. If it is not possible to completely cease contact (for example, if the affair was with a work colleague), then new and very firm boundaries need to be redrawn, and this should ideally be demonstrated to the betrayed party.
The second step for the person who committed infidelity is to express the remorse they feel for hurting their partner. The fact is, most people feel terribly guilty, ashamed and remorseful for causing such pain to the person they are committed to. Some express this more easily than others. If you think about it though, if it was easy to express the sense of loss, the unrealised hopes and unmet needs that had led to them seeking something elsewhere, then it likely never would have happened in the first place.
The other thing is, while almost all people who have had an affair deeply regret the pain caused to their partner, guilt about the outside relationship is not so clear cut. While they may feel guilty about how hurt the partner is, they may not regret the experience of the affair itself. It may have been a painful path for them to take, but it did give them something they may not find it easy to completely wipe away.
As difficult as it is, the person who had the affair needs to hold their grief for the loss of it, and at the same time let go of it and redefine their boundaries. They need to be responsible for addressing this and being open about it. It is up to them to raise the issue and open the conversations. Both of you are thinking about it, after all. If the unfaithful party is open about when they are thinking about it, it saves the betrayed party from being obsessive about it. It will also make clear that it is not being swept under the rug, it is not being forgotten, and it is this that rebuilds trust.
For the betrayed party
For the partner who was deceived, it is important to do things that rebuild a sense of self-acceptance and self-worth. A focus on caring for themselves is what will give them the strength and motivation to be willing to work towards healing and growth.
This means facilitating a loving-kindness towards yourself. Encouraging yourself to do the things you would encourage someone you deeply loved to do – for you do deeply love yourself! It’s basic self care: practising good sleep hygiene, eating well, getting exercise, participating in meaningful and valued activities that provide you with a sense of identity and joy, and surrounding yourself with people who care about you.
It is also important, when conversations about the affair do happen with your partner, that the conscious intention and the focus is on these being healthy and healing in nature.
There will probably be an urgent curiosity about the affair, an urge to seek sordid details about what happened. This is natural, for it is how your evolved mind seeks to understand. A human is a naturally possessive, socially insecure animal, and our brains seek acceptance so much that they will demand immediate solutions for the problem of feeling rejected. In the case of infidelity, this leads to questions such as: When? Where? How often? What did you do? Did you do with them what you don’t do with me? Was it better?
While your brain demands to know the answers to these questions, what it doesn’t know is that they will only inflict more pain. The answers will drive you further apart, and deeper into uncertainty and loneliness. From the sparse responses to these questions your mind will fill in the blanks, replay certain phrases, and create explicit visions that will keep you awake at night, making it so much harder to reconnect with your partner.
For all our evolution, our brain’s base manner of learning and seeking safety often only drives anxiety and depression. Fortunately our learnings from research, science and psychology have given us the evidence to know that what these initial questions are really seeking to answer is: How can I feel safe again? What can I do to prevent this happening again? What can we do to fix this? And that there are better questions to ask to answer these dilemmas.
When the urge comes up to ask this kind of question, pause and consider what it is you really want. What are you hoping you will get by knowing those details? If you’ve already asked some of them, or already know some of those answers, pause again, and ask yourself if what you know has given you that so far. Whether those things have really been helpful for you to know.
You might find that what you really want to know is what it was that resulted in your partner making the decision to be unfaithful, to seek this kind of attention elsewhere. What was it that you both could have done differently? How could each of you have prevented this outcome?
Once you have considered your reasons for wanting certain answers, with logical responsiveness rather than emotional reactivity, you can direct your questions with more meaning. If your aim is to heal this relationship, you can focus your questions to get far more helpful responses. They will give you the meaning and the motives you are searching for.
What to ask?
Questions seeking meaning and motive might include: What did this affair mean for you? What did you experience with the other person that you don’t experience with me?
Questions answering your partner’s feelings might be: What was it like for you? What did it give you, and what did it take away? What did you think and feel when you came home to me? How do you feel about it coming out, about those parts of it being over?
Questions looking towards the future and where to from here might be: What is it about us, and our relationship, that you value? What would you like to happen now? What could we both do to make that happen?
What next?
It goes both ways. You can ask each other such questions, and use the answers to redefine your relationship with each other, to set new boundaries and goals to establish a new status quo where both your needs, desires, expectations and hopes are met. Be verbally and emotionally intimate in a new way. Encourage each other to be specific: “If you were happy with how things were going, what would I be doing differently? When? How often? What would it look like?”
The idea behind making the effort to focus your attention in this way is to take this crisis as an opportunity. To reform this relationship into something that works better than the one in which the affair happened. To ensure that this affair happened for a reason. Make meaning from your suffering, rather than being destroyed by it.
That is how relationships heal, survive, and thrive, after these experiences.
Getting help
Talking things through with a counsellor can provide an unbiased third party to assist you in working through otherwise emotionally difficult topics. If you are in Brisbane our Family and Relationship Support services may be one option.
Written by Jessica Decker, Specialist Counsellor (Psychologist) for Anglicare SQ Mental Health & Family Wellbeing Services.
