If you have ever had a partner cheat on you then you will understand the emotional devastation that many people have suffered. What you may not understand is why it happened in the first place. If you refer back to my previous articles "Making the Perfect Marriage" and "The Language of Love", you will have some hint of how to prevent your partner from straying. For the sake of this article, I am talking about your average guy and girl, not crazed nymphomaniacs.
If a man or woman has all their needs met by the marriage partner, they won't dream of straying to get satisfaction elsewhere. Not unless they have serious problems in their heads!
His needs are sexual fulfillment, an attractive spouse, a recreational mate, domestic support and admiration.
Her needs are affection, honesty and integrity, conversation, financial support and fidelity / a good father for the children.
Most affairs are not about sex
People don't usually set out to deliberately have an affair guys don't just say out of the blue, "Today I'm going to screw the new secretary that's arriving this morning, I'd better make sure I've got clean jocks on." There's usually been some build up. The wife is always tired, busy with the kids, her libido has dropped, and she doesn't look after her appearance any more The secretary has been saying nice ego stroking comments, she always looks well groomed, she smiles a lot and gives a hint that she may be open to more than just casual flirting
Or another scenario the husband complains about the meals, criticises the state of the house, he's too busy to talk, gets mad at the kids, spends all evening watching the TV The guy next door chats and asks her how she is, he seems to notice when she gets her hair trimmed, he offers to fix the odd thing around the house that hubby promised to fix ages ago and then forgot, he is friendly to her kids She doesn't just wake up one morning and go up to a stranger with the deliberate intent to seduce him. (Remember, we are talking about the average guy and girl here)
Usually an affair is something unplanned, but drifted into, and then regretted. The trouble is, once the forbidden fruit has been tasted it can become addictive and your wandering partner may find that they are now in love with two people you and the other person.
Affairs are like cancer to a marriage
Relationships are like living organisms; infidelity has a similar effect on it as a major illness does on the individual. In many cases the illness' is terminal. However, it is not always incurable. Below are the stages that people go through, and just as in coping with a death; people can stop at any point along the path of the grieving process and suffer incomplete healing. The aim is to get through to the end. You will always be scarred by the experience, but you can still survive if you set your mind to it. Whether the relationship survives as well, is up to both of you.
The grieving process
Denial isn't just confined to the straying partner. Discovering that your partner has been unfaithful is like having a loved one die. At first you can't believe it. The shock numbs you and you pretend it isn't true.
"I don't believe it," is invariably the first thing I hear from the grieving spouse, followed quickly by - "I just didn't see it coming."
It is natural to avoid looking too closely at something if there is a possibility of pain. As a nurse, I saw many people in terminal stages of cancer that had spent years denying they had anything wrong with them. By the time they got to hospital it was often too late. Relationships can be the same.
"I was so sure it would never happen to me!"
"I was the perfect husband / wife "
"We had a good sex life I kept the house clean and cooked the meals"
"I worked so hard for the family and earned a good salary"
"I gave her everything she wanted." Or him' as the case may be.
Anger is the next natural response to the feeling of betrayal. It may be directed at your partner or at yourself, or both.
You will want to accuse the erring party, scream and go crazy at them, maybe even physically hurt them because your pain is so great. You just want to hurt them as much as you are hurting, or even more. Some people internalise their anger, others externalise it. However you deal with it, you do need to deal with it. Revenge is not helpful, even if it makes you feel better at the time.
Bargaining with your partner, using emotional blackmail, forever reminding them of their fall from grace these are not helpful resolutions to the problem either. Sadly, bargaining with God and making promises to be a better person or partner if they would only stop, doesn't make a lot of difference to the outcome either. Ultimately, you have to face that infidelity has occurred. What effect it has on your relationship is up to you and your partner.
Depression follows very swiftly after the first three stages. You have acknowledged your partner has done something terrible and now you are filling your mind with self-accusations as well as some for your partner. You are telling yourself that you are unlovable, not sexy enough, ugly, a bad spouse, hopeless, worthless, etc. If you have a belief in a deity, you may even be blaming your God as well. Suicidal thoughts are quite common.
Finally, acceptance. " Yes, it happened, but I am still alive. Now what?"
In life we make choices and as a result of those choices we are faced with outcomes and often further choices. This is the point where only you can decide the future. If you want the best chance of survival for your marriage, you will need to reach the point of acceptance before you start trying to fix things. And you both need to want to do this. There is no point trotting off to counselling together, or trying to discuss things rationally, if you are in the middle of the anger phase. Partners need to allow each other time to grieve before they can move forwards. This may even involve a time of separation and a renewed courtship. For the relationship to work with any success, THE ERRING PARTNERMUSTCUT OFF ALL CONTACT WITH THE LOVER. This could even mean changing jobs and shifting town.
' What do I do next?'
The grieving process has taken place, you hurt, but you have reached the point of acceptance. Finally accepting what has happened doesn't mean you agree with or condone what your partner has done, but it does mean thinking about the problem as a joint one.
Some of the questions you may need to ask yourself.
Do I still want to be married to this person who has betrayed me?
Do I trust them anymore? What if they do it again?
Will I be able to forgive them?
Is life without them better than life with them, or vice versa?
What about our friends, families, kids?
If you decide you want to stay with your partner in spite of the infidelity, and your partner also wants this, then the following steps are very important to ensure the best chance of success with your relationship in the future. I repeat there should not be any further contact with the lover. Trust is at an all time low and extremely fragile at this point.
Confession: Both of you will need to sit down and talk things through. You may need to seek professional help for your marriage, or a mediator to help you talk to each other without recriminations and anger. If talking face to face about your emotions is difficult, try writing down how you feel about what has happened.
Repentance: True repentance from both sides for hurting each other. This step may need to be repeated several times for the other partner to really believe it.
Commitment to change: Both partners need to strive to meet the other's needs. If this means taking parenting lessons, relationship lessons, etc then do it wholeheartedly and avoid recriminations and blame shifting
Forgiveness: This is hard. A lot of people don't understand what true forgiveness is. They think that if they say sorry they will be, or should be, forgiven, but it involves a little more than that. In religious terms you have to turn away from the sin, as well as be heartily sorry, before you get forgiveness. So this step follows after the commitment to change.
Rebuilding trust: This may involve giving up or adapting activities that don't include the other partner. For example if the husband has had the affair and is involved in clubs or hobbies away from the home that don't include the wife, then they have to decide whether she now joins him or he gives them up. Vise versa applies. This step does not happen overnight and there are likely to be times when the trust is tested. Face it, no-one is perfect at controlling their tongue, and being late home when the spouse is having an off day may be enough to trigger a suspicious comment about where you have been.
I have met many couples that have survived infidelity in their relationships, but not many do it with total success unless they follow the above. If this article relates to your situation, then I wish you all the best. http://www.michellemackinnon.com
Michelle MacKinnon was born in New Zealand, in 1957 and she lives with her husband in Palmerston North. In 2008 she published a double award winning novel called Escape from Eden and in 2009 she published an award winning children's picture book called Bluebell Mary. Michelle has seven children, three adopted and four by birth. Since her training as a General and Obstetric nurse, Michelle has been involved in many different vocations from beekeeping, alternative medicine, and hobby farming, to accounting, marketing, and voluntary counselling. Writing has been a lifelong passion and in 2008 she completed a Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing at the Whitireia Polytechnic in Wellington, New Zealand. http://www.michellemackinnon.com
Personally I have a hard time with all of this. If it gets to that point then perhaps there was never a real relationship to start? I seem to remember vows and the character attributes one looks for in a partner. To say we change, we sure do. To say we aren't trempted, well we sure are. Yet infidelity goes deep, real deep. Now to say this hasn't been part of civilization for eons would be foolish, yet, at what point do we hold integrity, honor, charcter high. Good article.
I think airing this issue relieves stress for many who do not have a path to follow - and honesty and forgiveness are the key to finding peace. Often kids and finances dictate and "tolerating a hurtful situation" is not good for anyone. Most studies on sexuality point out that a male is genetically programmed for sex, and the female for relationship. It's only been 500 years or so the male has been constrained by society (sexual slaves, mistresses and prostitution are a very old historical fact.) For the male it may not have meant much - and lots of research shows most - after ten years - have strayed (on both sides.) Interesting issue - and the facts and science are a big part of unraveling the pain.
There was a free course on this online. I did that just to help others. Have you every come across that? Anyway, nice work. It may really help the victims of marital cheating. God Bless you.
No, I haven't come across any online courses on the subject - I don't spend much time reading on the net - actually the only resource I used for this article, and my previous ones on relationships, was my experiences with counselling, the snippets I remembered from books I'd read twenty or thirty years ago, and my nursing training on the process of grieving. For a while I ran marriage enrichment evenings that included much of what is in my articles. I had a lot of positive feedback from them so that's why when I joined SearchWarp I threw together these articles. I am very fortunate to have a wonderful husband who encourages me to write (and who doesn't need to read my articles to know how to be a great husband). Thank you for your kind comments - the whole point of writing them is to help others if I can.
I have done Post Gardutation Degree on Psychological Counseling but I really want to take a advance course on Marriage & Family Counseling. Because I am burdened for Today's Families...God Bless you. I will come back to you if I need counseling...
A balanced objective view of a situation of great stress and turmoil. Thanks for a step-by-step description of the reactions to the breach of trust and for the steps involving in its healing.
Hi Michelle this is great information. You lay out the initial problems up front-- first one being there is no such thing as casual flirting. Secondly, our spouse will never be able to fulfill 100% of our needs 100% of the time. The key is not taking eachother for granted to begin with. But if something like this should happen, you lay out good things to consider and work through. Well done. Blessings, Teresa
Thank you for your very informative article. This kind of information is always much needed. Infidelity is such a crippling destruction which often times debilitates one from ever finding their way back to trust. Sometimes seeing the protocal in black and white;such as, your article helps one to once again believe in true love.
I'm glad you thought the article helpful. I certainly am a believer in true love, being married to one's soul mate, and living happily ever after. Some people get it right first time round, others have to keep trying. Unfortunately the divorce statistics don't give a very hopeful preditiction for half the couples out there, but happiness in marriage is attainable. I've certainly found it. All the best
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