It’s like when you go to the doctor because you don’t feel well. The doctor treats the symptom, but also decides to run some blood work, maybe sends you to have an x-ray or an electrocardiogram to find out what is behind your symptoms. When the results come back, the doctor may tell you that you have high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, or high blood sugar you did not know you had. You probably wouldn’t have found out about these conditions until they got much worse. Without knowing, you wouldn’t have taken care of them with proper medications, a healthier diet and changes in your life style. So, going to the doctor, even though you went for a different reason, may have saved your life.

When an affair occurs, some partners get stuck in anger and hurt, as we said in our previous blog. If they continue to stay there without doing anything about the situation, chances are their relationship won’t survive. Some couples, however, don’t want to let go of their relationship and are willing to explore what can be done to heal the wounds. They may decide to seek professional help to guide them out of these stormy waters.

In therapy partners may find out that one of them was feeling isolated, sad, mad, disillusioned, caged in, or uncomfortable with closeness, commitment and intimacy. In therapy they may uncover events and feelings that began the distancing process between them, perhaps quite some time ago, but that they never discussed with one another, because they were not aware of them. Now they have an opportunity to get these feelings out into the open, acknowledge them and share them with one another in an environment that feels safe. And what happens?

In therapy, the cheated partner finds a place where he or she can talk about feelings of hurt, disbelief, anger, disappointment and fear. The cheater may feel relieved that he or she doesn’t have to keep secrets any longer. He or she may begin to work at understanding why the infidelity occurred. Both can examine their feelings not only about the affair, but also about their relationship in general, and together work at repairing the damages to it. This process, though grueling and painful, is a transformative experience that will make partners feel closer together. It is a life saver because it makes couples look and address deeper, often unconscious issues, just like the visit to the doctor that sounded the alarm for other, underlying medical conditions hitherto unknown to the patient.

Of course, seeking therapy for infidelity is not the only way of addressing the problem, but it is certainly one of the best tools couples have available. The therapist is the professional whom provides support and guidance to couples; helps them get in touch with their feelings and identify the root causes of their problems; teaches them new skills about healthy communication, and guides them towards acceptance, understanding and, finally, forgiveness.

At the end of therapy, couples know each other better and are ready to make a new commitment to each other, borne out of the hard work together. By going through this transformative experience, couples discover an unexpected gift: their love for each other, which they had thought was gone forever.

Do you have a story that reflects this experience? Please comment on this blog, so that we can provide hope for couples who are willing to do the work to restore their love and trust in one another and get their marriage back on the right track.

What Couples Can Do To Get Back On Track

It is important to remember that in most cases affairs are symptoms of something deeper that is going on in intimate relationships, of which couples may not have been aware.  And here is where I can see the silver lining. The affair is such a shocking event in their lives that couples cannot ignore it, while in the past they may have ignored other, less obvious symptoms.

It’s like when you go to the doctor because you don’t feel well. The doctor treats the symptom, but also decides to run some blood work, maybe sends you to have an x-ray or an electrocardiogram to find out what is behind your symptoms. When the results come back, the doctor may tell you that you have high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, or high blood sugar you did not know you had. You probably wouldn’t have found out about these conditions until they got much worse. Without knowing, you wouldn’t have taken care of them with proper medications, a healthier diet and changes in your life style. So, going to the doctor, even though you went for a different reason, may have saved your life.

When an affair occurs, some partners get stuck in anger and hurt, as we said in our previous blog. If they continue to stay there without doing anything about the situation, chances are their relationship won’t survive. Some couples, however, don’t want to let go of their relationship and are willing to explore what can be done to heal the wounds. They may decide to seek professional help to guide them out of these stormy waters.

In therapy partners may find out that one of them was feeling isolated, sad, mad, disillusioned, caged in, or uncomfortable with closeness, commitment and intimacy. In therapy they may uncover events and feelings that began the distancing process between them, perhaps quite some time ago, but that they never discussed with one another, because they were not aware of them. Now they have an opportunity to get these feelings out into the open, acknowledge them and share them with one another in an environment that feels safe. And what happens?

In therapy, the cheated partner finds a place where he or she can talk about feelings of hurt, disbelief, anger, disappointment and fear. The cheater may feel relieved that he or she doesn’t have to keep secrets any longer. He or she may begin to work at understanding why the infidelity occurred. Both can examine their feelings not only about the affair, but also about their relationship in general, and together work at repairing the damages to it. This process, though grueling and painful, is a transformative experience that will make partners feel closer together. It is a life saver because it makes couples look and address deeper, often unconscious issues, just like the visit to the doctor that sounded the alarm for other, underlying medical conditions hitherto unknown to the patient.

Of course, seeking therapy for infidelity is not the only way of addressing the problem, but it is certainly one of the best tools couples have available. The therapist is the professional whom provides support and guidance to couples; helps them get in touch with their feelings and identify the root causes of their problems; teaches them new skills about healthy communication, and guides them towards acceptance, understanding and, finally, forgiveness.

At the end of therapy, couples know each other better and are ready to make a new commitment to each other, borne out of the hard work together. By going through this transformative experience, couples discover an unexpected gift: their love for each other, which they had thought was gone forever.

Do you have a story that reflects this experience? Please comment on this blog, so that we can provide hope for couples who are willing to do the work to restore their love and trust in one another and get their marriage back on the right track.

I would like to hear from you on your views. Please click on the ”comments” button below to make your view known.

We all know the evils of infidelity. In previous blogs I wrote about them, citing statistics, characteristics of who is most likely to cheat, and what can be done to address these issues.

Here I want to approach this subject from a different perspective: infidelity as an alarm system about the state of the relationship, and as an opportunity to make it stronger.

Yes, I know that about 2/3 of relationships where one or both partners cheat end in divorce. As a psychotherapist working with couples, I also know how difficult it is to stay with the pain caused by infidelity and work thorough it. I am keenly aware of how hard it is to forgive and move on. However, in my long career of counseling couples I have seen some of them get stronger and closer to one another after infidelity was uncovered.

So, what makes the difference between couples who survive infidelity and couples who don’t?

There are several factors, in my opinion, that contribute to the difference. Some of them are:

1. The cheater admits to his or her behaviors, rather than being found out;
2. The infidelity is an isolated event, rather than part of a pattern;
3. The infidelity was short lived and did not involve deep feelings on the part of the cheater;
4. Couples used to have good communication and felt close to one another earlier in their relationship, even though at some point they lost closeness;
5. Couples live in a social/religious environment where cheating is strongly looked down upon, and where there are less opportunities to get away with it;
6. Couples have a strong feeling of what is right and wrong;
7. The cheater has the ability to feel empathy for the partner and remorse for the cheating, and the other partner has the ability to forgive.

When these elements are in place, couples have a much better prognosis of surviving infidelity.

After an affair is uncovered, couples respond to it in different ways. All feel an array of intense emotions, like confusion, anger, rage, hurt, fear and disappointment. Some of them, however, are eventually able to get past them and move on. Others stay stuck in a cycle where the cheated partner continues to feel pain and anguish caused by the betrayal, and the cheater maintains a defensive stance and an unwillingness to talk about what happened. When this is the case,  progress is extremely difficult to achieve.

The truth is, very often couples don’t know what to do to address their problems in a healthy way and reduce the pain and hurt they feel. One common approach is to say to each other, “Let’s start again. Let’s forget the past. What happened happened and we cannot change it, so why think about it?”

Well, this approach never works, as avoidance is not a solution to any problem, including infidelity. The simple reason for this is that we cannot forget something so traumatic, so unexpected and still unresolved.

Cheated partners have questions without answers and feel emotions they cannot express. Because security and trust in each other are gone, they cannot process thoughts and feelings with their partners, who used to be their source of comfort and support and now are the cause of their suffering. Without being able to processing their feelings, partners cannot re-establish trust and security in their relationship, thus maintaining a vicious cycle of attacks and defensiveness that cannot be broken.

In order to break this vicious cycle, feelings and the events that caused them need to be addressed together, at the risk of putting the finger on the wound that is still bleeding. Facing the issues rather than avoiding them is actually the way in which the wounds can be healed.

In the next blog post I will talk about what successful couples can do to get their relationship back on track.

Women in general tend to want to see if there is a way of repairing the damage caused by the infidelity. However, they tend to have a very difficult time with trust and with re-engaging in sexual activities with their partners. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to want out of the relationship if it is the woman who was unfaithful. Women are more likely to get depressed in these situations, whereas men are more likely to get angry (Spring.)

Forgiveness is what needs to take place for the relationship to survive in the infidelity. Forgiveness benefits both partners and can take the relationship to a deeper level of intimacy.

However, forgiveness is not an act but a process that requires certain elements to be in place in order to occur. These elements are:

1) EMPATHY.

The person who had the oaffair needs to become aware of the full emotional impact of his or her actions on the other partner and feel what the other is feeling. Up until that point he or she might have minimized this impact, assuming that what is not known does not hurt. However, without open communication, the injuring partner won’t be able to achieve a full understanding and own responsibility for his or her actions. Once the two partners develop an honest way of communicating their feelings, they need to give each other all the time required to process the emotional impact of the affair. The length of this process vary from couple to couple, as a lot of specific elements may speed it up or slow it down. This part of the work requires patience, staying with the feelings, even and particularly when they are uncomfortable and, for the injuring partner, being emotionally available to the injured partner.

2) REMORSE.

There needs to be a reasonable expectation that this behavior won’t occur again in the future. I say “reasonable” because none of us has 100% security about what another person will or will not do in the future. However, it is important for the partner who was betrayed to begin to feel safe again in the relationship. And this is possible only if the person who had the affair becomes a changed person, fully aware of the seriousness of his or her actions and willing to do whatever it takes to change. Forgiveness applies only to those actions that occurred in the past, not to those occurring in the present or possibly happening in the future. It is only when the partner who had the extra-marital affair can provide reassurance that he or she is a changed person that the injured partner can start to rebuild trust. The injuring partner needs to feel and express regret and remorse and communicate these feelings appropriately to the injured partner.

Is there a correlation between the levels of some brain chemicals and vulnerability to extra marital infidelity? Research in this area indicates that, while physical tendencies may be changed by our ability to think and reach logical decisions, our brain chemistry can influence our behaviors and choices. Of these chemicals, three in particular affect sexual and romantic behaviors in men and women. These are: Testosterone, Dopamine and Oxytocin.Elevated levels of these chemicals contribute to the development of lust, romantic love and attachment, all elements that play a role in intimate relationships and thus in affairs as well, separately or together.

Testosterone is a hormone associated with lust. While men tend to have higher elevations of testosterone than women, women can also be affected by this hormone’s levels. In women, lust waxes and wanes according to their menstrual cycle, typically reaching a peak during ovulation – the second week of the menstrual cycle – which is also their most fertile time (Havelick.)

Studies indicate that people with high circulating levels of testosterone tend to have more affairs and higher divorce rates than those with lower testosterone levels. And, while some people may have inherited high testosterone levels, certain situations can also elevate or lower them. For instance, single men have higher testosterone levels than married men. In married men, when marriages are in trouble, levels of testosterone raise (Booth and Dobbs), making affairs more likely to occur.

Dopamine, our most powerful stimulant, is a neurotransmitter that becomes elevated in addictions, and is also elevated when we are in love, contributing to hyper-focused attention, exhilaration, obsessive thinking and increased levels of energy (Fisher.) Research found that novelty (like in an affair) can trigger the release of dopamine and promote romantic love. Dopamine, in turn, stimulates the release of testosterone, which increases one’s sexual drive.

Oxytocin is called the “cuddle hormone’ because of the role it plays in intimacy. The role of oxytocin in affairs seems to be particularly important when we consider affairs women engage in. Women, in fact, tend to have affairs because they are looking for a soul mate, someone they feel emotionally connected to, and with whom they can share their innermost feelings (Spring.) Men, on the other hand, are more likely to look for a playmate, someone with whom they can engage in activities and pursuits they both like and enjoy, including sex.

As we can see, “Love is a symphony of feelings with many notes and chords,” as author Helen Fisher tells us in her book “Why we Love.” There are many elements – we discussed the psychological, environmental and physiological ones – that contribute to making it as exciting, attractive and irresistible as it is, at all ages and under all kinds of circumstances. But, while its elements have been the same throughout history, new technological developments have created circumstances and opportunities for the development and expression of lust and romantic love that are completely new. Internet affairs are examples of such new circumstances, providing hitherto new and fantasy rich romantic and lustful encounters for both men and women.

As we saw in the preceding blog on the psychological traits that make people more vulnerable to extra marital infidelity, it is the emotionally disconnection from their romantic partners – whether because one or both are insecurely attached, or because external circumstances weakened their emotional connection with one another – that makes some people more likely to get involved in extra marital affairs. Most cheaters (over 90% in a survey of over 4,300 people) confirm this when they state that the primary reason for cheating is emotional, not sexual (Layton-Tholl.)

When this lack of emotional connection and closeness with their mates gets married (no puns intended) to the pull of desire, as well as the excitement of the new and forbidden and the fantasy that, with another person, they can achieve the intimacy they want and need, we have a perfect storm for an affair to happen.

However, not all insecurely attached individuals develop affairs. However, insecurely attached people may tend to be more impulsive, as the sense of security in the relationship with their mate is not there to anchor them. Impulsivity facilitates the shift from thinking about doing something to actually carrying the thought out in reality. Impulsive people focus entirely on the present moment and their present needs and block out any thought about the repercussions of their decisions. Impulsivity also blocks out any thought about how a certain behavior may impact people who are going to be affected by these decisions. Of course, impulsivity does not exclusively occur in insecurely attached people, but insecure attachment creates an added vulnerability.

Some other psychological elements may increase the chances of people having extra marital affairs. In an earlier blog we discussed that people in the high drama professions are more at risk for extra marital infidelity. Psychologically, people who choose these professions tend to thrive on excitement and high drama. While their tolerance for routine is quite low as they get easily bored, they are attracted to unpredictability, exhilaration and constant stimulation. Affairs, to these people, are highly appealing and tempting because they feed their need for excitement and risk. These are also people who tend to live in the present, and don’t worry too much about the repercussions of their actions in the future. So, they don’t think about what will happen to their primary relationships as a consequence of their affairs, or to their lovers, often until it is too late. In such cases, impulsivity gets coupled with by an exaggerated sense of entitlement and being above rules that apply to everybody but not them.

In addition to the general situations created by being in long term intimate relationships, there are specific elements that make affairs more likely to occur.

When people live in marital situations where there is a lot of hostility, for instance, an affair may be a way of getting back at a spouse seen as insensitive, uncaring and rejecting. At times they are ways of getting out of the marriage. These affairs are called “exit” affairs.

Going through a life transition, like entering middle age, may also increase chances of one partner getting involved in an affair. The unconscious purpose of the affair here is to deny reality by engaging with a partner – typically younger – who finds us sexually attractive and givers us the attention we crave.

Losing one’s job, recovering from a life threatening illness or getting through the birth of a baby are transitional times where usual patterns of connecting with one’s mate have been altered by these events. Because of this, these emotional connections no longer provide the comfort and security they might have provided in the past. These times also force some people to see their lives differently and reflect on what they want. Consequently, they may develop different priorities and different goals for themselves. Some may struggle with these changes, conflicted about who they used to be and who we are now. Extra marital affairs may both contribute and reflect these changes.

People who are better off economically and have higher levels of education tend to get involved in extra-marital affairs more often than people with lower incomes and lower educational levels. Further, people in occupations with high levels of stress, like working in an emergency room, being a firefighter or a soldier in a combat zone, have higher incidence of affairs than people in professions with less drama. People in the entertainment business are extremely susceptible to getting involved in affairs, because they have the financial means and lead lives full of excitement and high drama. This is also true for surgeons and politicians, as they operate in high visibility and high drama professions.

Gender Differences. Do men and women act differently when it comes to extra marital infidelity? Current trends indicate that the gender gap is closing, as more women are likely to engage in affairs, particularly younger women. We can speculate on what are the reasons for these changes. I think one of the main reasons is the more open attitude about sex and women today, versus the past. Also, most of women in long term relationships now work out of their homes.They are thus in daily contact with other people, exposing themselves to the same risks and vulnerabilities as men. Earlier we talked about the fact that most affairs develop in the office, where both men and women are in daily contact but without the stresses of living together.

Women, today, are also quite aware of their needs and are more assertive in verbalizing and meeting them, rather than passively accept their situations.

There also seems to be a correlation, in women, between age of first intercourse and infidelity later in life. The earlier the first sexual experience, the more likely women are to engage in extra marital sex later in their lives.

In the next blog post we will discuss some of the psychological elements that make some people more vulnerable to extra marital infidelity.

We all fantasize at times about what it would be like to have an affair with one person or another. These fantasies can reflect the dissatisfaction we may experience at some points in our lives, the frustrations, the boredom, or the need to recapture the excitement of a time in our lives that now seems gone. At times these fantasies are indications of something amiss in our lives. Acknowledging them helps us face and address the issues at hand. Fantasies about affairs, however, may also just reflect curiosity, the excitement that comes from someone new, and the sexual attraction we may experience for this person.

Because we live in a society where there is constant contact with people other than our mates, the opportunities to fantasize about them abound. 2 out of 3 women and 3 out of 4 men admit to having had sexual thoughts about a co-worker. And, if we consider that most of the affairs develop between co-workers, we can see how daily contacts with other people can facilitate the development of feelings, friendships and sexual fantasies.

However, even though all of us are exposed to these daily opportunities, it is important to know the difference between fantasy and reality, and be mindful of not going over the threshold between the two, unless we are quite clear this is what we want to do and have thought through this decision. While some affairs may develop into healthy, long lasting relationships, statistics indicate that very few lovers actually stay together for more than four years. And, of those who marry, 75% end up in divorce (Ceo, 2009.)

We will discuss elements that contribute to the occurrence of most affairs. These are grouped under three major headings: situational, psychological and physical elements and will be discussed in this and subsequent blogs.

Let’s begin with situational elements. Are certain situations more likely to make people vulnerable to extra marital infidelity?

Some situations are typical of long term relationships. When people have been in a monogamous romantic relationship for some time, the initial spark and passion for one another typically decreases. The predictability of married life, added to external stressors such as little children, busy schedules, financial strain and spousal disagreements and conflicts, can lead to dissatisfaction between romantic partners and lack of or dissatisfying emotional and physical connection with one another. These conditions may make one or the other partner more vulnerable to an extra marital infidelity. The affair can function as distraction from the nitty-gritty of daily life, and is seen by the person who engages in it as an oasis in the middle of a desert, a cocoon devoid of stress, where communication is open and sexual and emotional needs can be reciprocally fulfilled.

This is a departure from a more traditional profile of the cheater as typically male, middle age, sex-starved, looking for excitement and adventure and needing to be made to feel young and attractive again, preferably by a much younger woman than his marital partner. Not that this profile does not exist any more, but it does neither exhaustively describe nor explain why people cheat in a society where sexual mores have become more relaxed and open, and where women are as likely as men to act out their emotional and sexual fantasies .

Other changes in patterns of affairs have to do with the way in which today people connect with one another. The increasing use of the Internet as a social network creates a whole new set of opportunities, and threats. The fact that about 35% of all divorce litigations cite internet affairs as the cause of them attests to the widespread use of the Internet for this purpose. People get in touch with one another after years of disconnection, or they anonymously connect with others in ways that create new virtual networks. About 70% of the time people spend on line is allegedly used to visit “chat rooms” or sending/receiving e-mails. The vast majority of interactions in chat rooms are of a romantic nature (Adamse & Motta, 2000.) Because all this was unheard of just a decade ago, we are just beginning to grasp its importance and its effects on intimacy and love.

One of the astonishing differences between romance and sex in cyberspace and in real time is that more than half of all men and women who engage in cyberspace romance and sex believe what they do is not adultery. I believe this contributes to lowering the threshold between thinking and wishing to have an affair on the one hand, and carrying it out on the other. This belief, in fact, by lowering one’s inhibitions and reducing guilt, increases acting out emotionally and sexually.

First of all, it is important to say that each situation is different, so what applies to one may not apply to another, as there isn’t a single answer that applies to all of them.

At one extreme sexting may be part of a much bigger pattern of dysfunctional behaviors, just the tip of the iceberg. These behaviors may have been going on for a long time, with the person acting inappropriately and feeling no remorse about their actions. The two partners may have been estranged for quite some time, unable or uninterested in reconnecting at an emotional and physical level. Couples here, if interested in addressing these dysfunctional issues, need to bring everything to the surface in order to grasp the full impact of the problems on their relationship.

They often may need professional help, like couple counseling, sexual addiction counseling, and/or individual psychotherapy that searches deeper for the root causes of behaviors.

At the other extreme, a partner may have been sexting for the first time, for a very short time, with a familiar person. He or she may be remorseful and guilty, conflicted about these acts and feeling bad about them, even while continuing them. In general, the relationship between the two partners is a healthy one. Both feel close and loving toward each other. Neither has any thoughts of disaffection and/or plans to leave. These couples need an open and frank discussion about what’s going on and what each thinks, feels and wants from their relationship and commitment to one another.

In between these two extremes, there are all kinds of permutations and combinations of intimate relationships, with different degrees of communication and emotional and physical connection. Additionally, one or both partners in the relationship may have various degrees of dysfunction and pathology that influence their actions.

It is, to a large extent, what partners do once they open up the discussion with one another that determines how the relationship will fare. If both partners are interested and willing to work at repairing their relationship, one conversation doesn’t do it. They need to make a commitment to talk on a regular basis; to find the time, at the end of each day, to sit with one another and share their thoughts and FEELINGS. They need to be honest while being empathic; confronting while expressing compassion, and collaborative, instead of adversarial. There has to be time for expressing anger and hurt, betrayal and disappointment, shame and guilt, humiliation and remorse. There has to be an opportunity for each partner to listen without attacking; to be emotionally available and committed to the work.

Beyond that, there has to be time to understand, together, what went wrong; where the disconnection occurred; what triggered the impulse to seek elsewhere something that seemed appealing and fun. Can that be recreated IN THE RELATIONSHIP? The focus should be on how to do so, by being open about likes and dislikes, different views of relationships, expectations, goals. Together, couples should work at rebuilding the feeling of emotional safety that used to be in their relationship, but that at some point disappeared. Additionally, a discussion needs to take place about the future: how can these kinds of actions be prevented from occurring again?

Can all of this be achieved? It can, if couples commit to the hard work that brings about deeper understanding, stronger feelings for one another and a closer loving bond.