A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
Archive for the ‘Infidelity’ Category
- New York City
Approximately 30% of the couples who begin marital therapy do so as a result of an extramarital affair. Usually when a couple comes to see me for the first time the affair has been revealed within the past week or two. Obviously at that point the wounds are still very fresh.
These days spouses often discover their partner is having an affair by finding emails, cell phone calls, or text messages to or from the third party. It can be hard to cover your tracks these days. (Of course, some people want their affair to be discovered. But that’s a whole other article.)
Inevitably the question in therapy becomes: how will the wife get over what has been done to her? (For this article I’ll assume the husband had the affair since that is more common). As I’ve written about before, it’s not unusual for the man not to want to talk about it. He has apologized and now he thinks his wife should “get over it.” Of course, he typically feels guilty and embarrassed about what he did, so it’s not easy to talk about it. I normalize this.
Usually the wife wants to know why he did it, how could he think it was OK to do it, and details about where, when, and how often. It’s common for the wife to ask these questions over and over again during the months that she is recovering. One of my jobs is to convince the husband that this is normal and that it’s in his best interest to patiently answer the questions as many times as necessary.
The recovery process is long and difficult but it can be worth effort. My goal as counselor is for the couple to end up with a relationship that is stronger than it had ever been before.
- Dolphin, Kauai
Here’s the latest news on infidelity, according to recently published studies:
- Older men are cheating more than they used to. In 1991, 20% of men over age 60 said they had been unfaithful at some point in their life. In 2006, the rate increased to 28%. (These data are reported by Dr. David Atkins at the University of Washington Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors.)
- Younger women are now cheating almost as much as younger men: For people under age 35, 20% of men at 15% of women say they have been unfaithful. These numbers are up significantly from 1991. The increase is blamed at least partially on Internet pornography and women working more and travelling more.
Of course, it can be hard to determine what percentage of people are unfaithful, because not everyone who has cheated will admit it to a researcher. That’s why researchers now use anonymous computer questionnaires to compile their data.
One more thing: those high rates of cheating that you see in the surveys done by some women’s magazines are not accurate because the people who take the survey are not a random cross-section of the population. Instead, they are the ones who choose to respond to the survey, and they are more likely to say they have been unfaithful.
- Extreme Skateboarder
One of the more interesting defense mechanisms is projection, which was first described by Freud. In projection, one attributes his/her own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions to others. In other words, whatever you unconsciously don’t like about yourself is what you really despise in other people.
All defense mechanisms serve to reduce anxiety, and projection is no different. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing a person to express unwanted subconscious desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.
In couples therapy projection can crop up in a very interesting way. Someones I will work with a couple in which one partner has severe “trust issues” and constantly suspects the other of cheating, even when there is absolutely no evidence of it. On more than one occasion, it has turned out (surprise!) that the overly suspicious partner is the one who had cheated! The unfaithful partner felt guilty about his/her own cheating, and so projected it onto the innocent partner to reduce anxiety.
Here are three secretive behaviors to think about. If you see your spouse engaging in them, you should be concerned about what he is keeping from you.
- Secretive about his e-mail. Maybe he only reads his e-mail when you aren’t around, and then carefully deletes it. Even worse: he has a secret e-mail account that he hasn’t told you about.
- Secretive about his cell phone. Is he careful to keep his phone away from you? Does he erase the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls. Does he erase the text messages? Even worse: he has a second phone that you don’t know about. Even worser: it’s a pay-as-you-go phone, which means that detailed bills don’t arrive at your home.
- Secretive about his credit cards. He doesn’t want you to see the monthly statements. Even worse: he has a secret credit card with a different address so that the bills don’t arrive at your home.
And yes, people really do all of these things.
In working with couples who have recovered from infidelity, I’ve pieced together the thought process that gets people into and out of affairs. I’ve written the following from the perspective of a man, but it wouldn’t be too much different for a woman. By the way, this thinking (except for the parts about sex) applies to emotional affairs as well as physical ones.
- Excitement. “Wow! An attractive woman likes me! Yes! Even though I’m [insert age here] I’m still in good shape and attractive. I’ve still ‘got it’! This is going to be great. I haven’t felt this much excitement in my life for a long time. We’re going to have a lot of fun and I’m going to be happier now. My girlfriend understands me, unlike my wife, who hasn’t understood me for years. I just have to be careful so that my wife will never find out about it. Actually the sneaking around part adds to the excitement!”
- Boredom. “This is starting to become monotonous. And it’s getting harder to sneak out of work and then to make excuses at home. My wife is asking why we aren’t intimate anymore, and at the same time the sex with my girlfriend is boring now. That excitement I felt a few months ago is gone. And my girlfriend is starting to annoy me; she wants to know where this ‘relationship’ is going.”
- Reality. “Maybe my wife isn’t really the problem, because things weren’t any better with my girlfriend. Maybe I have some issues of my own that I should look at. Maybe it’s true that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. I’ve cut things off with my girlfriend, but my wife is very suspicious because of some e-mails that she found. I wonder if I should come clean with her or if it’s better to keep denying everything. I really hope my wife doesn’t leave me.”
Yesterday I wrote about how some men want to minimize and not talk about their affairs (whether emotional or physical). As a real-life example, I give you John Edwards.
Last night Edwards, the ex-senator and former presidential candidate, finally admitted to having had an affair, after denying it for months. This pretty much shatters his carefully-cultivated image of the loyal husband standing by his wife while she battles incurable cancer.
I noticed several interesting things in the television interview that Edwards gave and in the written statement that he released. All of them seem like attempts to minimize the damage.
- The timing was no accident. Fewer people pay attention to news on Friday evenings since it’s the beginning of the weekend. Also, a lot of people were tuned into the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Finally, Russia’s invasion of Georgia was another distraction.
- The words affair and cheating were never used. He spoke of having had “a liason” and making “a serious error in judgment.” (You think?)
- He said that his had been “99 percent honest” while denying the affair for the past year or so. That’s just laughable.
- But he did say somthing that I find very credible: “in the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.” Ah, narcissism, one of my favorite topics. Remember that narcissists believe that they are special and that the rules don’t apply to them. Yeah, that fits here.
Some couples who come in for counseling have severe “trust issues.” I see this most often in younger couples who are not married. The couple may not have been together for very long, and most likely were in previous relationships where one or both had experienced a cheating partner.
In the most severe cases, a person may be obsessing over whether or not their partner is cheating, even if there is no evidence or reason to suspect. A nightly checking of the partner’s cell phone to scroll through the text messages, or looking for multiple calls to an unrecognized phone number, or breaking into the partner’s email account to look for any incriminating emails are all things some partners do to convince themselves that no cheating is going on.
There are a couple of questions to address here:
- What can be done when a person is obsessing over his/her partner’s trustworthiness? In this case, traditional treatments for obsessions, such as the “thought stopping” technique, can be valuable. Three simple methods to use are:
- Thought Replacement: when an unwanted thought enters your mind, immediately replace it with a healthy, rational thought. You can only think about one thing at at time, so crowd out the “bad” thought.
- Thought Stopping: when you catch yourself with the unwanted thought, immediately shout Stop! either aloud or only in the mind. Continue to shout Stop! until the unwanted thought ceases.
- Thought Disputing: Challenge the unwanted thoughts that come into your mind, asking: “Is this a rational thought? If not, what is irrational about it? What do I need to do to change this idea?”
- How can I really learn to trust the person I love? (I am assuming, of course, that the person really does deserve your trust, in other words, that they are not cheating.) Trust can be defined as “a measure of belief in the honesty, benevolence and competence of the other party.” How can you expect to spend the rest of your life with someone you will always suspect? Some believe that when you enter into a new relationship, you are starting all over again and can leave the baggage from a previous relationships behind. While that may be possible, it doesn’t always happen. The fact is that when you move onto a new relationship, hurts from the past are still present. Give yourself and your relationship time to build trust. If we have spent enough time with our partner to develop strong feelings for them, trust should be part of that. Do some research on the topic of trust: what does it really mean and how can each of us reach the goal of trusting together?
Trust is a vitally important part of any relationship. If you feel the need to do any of the checking mentioned above, how about trying some of these ways to start trusting your partner?
I gave u the 411 abt emo affairs in a post lst Oct.
FYI emo affairs R strng friendshps btw ppl who R attrctd to 1 another, but who dnt have sex.
4 xampl, a mn & a wmn who mEt ofn 4 lunch & tlk bout dEp issuz (like probs w/ their m8s).
L8ly Ive sEn a nu twist: emo affairs that R done mostly by txt msgs!
Of corz, U can B busted if ur m8 looks at the cell fone bill & sees there R way 2 mnE txt msgs!
We may LOL at this, but plz member that emo affairs R FUBAR b/c ur cheatin on ur m8. 
U shd B spendin ur tym & emos on him or her, not NE1 else. 
B ur m8’s BFF!
C U l8r.
When there has been infidelity in a couple who is in marriage therapy, questions about rigorous honesty and disclosure usually arise. This is because the unfaithful spouse has been keeping secrets and telling lies. In some cases, he (I’ll assume it’s the husband who was unfaithful) may even have been living a double life, sometimes the good husband/father, but at other times the drinking/flirting/sneaking cheater.
Part of the healing process is to restore honesty, openness, and transparency. Confession is part of this. However, hearing the truth can be very painful to the aggrieved spouse. Handling this disclosure process in marriage therapy can be tricky.
I ask the wife how much detail she wants to know. I find that some wives want to know only in general what happened, while others want to know all the details. But by letting her decide how much material will be shared, I am able to give her a small sense of power in this situation in which she may feel powerless and helpless.
If there have been many acts of infidelity, it’s typical for the unfaithful spouse to only admit to as few as he thinks he can get away with revealing. I know this in advance, and I tell him that it will be much better for the health of the relationship if he comes clean right away with everything that he did. Only admitting part of it, then maybe a little more later on, then a little more as necessary, is called staggered disclosure, and it’s much more damaging to the aggrieved spouse, because she is never sure if she has heard everything yet. This makes it more difficult to rebuild trust in the relationship.
This week I’m in Phoenix, studying treatments for sex addiction at workshop given by the International Institute for Truma and Addiction Profesionals (IITAP). I’ve been interested in sex addiction for a some time, mainly because of the number of men I’ve worked with who had an internet pornography addiction.
This workshop is being led by Dr. Patrick Carnes, who was a pioneer in the research and treatment of sex addiction. His book, Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction, written in 1983, was the groundbreaking book in the field. Also teaching is Dr. Kenneth Adams, who has also written books on the topic.
Sex addiction is an increasing problem in our society, due in large part to the internet. Online, it is easy to access pornography of every variety, find partners for casual anonymous sex, and locate prostitutes. The discovery by a spouse or partner of a secret sex addiction is, of course, very damaging, and often brings couples into marital therapy.
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