Here's what you should know about why the affair may have happened, and how marital counseling can help you both move forward.
So, who’s cheating on whom these days? Statistics on infidelity vary: According to one survey by researchers at the University of Chicago, 15 to 18 percent of participants said they had cheated on a spouse sometime during their marriage.
But when an affair involves your partner, the number of other people experiencing the consequences of infidelity doesn’t matter — it’s the rage, hurt, and fear you are feeling that does the damage. And this goes for an emotional affair, or an affair of the heart, as well as for a physical, or sexual, affair.
An emotional affair, which has all of the markings of infidelity — such as distancing oneself and detachment from a partner — but without the sex, can cause just as much damage as a sexual affair can, says Steven Kimmons, SJ, PhD, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Loyola University Medical Center and a counselor at the Fahey Center in Maywood, Ill.
In today’s world, e-mail, cell phones, texting, and Internet chat rooms are all ways people can connect and keep in touch with others, and that may make it easier to have an affair and to get caught, says Kimmons. E-mail accounts and cell phone call logs can easily be accessed by a spouse.
When infidelity occurs and is found out, it takes a lot of work through marriage counseling to get your relationship back to a healthy place, but it can get there.
Why Partners Cheat
There are probably as many reasons people cheat as there are couples that seek marriage counseling, Kimmons says.
Sometimes infidelity is a symptom of existing relationship problems. When you see a doctor about a physical ailment, your doctor asks about your symptoms and is trained to give you a diagnosis. “It’s kind of the same with infidelity,” Kimmons says. The infidelity is a symptom and a counselor has the task of probing deeper to find out what relationship problems pushed someone to be unfaithful.
That’s not to say that the affair was justified or that the spouse who was cheated on is to blame, but trying to repair the marriage involves looking at what went wrong — what led to the infidelity.
“A misconception is that infidelity is about sex, and I don’t believe that it usually is,” says Ann Hartlage, PhD, psychologist and director of the marital and sex therapy program at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “It usually starts with problems in a relationship.”
Here are some reasons why a spouse may be unfaithful:
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Unresolved conflict in a marriage that causes a partner to give up and go to someone else for intimacy
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Feeling uncomfortable about getting older
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Sexual dissatisfaction with a partner
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Having difficulty being intimate with a partner — an affair allows the person to avoid deep intimacy with someone
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Boredom within a marriage, which leads the partner to justify an affair
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Life stressors such as work, financial problems, or issues with kids that cause some people to seek an outlet through an affair
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Loneliness or being unable to connect with a spouse
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The partner is narcissistic and because they think they’re not getting enough attention from a spouse, they seek additional attention from another person.
Surviving Infidelity: Marriage Counseling
There tends to be a process to healing a relationship after infidelity has been discovered, Hartlage says. Couples have to work on fixing the relationship problems that may have contributed to the affair.
First, there’s rage, often with hurt and fear underneath the rage, and then there’s the task of rebuilding trust, which can take a long time. Hartlage says she worked with a couple who had been together over 20 years — an infidelity occurred early in the relationship, but the partner who was cheated on never totally regained trust.
Also, your concept of a relationship may be a factor in how you weather infidelity. “If the understanding is that ‘you will never cheat and there will never be a time when I will be anything but number one in your life,’ it’s very hard to heal a breach like infidelity,” Kimmons says.
No one wants infidelity in a relationship, he continues, but when a partner sees the experience as part of the growing process in their relationship, he or she is more likely to be able to forgive a spouse. “That’s not to say it’s easy or simple, but with help, he or she can,” Kimmons says.
One thing to consider is whether the affair was an isolated incident or part of a pattern. It’s much harder for a partner to heal when infidelity is an ongoing issue.
On the other hand, the old saying, “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” isn’t true for everyone, Hartlage says. Some people have been unfaithful, but worked to fix their marriage and go forward without cheating again, she says.
A big mistake couples make is going to a counselor as a last resort. If your relationship has been threatened by infidelity, get marriage counseling early, Kimmons suggests. Often, couples are willing to take the time to work out relationship problems, but don’t know what to do. A marriage counselor can help right away.
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