Relationships That Survive Cheating Have These 4 Small Things In Common, Says Psychology
Yes, you can start over, even after an affair.
Dali Images | Canva As a therapist specializing in working with couples, I know a truth most people don’t know — that relationships can bounce back from infidelity. They can even become stronger than ever. I am not at all advocating for affairs, but I do want to instill some hope that relationships can overcome them.
Here are 4 small things relationships that survive cheating have in common, says psychology:
1. They understand affairs don’t necessarily indicate a bad marriage
Infidelity is the No. 1 reason couples come to me for counseling. They are desperate to stay together and sincerely want to work through the pain and betrayal, which can hurt almost as much as the pain we experience when someone we know has died. That's because, in many ways, the marriage has died — but that doesn’t mean a new one can't be born.
An article summarising the current state of research on the prediction of infidelity published in Current Opinion in Psychology Journal discusses how people cheat for many reasons. Some of my clients have told me they cheated because they were too afraid or ashamed to talk to their partners about their preferences or fantasies. They may have cautiously suggested an intimate practice that was met with disbelief, disgust, or accusations of perversion and vowed never again to raise the subject.
However, suppression of fantasy or desire, as research in the Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Journal acknowledges, does not rid a person of the desire. In most cases, it simply shoves into the unconscious, where it will eventually come out in inopportune, inappropriate, and destructive ways.
Some men, rather than bringing up such a subject, feel so much shame that they automatically assume their wives will freak out. They then project their shame upon their partner, often unjustly. Even if the wife initially isn't open to such experimentation, the man’s desire for it isn't likely to go away, and he may seek out a different avenue with which to vent it. Similarly, a husband’s unwillingness to be more romantic doesn’t mean his wife’s desire for it will go away, either.
These couples need to learn how to have honest, open, and extended conversations about such things, to see each other’s different points of view, to give each other the chance to feel empathy and compassion toward each other, and, perhaps, to be willing to experiment.
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2. They know commitment does not reframe the new relationship dynamic
When a relationship does survive an affair, and the couple makes it to the healing on the other side, their connection typically becomes better than ever. But that doesn’t happen without a lot of hard work and many difficult conversations along the way.
Love and desire are extremely subtle and complicated emotions. Internationally known author and psychotherapist Esther Perel says, “The dilemmas of love and desire are way too complex to yield simple answers of good and bad, victim and perpetrator, right and wrong.”
I agree. If the betrayed partner, for example, takes the victim’s attitude of, “You did this to me, and now it is up to you to fix this problem because I have nothing to do with it,” the problem will neither be understood nor resolved.
The problem may be rooted in feeling frustrated, neglected or ignored, lonely, or many other things. Condemning the partner who cheated and taking refuge in the role of victim is not only useless, it's damaging.
Even worse is when the injured party becomes the shamed one, as in when a friend or relative says, “How could you even think of staying with that cheater after what he did to you?” It takes real courage to face the subtle problems that lead to infidelity. Such simple judgments by others only compound the problems. Frankly, shaming the injured party for staying and working things out seems to conflict with our cultural message that marriage and relationships matter and should be fought for.
3. There's a willingness of the cheating partner to talk about what happened
A study in the Journal of Family Issues explains how the betrayer has to be willing to listen to the pain of the injured partner for as long as is needed to begin to lessen the trauma and rebuild trust. They must be able and willing to feel and share their remorse, guilt, and empathy for the hurt they caused.
This talk must happen in a controlled situation, i.e., in the presence of a therapist or some other ritualized and controlled setting or healing space. This venting of one’s pain shouldn't be spontaneous or done in public or in front of other family members or children.
Such strong reactivity must be contained by both parties to ensure a healthy dialogue. It is much too vulnerable an interaction and would be quickly polarizing for anyone outside of the relationship to witness.
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4. There is a willingness of the cheating partner to be completely transparent
That means no secret passwords for emails or computers and no secret meetings or letters. Nothing can ever be deleted. Otherwise, the injured partner cannot learn to trust again.
Over time, the injured partner needs to understand that total transparency is no longer useful and must prepare for that to end and learn to trust in the dark. This isn't easy, but it is necessary.
Infidelity has been with us since the institution of marriage began. If the mere existence of the cheating website Ashley Madison is any indication, it will remain with us in the future as well. So it is important that we can, as a society, come to terms with that reality, find ways to effectively deal with the shame and pain, and try to help couples reestablish the bonds that first brought them together.
As for the broader question of monogamy, as a society, we may eventually have to come to terms with the idea that some of us are simply not well suited to it.
Joe Kort, Ph.D., LMSW, is a psychotherapist and the author of books on gay male development and gay male couples, including Is My Husband Gay, Straight or Bi: A Guide For Women Concerned About Their Men.