“On our way up to our rooms,” Peter described, “she tripped and fell against me. There had always been a kind of attraction between us, but under normal circumstances I never would have acted on it. It just made us a good team at the office. But I don't know, that night, one thing led to another, and we ended up sleeping together.”
Peter reported feeling terribly guilty the next morning. He made an excuse to his boss and came home that day, confessing his liaison to Allison almost as soon as he walked in the door. She was devastated. She thought about divorcing him and they even separated for a week, but Allison's family and their pastor encouraged them to try to work things out. Now they were sitting in my office, hoping I could help them put things back together.
Step Three: Letting Go
Finding out about an affair is a serious emotional trauma, and like any other trauma victim, it is very common for the betrayed spouse to replay the affair over and over in his or her head. Even so, at some point, both the husband and the wife come to agree that the constant questioning and emotional breakdowns are “getting out of hand.” When this happens, the betrayed mate will sigh, “I really want to, but I just can't seem to let go.”
In most cases, this inability to let go reveals three remaining questions that must be answered by the unfaithful mate on a continuing basis: “Do you really love me?”, “Why are you staying with me now?” and “How can I be sure you won't do this again?”
Answering the “Do you love me?” question over and over may be frustrating, but it is essential if you want the answer to sink in. Once couples find satisfactory answers to these questions, the accusations and emotional outbursts begin to fade away. At this point, the couple is through the worst part of the crisis and is ready for the last stage.
Step Four: Shoring up the Foundation
As I suggested, most men and women who have EMR's initially begin thinking of them as a way to escape problems they see in their marriages. Because of this, in the final stage of post-affair recovery couples must work to solve the basic problems that may have set the stage for the affair and learn more direct and effective ways to solve problems in general. This step is essential, but not all couples are up for it.
Sometimes, couples make it through the crisis of the affair and then try to sweep their poor communication and insufficient problem-solving skills under the rug. Almost inevitably, these couples end up in divorce court. Couples that do not shy away from these difficulties tend to experience their marriage as the “three-ply cord” scripture says it is when man and wife are forced to hold on to God to preserve their marriage because they are too hurt to hold onto each other.
**Mr. Popcak, a marriage and family counselor in private practice, is the author of The Exceptional Seven Percent: Nine Secrets of the World's Happiest Couples and For Better…Forever! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage. He is also the director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute, an organization providing telephone counseling and referrals to Catholic individuals, couples and families. He can be reached at 740-266-6461 or www.exceptionalmarriages.com
Extra-Marital Relationships
There are many types of extra-marital relationships (EMR's), and while all of them are terrible betrayals of the marriage covenant, the kind a couple experiences directly affects their chances for survival. The example that began the article is of what is commonly known as a “one night stand;” a chance encounter usually brought on by a mix of drugs or alcohol, and opportunity. While not an experience I would wish on my worst enemy, this is the most survivable of all the EMR's. In her book The Good Marriage, Dr. Judith Wallerstein observes that couples who have endured this kind of straying often go on to heal and find happiness together again, but usually not without a lot of work and in many cases, professional help. In fact, counseling is almost always indicated in an affair because the emotions run so hot that couples often don't know how to get beyond them.
The second type of EMR is something I call the “problem-solving affair.” That's when a marriage is experiencing problems and one mate begins to take comfort in the “friendship” he or she has with a sensitive acquaintance of the opposite sex. As time goes by, this friendship takes on sexual dimensions. But even so, this too can be a fairly survivable kind of EMR, because the spouse having the affair is not actually giving his or her heart to the person he or she is sleeping with. Rather, the mate was using the friendship to feel better about the marriage, but then the “friendship got out of control.”
Next is the “Emotional-Sexual Affair.” This is when a mate gives both body and heart to another person. This is the most difficult EMR a marriage can face, because the mate who is cheating has all but left the marriage entirely. Although individual counseling is certainly indicated, marital counseling is almost sure to be ineffective unless or until the unfaithful spouse completely ends the affair.
Assuming that both spouses would sincerely like to make things work, there are several stages the couple is going to go through as they rebuild their marriage. First, amazingly enough, there is going to be a honeymoon phase. The confession of an affair is usually followed by a time (not lasting more than a week or two) of intense sexual and romantic activity as the couple desperately tries to prove that the strength of their passion alone can wash away the memory of the infidelity. It can't, and soon the couple knows it. Then the full force of the pain and anger comes out and the work begins.
Step One: Confrontation and Disclosure
Honesty is key in this first phase of post-affair recovery. The spouse who has been cheated on must be given the freedom to honestly express whatever feelings he or she has and ask whatever questions he or she feels are important. The spouse who committed the affair must be direct with his or her answers (instead of making his or her mate feel as if every answer must be extracted with forceps) and accept total responsibility. In other words, no, “The booze made me do it” nonsense. Or, for that matter, no, “You made me do it by being so insensitive” nonsense.
There are three things that get in the way of honesty in this phase. First, in an effort to assuage his or her guilt, the cheating spouse may try to pressure a mate into “getting over it” more quickly than is appropriate, saying things like, “It's in the past. How long are you going to beat me up about this? Everything was great last week (in the honeymoon phase). Why can't we just go back to that?”
Such attempts to sweep things under the rug are intended to stave off unnecessary pain, but unfortunately, this is one problem that, if it is to be solved, requires the couple to endure some pain. If the couple tries to avoid this phase of recovery, resentment will build as questions go unanswered, issues go unresolved, and the fear, “Will it happen again?” hangs over the marriage like a Sword of Damocles.
The second possible complication comes if the unfaithful spouse adopts a self-righteous tack saying, “Well, I never would have cheated if you weren't such an awful spouse!” The person employing this strategy wants to skip over the affair and begin working on the problems he or she believes “caused” the infidelity. What this person needs to realize is that while he or she may have some legitimate complaints, all of his or her credibility went out the window with the affair, and credibility is a prerequisite for solving relationship problems. Otherwise, every time one mate raises an issue, the other mate responds with some version of, “Oh yeah? Well, what about you!”
The way the cheating spouse regains credibility is by not only accepting responsibility for the affair, but also being a loving, willing listener as his or her mate explains, over and over again, how much the affair has damaged marital trust. Only by willingly and lovingly subjecting oneself to this process (and caringly responding to the mate's pain) can one gain the credibility needed to address the issues that — as far as the cheating spouse is concerned — “are at the root of the problem.”
The last factor that could complicate this stage is dependency. When a spouse is unhealthily dependent on a mate, he or she cannot effectively ask hard questions without jeopardizing his or her own needs. For example, a woman client of mine who had absolutely no idea about how she could support herself was unable to challenge her husband as directly as she needed to for fear that if she did, he just might take his money and leave. Of course, the same dynamic occurs even when the cheated on spouse is merely emotionally needy.
However, assuming that the faithful mate is being honest and free with his or her questions and that the unfaithful spouse is taking responsibility for his or her actions and is patiently listening to the mate's pain, the couple will be able to move to step two.
Step Two: Rebuilding Trust
Rebuilding marital trust may involve everything from going on “dates” together and making time to talk during the week, to receiving assurances about the unfaithful spouse's willingness to not only give up direct contact with the person he or she was cheating with, but also many (if not all) of the activities associated with the affair. For example, if alcohol played a role in the infidelity, the cheating spouse may be obliged to stop drinking altogether. The same may apply to any job, hobby, or community activity that was a significant backdrop to the affair.
I do not mean to suggest that the unfaithful spouse must necessarily quit such activities, but to regain credibility, the unfaithful spouse must demonstrate that he or she 100 percent willing to do whatever the couple decides is in the best interest of their marriage — even at great personal cost to him or herself. To do less is to feed the “flashbacks” that accompany post-affair life, (e.g., “I know I should trust him, but every time he goes to the golf course, I replay the whole affair in my head. That's where they met, you know….”)
Once the couple is taking better care of their day-to-day relationship and has worked out ways to rebuild basic trust, they are ready for the third step.
