The Affair in Retrospect<\/strong><\/span> Part 1: A couple is shattered by the discovery of an affair and comes Part 2:We help them get through the immediate crisis, tend to the underlying wounds in the Part 3: As our preferred However, we typically have no idea what really happens “ever after.” Helping couples recover from the For several years, I’ve been contacting couples I’ve treated to find out more about the long-term impact of In some marriages, the affair isn’t a traditional crisis, but a black hole trapping both parties in an endless Stuck in the Past<\/span> Since the transgression, Debbie has assumed a sense of moral superiority, believing that Marc has never In fact, it’s likely that the pair would have had the same miserable interactions had there been no I also have to address the obsession with the affair that seems to stay at the center of these relationships, I believe that genuine trust rests on our ability to tolerate what we don’t know about the other, and as One feature fueling an inability to move on can be the unyielding hurt. I asked another of my clients For these couples, it’s hard to look back because they never went forward. The affair has become the The Survivors<\/span> Joanna’s transgression was an attempt to recapture what she’d shared previously with Michael and didn’t At the core of Joanna’s predicament is a conflict of values, inherent in the affair itself, not just in its brings about an identity crisis: how to reconcile the enchantment of an experience with the feeling The Explorers<\/span> Reinventing the Self<\/span> Attending a Getting the Love You Want Couples workshop<\/a> can assist in navigating the meaning of an affair, and how to repair and reconstruct a life or a relationship.<\/p>\n Or contact an Imago therapist <\/a>near you<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.imagoafrica.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/esther-perel-1-300x149.jpg\")
\nI wrote this article<\/a> in 2010, during the first part of my exploration into the concept and practice of infidelity.You will find
\nan explanation from a slightly more clinical perspective. Nevertheless, it will help to contextualize what you, or your loved
\nones, are experiencing. I hope you enjoy it.<\/p>\n
\nThe desire to find happy endings for sad human stories is probably lodged in most couples therapists’
\nDNA. When the “sad story” is about infidelity that threatens a marriage, therapists generally aim for their
\nfavored resolution: saving the marriage. As a field, we’ve tended to think about this story in terms of a
\nstraightforward, three-part narrative:<\/p>\n
\nto see us.<\/p>\n
\nmarriage, and then take a deeper look at childhood scars.We provide compassion and advice as needed,
\nand encourage new trust, forgiveness, and intimacy in the relationship.<\/p>\n
\ndenouement, the couple leaves therapy weeks or months later, their marriage repaired, stronger, even
\ntransformed – or at least improved.We consider treatment a success; the couple has weathered the storm.
\nOf course, some couples refuse this neat storyline and, instead, use therapy as a gateway out of the
\nmarriage altogether. But, hopefully, they still live happily ever after.<\/p>\n
\nimmediate crisis is critical, but what happens to them after they leave therapy? Did the insights gleaned
\ncarry the couple through the years of marriage, the slings and arrows of ordinary domestic fortune?Was
\nthere a brief, second honeymoon before the marriage reverted back to its pre-therapy condition? Did they
\nfile for divorce once out of the therapist’s benevolent gaze? Did either spouse commit more transgressions?
\nUnless we’re among the few therapists who seek periodic feedback from our clients, we simply don’t
\nknow, and, without knowing what impact our treatment had on these couples, we have little idea of what
\nworked and why. When couples leave us, we’re looking forward to what their future holds; however, I’m
\nintrigued by what we might learn from looking back.<\/p>\n
\nthe infidelity that brought them to therapy.With those couples who’ve remained together in the
\nintervening years, I offered a free, follow-up interview to discuss how they regard the infidelity
\nretrospectively, and how they integrated the experience into the ongoing narrative of their relationship. All
\nmarriages are alike to the degree that confronting an affair forces the couple to reevaluate their
\nrelationship, but dissimilar in how the couple lives with the legacy of that affair. I already knew the
\nmarriages I was tracing in these follow-up interviews had survived; now I wanted to assess the quality of
\nthat survival. What were the useful shock absorbers that sustained the couple? Did they think that therapy
\nhad helped?
\nSpecificities notwithstanding, I identified three basic patterns in the way couples reorganize themselves
\nafter an infidelity – they never really get past the affair, they pull themselves up by the bootstraps and let it
\ngo, or they leave it far behind.<\/p>\n
\nround of bitterness, revenge, and self-pity. These couples endlessly gnaw at the same bone, circle and
\nrecircle the same grievances, reiterate the same mutual recriminations, and blame each other for their
\nagony. Why they stay in the marriage is often as puzzling as why they can’t get beyond their mutual
\nantagonism.
\nA second pattern is found in couples who remain together because they honor values of lifelong
\ncommitment and continuity, family loyalty, and stability. They want to stay connected to their
\ncommunity of mutual friends and associates or have a strong religious affiliation. These couples can move
\npast the infidelity, but they don’t necessarily transcend it. Their marriages revert to a more or less peaceful
\nversion of the way things were before the crisis, without undergoing any significant change in the
\nrelationship.
\nFor some couples, however, the affair become a transformational experience and catalyst for renewal and
\nchange. This outcome illustrates that therapy has the potential to help couples reinvent their marriage by
\nmining the resilience and resourcefulness each partner brings to the table.<\/p>\n
\n“Every time I can’t get Marc on the phone, I’m reminded of how he wouldn’t answer when he was with
\nthe other women,” says Debbie, still bitter three years after she discovered his affair – the latest in a string
\nof extramarital dalliances. Married to Marc for 14 years, she decided to remain with him ostensibly to
\npreserve the family. She constantly makes him feel that he’s lucky she didn’t kick him out, as if he’s the
\nonly one who stands to lose everything they’ve built if they divorce.<\/p>\n
\nfully owned up to the wrongness of his behavior. In her eyes, forgiving him wouldn’t repair the marriage,
\nbut would instead effectually give him a clean slate, allowing him to feel that he no longer has any reason
\nto feel guilty. Her refusal to “let bygones be bygones,” as she sarcastically put it, was evident when they
\ntalked about sex. “I want to make love,” Debbie said, “but it would be as if I’m telling him everything is
\nOK now.” They haven’t had sex since the affair three years ago, except during the few days right after the
\ndiscovery, when sex is often used to ward off loss.
\nThere’s no way that he can be reassuring about his renewed commitment to her, Marc says, when she only
\nresponds to him with biting sarcasm and condescension. Often, he adds, she ruins what might be perfect
\nmoments between them – their daughter’s piano recital or a dinner with friends. “There are no perfect
\nmoments,” she sneers.With a tired voice, he tells her, “I’m here and I’m ready to rebuild.” She replies, “I
\nhaven’t made up my mind.” She felt so rejected by Marc that she still doesn’t feel that he really wants to
\nbe with her, she explains. Their dialogue has become rigid, narrow, and predictable.
\nWhen Debbie brings up the affairs, Marc alternates between justifying and blaming himself. He says that
\nshe was no innocent bystander, citing her continual criticism of him and hair-trigger temper that predated
\nhis adulteries. While the dismal state of their marriage before his affairs was a joint production, Marc says,
\nDebbie refuses to take any responsibility for her part in the decline of the relationship in the past or
\npresent. He thinks he’s expressed shame, guilt, and remorse, but it just won’t ever ben enough. Infidelity
\nremains at the epicenter of their relationship, and they tag it onto every disagreement between them.<\/p>\n
\ninfidelity. Couples like these live in a permanent state of contraction, sharing a cell in marital prison. To
\nthe betrayed spouse, the betrayer becomes the sum total of the transgressions, with few redeeming
\nqualities. To the betrayer, the betrayed spouse becomes the sum total of a vengeful fury. I’m reminded of
\nthis phrase: “Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
\nWhen couples like Marc and Debbie come to therapy, it’s often at the insistence of the partner who
\nendured the affair, who seeks somebody who can honor his or her grief, dismay, and turmoil. Just as often,
\nbetrayed partners need moral confirmation, viewing themselves as the victims and their partners as the
\nperpetrators, if not unredeemable villains. A first step is explaining to them that wholesale condemnation
\ndistracts them from tackling the real relationship issues. I introduce a neutral perspective that allows us to
\nexplore the motives and meanings of the affair. But in these highly reactive couples, there’s little room for
\nneutrality, because the partners take the call for self-reflection as a personal attack: “Are you saying that
\nbecause I fell asleep at 9 o’clock every night that it’s my fault he had an affair?” a betrayed spouse will
\npractically shriek. “So what if I want nothing to do with you sexually? I refuse to take the blame for your
\ncheating!”<\/p>\n
\nsometimes for years. The betrayed person relentlessly replays the stories in his head and hunts for lies,
\neven if it’s humiliating to do so. He turns himself into an amateur detective. One betrayed partner told
\nme, “I check her computer, I go into her phone. When I left for a weekend, I kept calling home and got
\nno answer. When I found out that she’d left the kids with her sister, I instantly thought she was seeing
\nhim again.” To which his wife answered with bitter resignation, “He never actually asks me, he just
\nassumes.” Accurate information – the spouse was engaged in some perfectly innocent activity – diffuses the
\ndistrust, but the calm lasts only until the next bout of insecurity. This cycle makes it impossible for the
\nbetrayed partner to feel loved again.<\/p>\n
\nlong as we’re driven to uncover every detail, we can’t trust. In these couples, past experiences of
\nabandonment and rejection loom large and keep trust from being reestablished. Reclaiming a sense of
\nreality after the revelation of the affair is essential for the betrayed spouse, but some remain tethered to
\ntheir investigative quest – rifling through credit card statements and cell phone bills, repeatedly pressing
\nthe browser’s “back” button, listening in on phone calls.
\nIn an effort to allay their anxieties, these spouses establish a regime of control in which intimacy is
\nconfused with surveillance. Their myriad questions are less about honoring closeness than about
\nintrusiveness. The interrogations, the injunctions, and even the forensic evidence fail to assuage their
\nfundamental fears. I help them move their stance from detective to researcher or explorer. Rather than
\nscavenge for the sordid details, it would be more enlightening to ask questions that probe the meaning of
\nthe affair, like: How did your lover illuminate other parts of you? Did you think of me when this was
\ngoing on?Were you afraid to lose me, our family, the kids? At what point did you realize you wanted to
\nstay? If an affair is a solo enterprise, making meaning of it becomes a joint venture. Couples like Marc and
\nDebbie, unfortunately, don’t get to these questions. They want their partner fixed. For them, therapy
\nseems more a part of the penance rather than a mending experience – there’s no absolution in sight.<\/p>\n
\nwhat he longs for in his relationship, now that he’s five years past his wife’s multiple affairs. He replies,
\n“To go back to six years ago.” He tells her, “I used to think, no matter what, I was your man. And you just
\nabandoned me.” For him, it’s the inconsolable grief that keeps him feeling unsafe and in a permanent
\nstate of unhappiness. For her, a tortured sense of guilt and failure is unending.Witnessing his unbearable
\npain reinforces the magnitude of her shame and guilt. In the meantime, life with children and work goes
\non, but the emotional abscess doesn’t drain.<\/p>\n
\nnarrative of their union. The marriage may technically survive, but their couplehood is dying on the vine.
\nWhen infidelity becomes the hallmark of a couple’s life, something has been broken that can’t be made
\nwhole again. The relationship is permanently crippled.<\/p>\n
\nOn Friday, Joanna was all set to go. On Saturday, she couldn’t sign the lease. She’d fantasized about the
\nmoment for almost two years: she’d leave her husband, Michael, move in with her lover, Eric, and be
\nbathed in a state of bliss and sensuality that had been sorely missing from her life. Eric had showered her
\nwith affection and a sense of importance – attention she’d only ever received from her children, since
\nMichael had excused himself from these gestures, saying he wasn’t that type of guy. Lassitude had
\ngradually crept into her marriage, leaving her feeling more attached to the habit of being married than to
\nthe man she’d once loved.<\/p>\n
\nwant to live without: a sense of importance and belonging, relief from loneliness, and a feeling that life
\nwas basically good. Unfulfilled longings for feelings like these drive many of today’s adulterers. Joanna
\ncarefully plotted her departure, but when push came to shove, she couldn’t do it. She thought about the
\n24 years she and Michael had been together, their unwavering friendship, his dependability, the comforts
\nof their life, and, most important, her kids – realizing that once she turned her affair into her primary
\nrelationship, there’d be no turning back. Often people begin to see what they want to preserve at the
\nmoment that their affair is about to come out of hiding. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is also when they
\nrealize that the lover was meant to be exactly that: a lover.
\nJoanna didn’t want to leave Michael partly out of fear and partly because she still loved him. It wasn’t
\nclear which was stronger, fear or love. “Part of me was very disappointed in myself for not being able to
\nleave Michael, and I wondered if I was letting go of the love of my life,” Joanna recalled. “But part of me
\nfelt relief that I was going to stay and not destroy my family.” Michael alternated between panic and rage,
\nbetween begging her to stay and chasing her away. “I couldn’t believe she was ready to jeopardize
\neverything for this guy, Eric, and I felt trapped because I suspected that her reasons to stay didn’t have
\nmuch to do with me. It was more about we had than about who I was.”<\/p>\n
\nresolution.When people talk about their fears, often they’re really pondering their values.When they say,
\n“I don’t want to break up my family,” they’re also saying that they express their respect for loyalty and
\ncommitment. Following Cupid’s arrows is akin to losing one’s moral compass, and, in this sense, the affair<\/p>\n
\nthat it’s fundamentally wrong. For Joanna and others in her place, lying and deceiving are more agonizing
\nthan thrilling. They don’t set out to betray their partners. Sometimes, as in the case of Joanna, they’re
\nmotivated by a yearning for what they’re no longer willing to live without: passion – not in the narrow,
\nsexual sense, but as a quest for aliveness and erotic vitality. Although a glimmer of passion can be
\nintoxicating, many of us shudder at the prospect of losing everything. The volatility and unpredictability
\nof desire is scary.
\nFor these partners, sexual excitement and what they regard as self-centered desires for more romantic
\n“fulfillment” aren’t powerful enough incentives to turn them away from the more meaningful, long-term
\nrewards and vital obligations of family. They hold themselves to the premise “when you marry, you make
\na commitment and you must honor it.”These couples value family integrity, security, continuity, and
\nfamiliarity over the rollercoaster of risky romantic love. There can be deep, enduring love and loyalty in
\nthese couples, but passion doesn’t feature prominently on the menu. Doing what’s right creates a
\nwholeness that helps the unfaithful person come to terms with the sacrifices they make. However, while
\npeople’s values can remain intact, the decision to stay in the marriage can be heart-wrenching.
\nWhen I work with these couples, I always include joint and individual sessions, keeping all information
\nfrom the individual sessions confidential. The purpose of solo meetings is to provide a private space in
\nwhich each partner can resolve his or her individual predicament, no matter how long it takes.With these
\ncouples, the therapeutic process is one of reasoning and rational thinking, as a way to temper the
\nturbulence of their emotions. Our sessions are meant to shepherd them through the crisis and to anchor
\ntheir relationship. Couples like Joanna and Michael had carefully crafted a path for themselves in their
\nmarriage, and much of what they seek in post-affair therapy is to reclaim a sense of control. They aren’t
\nlooking for massive renovations in their relationship; they simply want to come back to the home they
\nknow and rest on a familiar pillow. On the road back, they make amends, they renew their vows, and they
\nmake sure to plug any leaks.
\nIn therapy, I explore the riches of the love affair, what they found in their relationship with the “other,”
\nand what they can take from it to their primary relationship.We draft the new amendments for their life,
\nin the singular and plural.We weight the pain of enduring the affair – the fact that “it’s the right thing to
\ndo, but it hurts” – and I always ask how they imagine themselves 10 years down the road.
\nWith the betrayed person, we examine the ebbs and flows of trust, the sense of impermanence that snuck
\ninto the relationship, and their wish to return to familiarity. Therapy offers couples like Joanna and
\nMichael a place to evaluate the fundamentals of their lives.We also address the hurt that persists even
\nthough the couple remains together. One of my patients told me, “A few years ago, when I had a car
\naccident, I remember thinking how much support I got from friends and family.With a broken leg, the
\npain is visible, everybody knows you’re suffering, and everybody sympathizes. But when a couple decides
\nto stay together after an affair, it’s easy to think everything is fine. People no longer bring it up, and you’re
\nleft living with an invisible pain.”
\nJoanna and Michael ultimately were able to resume a life similar to the one they’d had before the crisis.
\n“We weren’t ready to divorce over this, but we don’t see the affair as being good in any way. It was a kind
\nof temporary insanity,” Michael sums up. Listening to them, it’s clear that they’re both relieved that they
\nwere able to pull through. Once in a while, Michael can feel a surge of insecurity, since Joanna and Eric
\noccasionally meet professionally, but his suspicion is intermittent and easily absorbed. He’ll inquire,
\n“When’s the last time you met him? Does he have a new girlfriend? Do you talk about personal things?”
\nOn occasion, humor is the perfect antidote. Once, when Michael asked Joanna if she thought Eric was
\nstill interested in her, she told him, “I don’t think so, but here’s his telephone number. You can call him
\nand ask.”<\/p>\n
\n“The affair was a shock that forced us to get unstuck,” was Julian’s unequivocal response in an interview
\nfive years after I’d seen him and his wife, Claire, in couples therapy. “I agree that our relationship is now
\nmuch better than it ever was,” said Claire as she turned to Julian and added, “but I still think that you
\nacted like a jerk. You didn’t need to cheat on me to make the point that our marriage was in trouble.”
\nWhile they still disagree on the way Julian delivered his “message,” they agree his affair transformed their
\nmarriage.
\nJulian had first set eyes on Claire standing front of him at the Student Coop 15 years earlier, and he made
\nsure to get her phone number before she reached the cashier.With her beguiling smile and the mysterious
\nway she hesitated ever-so-slightly before giving her name and number, she hooked him. In those first
\nmoments, they began to take on the roles that would continue into their marriage. Julian would be the
\ninitiator – of social life, of sex, of decisions about vacations – and Claire’s protector from the world. Claire
\nwould be the graceful, albeit somewhat tremulous, helpmate, always following his lead, reassured that,
\nwith his firm and reliable hand on the helm, she never needed to worry. What came as a surprise for
\nJulian through the years, however, was the volume of worries he was expected to assuage: almost anything
\ncould be fodder for Claire’s anxiety. She could never arrive early enough at the airport; her trepidation
\nabout hosting a dinner began days in advance; and for her to feel comfortable about having sex,
\nconditions needed to be perfect – which they rarely were. Over the years, he grew tired of the veto power
\nshe was imposing on their lives: “You want to go out?” he’d ask. “NO,” she’d respond. “Let’s get together
\nwith some friends.” “NO.” “I want to make love to you.” “NO.”
\nWith so many noes ringing in his ears, Julian welcomed the resounding yes from Emma, whom he met
\non a business trip and continued to sleep with for a year and a half. It wasn’t just that he wanted more
\nsex: he wanted to recapture the feeling of playfulness and freedom that sex used to allow him. The affair
\nwith Emma brought with it a sense of vitality that he’d been missing.With her, he threw off the growing
\nlethargy that had smothered his life. He once again experienced the excitement, attention to preliminaries,
\nsense of timelessness that fills lovers’ hearts.
\nClaire found out about Julian’s affair through accidentally discovering email messages. Deeply jolted, she
\nsought individual therapy and reached out to her friends. But along with giving her support, they asked
\nher to see that, while Julian had betrayed her trust, she herself had – as she later put it – “betrayed my
\nvows.” Knowing that Claire didn’t want to lose the man she loved, her friends encouraged her to fight for
\nhim. So she reached out to him, and they talked with each other as they hadn’t done in years, sharing
\nfeelings and thoughts that had long been tucked away. As the conversations evolved and they began to
\nnarrow the distance between them, they felt awakened into a new experience of connection, in which they
\nfelt both great pain and excitement, as they never had before.
\nWhen couples like Julian and Claire begin to find their way back to each other, there’s often a combustive
\nrekindling of desire, a mix of anxiety and lust, which many couples are shy to admit. In this emotional
\nmaelstrom, couples swing between starkly opposing feelings: one minute it’s “Fuck you”; the next minute
\nit’s “Fuck me.” Then it’s “Get out of here!” followed by “Don’t ever leave me!” Throughout this drama,
\nClaire and Julian managed to sustain these swings without either marching off to a divorce lawyer. Being
\nable to express and accept such a wide range of feelings without demanding a premature “closure” made
\nthem good candidates for a positive resolution. Tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty is vital to
\ndiscovering a space from which a more creative and robust relationship can emerge.
\nIn my joint work with Julian and Claire, I did something that some therapists might consider risky: I
\nsuggested she invite Julian to talk about his experience with Emma. Paradoxically, I’ve found that this
\ntype of openness about one’s affair, rather than being destructive and painful, can be a deeply affecting
\ndemonstration of loyalty to the spouse. Telling one’s partner, “Okay, I’ll show you who I am. This is what
\nhappened, and this is how I felt about it” can be a way of saying “I love you and never really wanted to
\nleave you; I want to tell you this because you’re so important to me.” Indeed, Claire found that having
\nJulian talk about his intimacy with another woman was itself an expression of intimacy with her –
\nincreasing their bond with each other.
\nSometimes the crisis of infidelity helps couples make a crucial distinction, one between a relationship
\nbased on exclusiveness and one grounded in the uniqueness of their connection. Exclusivity depends on
\nestablishing rigid boundaries: the emphasis is on “not permitting,” “restricting,” “not sharing with
\nothers.” Before the affair, Claire and Julian had increasingly based their relationship on this kind of
\nexternal framework to set them apart as a couple. In contrast, through our work together, they learned to
\nvalue what was distinctive about the meaning they held for each other, with the emphasis on why they
\n“chose to be with each other” rather than what was “forbidden with someone else.” Ultimately, this
\nenhanced sense of “us” is the most powerful analgesic for relationships at the edge, soothing the pain and
\npromising a prospect of renewal.
\nCouples like Julian and Claire manage to turn the turmoil of an affair into an enlarging emotional journey.
\nEach one takes appropriate responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship, focusing not only on
\nmending the breach produced by the affair, but on rebuilding the emotional foundation of the marriage.
\nSuch couples tend to identify the affair as one event – but not the definitive event – in their history
\ntogether. Rather than seeing the affair purely as an act of failure and betrayal, they transform it into a
\ncatalyst for change, an inspiration for a rebirth of connection.
\nAll kinds of unexpected discoveries can come out of the crisis of infidelity. Claire, having had to reconnect
\nwith her own resources to weather the storm with Julian, experienced a new sense of self-reliance and a
\nnew willingness to take the initiative. As she learned how to express her sexual yearnings, Julian was
\nsurprised to find a partner with a strength and enthusiasm he’d never encountered before. At the same
\ntime, no longer the lone decision-maker in the marriage, he found himself missing the ability to make
\ndecisions for the two of them. While richer and more interesting, the relationship felt less secure to both
\nof them. “I’m not sure at all where this is going to take us, but dull it certainly isn’t,” Julian said.<\/p>\n
\nCouples who can successfully recover from an infidelity often display a significant shift in language: from
\n“you” and “me” to “our,” from “when you did this to me” to “this was an event in our life.” They talk
\nabout “When we had our crisis,” recounting a shared experience. Now they’re joint scriptwriters, sharing
\ncredit for the grand production of their life together.
\nCouples who think in absolutes are less able to integrate the infidelity into the new substance of their
\nmarriage and likelier to get stuck in the past. For them, the affair is entirely bad and destructive, a
\ntransgression against commitment and morality. Complete remorse, followed by dramatic confession,
\nunqualified promises of “never again,” unconditional forgiveness, and categorical absolution are the only
\nacceptable outcomes. But things are more fluid for those who see an affair as an event that, no matter how
\npainful, may contain the seeds of something positive. Such couples understand that forgiveness doesn’t
\nhappen all at once, and they feel OK with partial forgiveness. To be sure, after betrayal, trust isn’t likely to
\nbe total. When declarations like “How can I ever trust you again?” are made by such couples, I often
\ninterject, “Well it depends. Trust for what?”
\nAbove all, what sets apart couples who use therapy to turn an infidelity into a transformative experience is
\nthat they come to recognize that it doesn’t provide clear-cut answers, but a nonjudgmental forum in
\nwhich to discuss their ideas of betrayal, both sexual and emotional. They discover that such discussions
\ncan become the basis for their new relationship. While by no means giving up on the idea of
\ncommitment, they learn to redefine it in a way that will prevent the recurrence of secret affairs and
\nbetrayals. For them, monogamy means mutual emotional loyalty, fidelity, and commitment in a primary
\nrelationship, even if, for some, it doesn’t necessarily mean sexual exclusiveness.
\nThey find out that infidelity doesn’t necessarily point to flaws in the relationship. Such partners see the
\naffair as less a statement about the marriage than a statement about the themselves. When we seek the
\ngaze of another, it isn’t always our partner we’re turning away from, but the person we ourselves have
\nbecome.We’re seeking not another partner, but another self. Couples who reinvent themselves can bring
\nthis other self into their existing relationship.
\nPeople stray for many reasons – tainted love, revenge, unfulfilled longings, and plain old lust. At times, an
\naffair is a quest for intensity, a rebellion against the confines of matrimony. An illicit liaison can be
\ncatastrophic, but it can also be liberating, a source of strength, a healing. And frequently it’s all these
\nthings at once. Some affairs are acts of resistance; others happen when we offer no resistance at all.
\nStraying can sound an alarm for the marriage, signaling an urgent need to pay attention to what ails it. or
\nit can be the death knell that follows a relationship’s last gasping breath. I tell my patients that most of us
\nin theWest today will have two or three marriages or committed relationships in our lifetimes. For those
\ndaring enough to try, they may find themselves having all of them with the same person. An affair may
\nspell the end of a first marriage, as well as the beginning of a new one.<\/p>\n