We expect comfort and edge, familiarity and novelty, continuity and surprise. We have conjured up a new Olympus, where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling, and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul. And the long haul keeps getting longer. We also live in an age of entitlement; personal fulfillment, we believe, is our due. In the West, sex is a right linked to our individuality, our self-actualization, and our freedom.
Thus, most of us now arrive at the altar after years of sexual nomadism. We used to get married and have sex for the first time.
Now we get married and stop having sex with others. The conscious choice we make to rein in our sexual freedom is a testament to the seriousness of our commitment.
I can stop looking. At so many weddings, starry-eyed dreamers recite a list of vows, swearing to be everything to each other, from soul mate to lover to teacher to therapist. I will not only celebrate your triumphs, I will love you all the more for your failures. In such a blissful partnership, why would we ever stray? And yet, it does. Infidelity happens in bad marriages and in good marriages. It happens even in open relationships where extramarital sex is carefully negotiated beforehand.
The freedom to leave or divorce has not made cheating obsolete. So why do people cheat? And why do happy people cheat? She vaunts the merits of her conjugal life, and assures me that Colin is everything she always dreamed of in a husband. Clearly she subscribes to the conventional wisdom when it comes to affairs—that diversions happen only when something is missing in the marriage. If you have everything you need at home—as modern marriage promises—you should have no reason to go elsewhere.
Hence, infidelity must be a symptom of a relationship gone awry. The symptom theory has several problems. First, it reinforces the idea that there is such a thing as a perfect marriage that will inoculate us against wanderlust. But our new marital ideal has not curbed the number of men and women who wander. In fact, in a cruel twist of fate, it is precisely the expectation of domestic bliss that may set us up for infidelity. Once, we strayed because marriage was not supposed to deliver love and passion.
Today, we stray because marriage fails to deliver the love and passion it promised. Second, infidelity does not always correlate neatly with marital dysfunction. Yes, in plenty of cases an affair compensates for a lack or sets up an exit. Insecure attachment, conflict avoidance, prolonged lack of sex, loneliness, or just years of rehashing the same old arguments—many adulterers are motivated by domestic discord.
And then there are the repeat offenders, the narcissists who cheat with impunity simply because they can. However, therapists are confronted on a daily basis with situations that defy these well-documented reasons. Many of these individuals were faithful for years, sometimes decades.
They seem to be well balanced, mature, caring, and deeply invested in their relationship. Yet one day, they crossed a line they never imagined they would cross. For a glimmer of what? I want to understand what the affair means for them. Why did you do it? Why him? Why her? Why now?
Was this the first time? Did you initiate? Did you try to resist? How did it feel? Were you looking for something?
What did you find? One of the most uncomfortable truths about an affair is that what for Partner A may be an agonizing betrayal may be transformative for Partner B. Extramarital adventures are painful and destabilizing, but they can also be liberating and empowering. Understanding both sides is crucial, whether a couple chooses to end the relationship or intends to stay together, to rebuild and revitalize.
Let me assure you that I do not approve of deception or take betrayal lightly. I sit with the devastation in my office every day. Not condemning does not mean condoning, and there is a world of difference between understanding and justifying.
My role as a therapist is to create a space where the diversity of experiences can be explored with compassion. People stray for a multitude of reasons, I have discovered, and every time I think I have heard them all, a new variation emerges. I feel like a teenager with a boyfriend. As I listen to her, I start to suspect that her affair is about neither her husband nor their relationship.
Her story echoes a theme that has come up repeatedly in my work: affairs as a form of self-discovery, a quest for a new or lost identity.
For these seekers, infidelity is less likely to be a symptom of a problem, and more likely an expansive experience that involves growth, exploration, and transformation. Cheating is cheating, whatever fancy New Age labels you want to put on it. Intimate betrayal feels intensely personal—a direct attack in the most vulnerable place.
And yet I often find myself asking jilted lovers to consider a question that seems ludicrous to them: What if the affair had nothing to do with you? We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves. Perhaps this explains why so many people subscribe to the symptom theory. Blaming a failed marriage is easier than grappling with our existential conundrums, our longings, our ennui.
The problem is that, unlike the drunk, whose search is futile, we can always find problems in a marriage. They just may not be the right keys to unlock the meaning of the affair. If she and I had taken that route, we may have had an interesting chat, but not the one we needed to have.
Good daughter, good wife, good mother. She never partied, drank, or stayed out late, and she smoked her first joint at After college, she married the right guy, and helped to support her family, as so many children of immigrant parents do.
Marriage can survive infidelity, but it is important to remember certain facts:. Many professionals have seen marriages not only survive infidelity but become better than before. It is true that a marriage can survive an extra-marital affair. But, this will only happen if both partners are willing to acquire and use the skills necessary to make their marriage successful.
Developing a new way of interacting requires you both to:. Some feelings that are prominent when a married couple experiences cheating include:.
Your marriage can survive this onslaught of feelings. However, some marriages are not meant to be saved. These are very entrenched issues that are often not changeable.
It is challenging for the betrayed partner to know if they can give the spouse a "second chance. If your spouse is a serial cheater, it may be time to throw in the towel. There are other positive signs to look for such as the spouse showing remorse and showing clear actions that the affair has ended.
The spouse can also be extremely transparent by supplying account passwords, allowing an app or GPS tracking, taking a lie-detector, or be willing to sign a post-nuptial agreement. These suggestions might not work for everyone, but they are worth consideration in the short-term while trying to work through infidelity. See out a licensed therapist or psychologist who specializes in working with couples.
Be sure to ask about their expertise in helping with infidelity in particular. A place to start if you are still unsure if you want to save the marriage, or the affair is still going on, is a process called " Discernment Counseling.
Some people find it better or easier to speak with their clergy. We made the decision to grow closer to that other person and form a personally intimate bond. How to prevent this situation altogether? Communication is key here. I define fidelity as remaining faithful to the existing terms of the relationship. But if we had joint finances, were raising kids together, or had different terms of the relationship, I would consider it an infidelity if my partner took on debt , made a huge purchase, or changed his financial situation without consulting me.
But other things, like manipulation, cruel language, plain old unhappiness, sexual incompatibility, etc. It is entirely possible for monogamous people to work out their terms of the relationship and not rely on assumptions about fidelity.
However, monogamy makes it possible to let these assumptions go unexamined. You can be in a monogamous relationship based on existing societal terms. In our modern culture we tend to assume fidelity is the whole deal: sexual, emotional, relational, planning-for-the-future-together fidelity.
We get these stories from the ways we were raised—some may have been explicit, like advice from elders or peers, or it may be we picked up things implied by the media we consume. Or it could be culturally dictated.
But maybe your partner is also attracted to women, and knowing that might change how you feel about her emotionally invested friendships. Ultimately, the parameters of fidelity have to be defined by the people in the relationship. I think the healthiest way to look at it is: being in integrity with the explicit agreements you make together.
People in polyamory, and other kind of honest non-monogamous relationships, are still capable of breaking promises, bending their agreements, and cheating. But, as someone who has seen a lot of relationships collapse, it all starts when one partner starts giving someone or something else more time than the other partner can handle.
On the other hand, the law still has some strong opinions when it comes to money. This is because money is easy to quantify, unlike the precise amount of pissed off your ex-friend might be. What both these things have in common is betrayal. Someone feels betrayed, that their trust has been broken. Women know what I mean. Sometimes I have to explain to the guys. Has she ever thrown out your old letter jacket?
How far you can go varies with every relationship, but once it gets to court, only the lawyers really win.
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