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.

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.

This last statement is actually the one that gets us at the deepest level, as we tend to look up to public figures to model proper behaviors for us. The Gores, in their public life, always reflected an image of solidity, mutual care, reciprocal respect and resiliency. In a world where things can change faster than we can process them, the Gores reflected our needs for consistency and predictability, and our belief that love can indeed be eternal and immutable. With their announcement to get divorced, all this seems to crumble. But is it really crumbling? Or is it merely changing? Is it them or us?

We tend to project onto people, particularly public figures, emotions we feel about ourselves. Our assessments about their behaviors, actions and decisions, therefore, tell more about who WE are than who THEY are. So, our reactions to the Gores’ announcement tell us more about how WE feel about marriage and divorce, than what THEY think.

And what do we think? We want to believe that, if we make it through the tough years of our relationships, we will reach a place where we won’t have to worry about problems any more, where we don’t have to work on the relationship any longer, but just coast. We want to believe that if people like the Gores can stay together for 40 years and still be happy, so can we. Their decision to divorce, therefore, is a huge threat to these fantasies, raising our anxieties about the future of our intimate relationship and challenging our needs for security and predictability.

And what do the Gores think? They tell us that they want to remain friends. That this was a consensual decision they reached after careful thinking and discussing with one another. If that is the case, perhaps their decision is not a negative one but one that may offer them new opportunities, new options at this point in their lives. Or perhaps they just gave up, believing there was nothing more they could or wanted to do to save their love.

It is true that couples who have been married for ten years or less are more likely to get divorced than couples who are older and have been together for many years. However, new trends indicate that the fastest growing segment of the population seeking divorce are people in middle age and older and that women are as likely to initiate divorce as men are. (Deirdre Bair, The 40-Year Itch, New York Times, 6/2/10.)

Perhaps the Gores’ announcement to divorce is a sign of the times, where older people see life as full of opportunities they don’t want to miss? Could it be a reflection of seeing middle and old age not as an end, but as a new stage they want to live as fully as the previous ones?

Middle aged and older people today are more vigorous, open to new experiences, healthy and curious about life than ever. For some of them this new view of middle and old age means better quality in intimate relationships, whether this means staying with a partner of many years and continue to improve these relationships, or moving their separate ways.

The baby boomers are the “me” generation, focused in taking care of their needs and feeling they deserve everything life has to offer. Perhaps this new divorce increase among them is yet another indication of this self-absorption?

Whatever the reasons behind the Gores’ decision, it challenges us to rethink what we want in life and what we want and need to do to achieve and preserve it.

We welcome your comments on this timely story. Click the comment button below to make your comment.

Feel free to make a comment about it by clicking on the comment button below.

I am about to begin a mulitple post “journey” of a recently married couple, Paul and Francesca. We are going to post each week for a total of 52 weeks on this blog.

Please come back often to visit and see how this wonderful story unfolds. I don’t want to spoil the storyline, but I want to tell you that you will thoroughly enjoy it!

Valentine was a bishop who married Romans in secret, celebrating their love for one another, at a time when marriage was forbidden by law. When arrested by the same Roman emperor who had forbidden marriages because he believed they did not allowed men to be valiant soldiers, he chose to die rather than change his views on love. In addition, while in jail he fell in love with his jailer’s daughter and, just before his execution, sent her a “Valentine Note.”

The message we derive from these historical events is: love counts, love needs to be acknowledged, cherished and celebrated. Two thousand years later, we are still acknowledging this day and the person who started it, because we still believes that love counts and is worth celebrating. 

What does this day mean to you?

I hope not only another time to buy a gift and make reservations to a nice restaurant, and nothing more.

I encourage you to go beyond these formalities, and think of ways in which you want to let your loved one know how much he or she means to you.

Valentine’s Day is, in fact, a day of acknowledgment and appreciation. We often don’t let people we love know how much we appreciate who they are, what they do for us, how they make our lives better and richer and how grateful we are for who they are. We may take them for granted, caught as we are in our frenetic lives and daily demands. But, if we don’t tell them our feelings, how will they know that we have them? Particularly if we are in a long term relationship, we may believe Valentine’s Day is only for new lovers, not for people like us. Wrong! Valentine’s Day is for all people who love, and this accounts for a very large part of the human population.

Can you think of meaningful ways of expressing your love feelings? However, you are going to do it – with flowers, a card, a gift, an evening together – remember that what is most important is being close. Hold your Valentine’s hand, sit closer to him or her than you usually do, remember what are the things he or she appreciates and provide them as a sign of your love. Above all, whatever you do, make sure it is special, out of the ordinary, because these special events create memories that make up our love histories together and will be cherished for many years to come. After all, what is our life if not a series of memories that give us the sense of who we are and who our loved ones are?

Don’t wait until the last minute to rush to buy a card, or to pick a bunch of flowers among the ones left over. Put some time and thought in it, it will show.

This is also a time when some couples choose to make important decisions about their lives together. Some men propose on Valentine’s Day; some couples marry. To all of them we wish they will be able to maintain these feelings for one another throughout their lives together. To those and all love couples who celebrate this day, we wish a celebration that takes heir love relationship to a higher level of closeness and intimacy.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

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. Click on the comments button below and give us your thoughts!

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.

In a series of blogs of which this is the first one, I will discuss the situational, psychological and physical elements that may play a relevant role in cheating. I will also discuss the most common reasons for affairs, the differences between cyber space and real time affairs and the differences between affairs in the past and today. Finally, I will address what happens to primary relationships and to lovers after the affairs.

Please join in this discussion of affairs today versus the past, and cheating in virtual space versus real time with your thoughts and experiences. Simply press the “comments” button to make your comment.

Remember: intimate relationships are often the reasons for our most devastating emotional pains, yet they also are the means that guide us toward healing them. When we are in deep pain, we cannot, alone, make ourselves feel better, as the pain gets magnified and feels insurmountable. We ruminate on the same issues, over and over, wasting energy without getting ahead. So, we lose our ability to assess and to reflect, as we cannot see the forest because of the trees, too wrapped up in our emotions to be able to put things in perspective. For this we need another person – someone we feel safe with – to provide feedback, offer support, soothing and reassurance, and help us become more comfortable with our emotions and make sense of what is happening to us. Together with this person, the ability to process our emotions and understand what is happening can be regained.

It is the emotional connection created by the relationship itself, not so much what is discussed and how, that is healing. It is the feeling of emotional safety that this connection provides that facilitates opening up, reaching out for support and help, taking in what the other person has to offer and which allays our painful emotions.

And, as these become more manageable, we take a step back and reflect of what is going on and how we are affected by them. This reflective ability, in turn, opens up options for us, as we now can think and feel about how to address issues that are at the root of our emotional discomfort. As we said earlier, this process requires the presence of a safe person, be it a loved one or a professional.

Psychotherapy is like a microcosm reflecting what is going on in our life in general. Because of it, we express emotions via a process called transference about people in our lives and about ourselves. And, because we don’t have to worry about being  judged, rejected, abused or abandoned, the therapeutic setting can provide an opportunity to safely explore what is happening to us emotionally and process, together, emotions that would have been too uncomfortable and scary to explore and feel when alone.

Visit My main website at http://droherpsychotherapy.com

If you have a story to share please make a comment below. Who knows, your story could help others!

Sharing our experiences and emotions enriches us and helps us manage our uncomfortable emotions, better adapting to life’s challenges and partaking of the joys of life in deeper and fuller ways.

But what is this feeling we call love? Love is not a single feeling, but a complex of many emotions – tenderness, attraction, resentment, frustration, longing, respect, anger, admiration, disappointment, and so on – that are felt at different times with different intensity.

When we are in a good place with our partner, we mostly feel the wish to be together, as the sexual attraction and the feelings of comfort and security are the ones we are most aware of. After we had an argument, on the other hand, we may be hurt and frustrated, upset and disappointed and may fear things will never again be the same as before. We may be angry and focus on our partner’s negative traits. This anger, in turn, keeps us apart. When we feel emotionally distant from one another, we may feel numb and out of touch with our emotions. We may not be interested in exploring what is going on, as some of our feelings are turned off. Or, we may experience deep longing and sadness. When we feel rejected, as when our love is unrequited, we panic and feel deeply hurt. We are in agony, and cannot soothe ourselves or see anything positive in any other area of our lives.

As we go through different life experiences, we are affected and changed by them, each generating different feelings and reactions in us. To go through these changes is part and parcel of being alive, as every experience brings with it different feelings and throws a different light on how we experience life and who we are. So, no wonder why people in intimate love relationships are at times confused and dismayed by the many emotional changes they and their partners undergo during the course of their relationship, and afraid for their future together!

Maintaining a loved relationship is a balancing act, at times challenging, at times frustrating, but always worthwhile. At times, to stay connected with a loved one seems like an impossible task, particularly when we are struggling with some personal emotional issues that reduce our abilities to stay connected and increase our anxieties and fears.

Click on the comment button below to tell us about your love!