It’s no surprise that affairs are a common reason why people come to couple therapy. In this article, I want to make some observations about the potential meanings of affairs.
I am not of course advocating nor making excuses for an affair. An affair often happens when partners are unable to or have stopped connecting as a couple. The ideal course of action is for then for one partner to start a conversation about what seems to be missing between them and what has been lost.
Unfortunately rather than having such a conversation, partners all too often turn away from each other, and in some instances turn towards a third party.
Nevertheless, an affair doesn’t necessarily signal the end of a relationship, and can in many instances present an opportunity for a couple to rebuild and rethink.
By affairs, we often think of secret passionate sexual encounters. But for many, what is significant is not the sex, but the emotional connection, and non-physical relationships are often meeting the same needs which are missing in the primary relationship – for example recognition as a ‘lover’ rather than a parent; kindness, warmth or affirmation– things that may have been long lost, perhaps since having children. The connection may have been lost for other reasons too, for example the death of a parent, or anxieties which can’t be shared.
The hardest thing for the betrayed partner is also the key to understanding and rebuilding from the affair – recognising his or her role in the affair.
Ultimately, it’s helpful to see an affair as a symptom of a couple problem rather than the cause.
And both partners may have had a role in this, the betrayed partner often without realising it.
Quite common is the pattern that one partner can’t say what’s wrong (and therefore has the affair instead of broaching a very difficult conversation), the other can’t see what’s wrong, and avoids looking for signs that all is not well. It’s common for the partner having the affair to make little effort to keep it a secret – messages pop up on phone screens; laptops left open and emails left on screen. The days of silent phone calls to home phones might be a thing of the past, but the signs are almost always there if the other partner chooses to look. The discovery of the affair, painful as it is, presents the first step to rethinking and rebuilding the relationship, often after years of mutual lack of affection or distancing.
There are other reasons for an affair of course. Sometimes it’s borne out of some strong negative emotions from one partner to the other – a sort of attack or punishment. Even though this is deeply hurtful for the wounded party, exploring the reasons behind this can be worthwhile and sometimes be understood and recovered from.
Recovery from an affair takes time. There isn’t a to-do list or a set of actions which will reset things; it’s more often than not about spending time in sessions reflecting on past experiences, both partners talking about what was missing for them, their attempts to connect, what did and didn’t work and what would need to change in order to repair trust and rebuild the connection which may have been missing for many years. Ultimately it’s about reaching a point where it’s no longer about blame, and both partners can recognise the undelying loss of connection is something they each had a role in.
Of course, not all couples recover from affairs. Some decide that repair is too daunting or have already moved on from the relationship. Couple therapy can still help though. It can help couples think about co-parenting together, and help them avoid similar difficulties in a new relationship further down the line. What’s hard to avoid altogether though is that in most cases, separation isn’t pain-free – someone usually gets hurt. But like other injuries in life, recovery and repair is possible, whether or not the couple stays together.