Acting out in an affair are often signs of problems with the person's life. A push / pull dynamic can fuel the infidelity. Join sex therapist and author Laurie Watson and couples therapist Dr. Adam Mathews as they talk about the causes and how to recover from the pain of infidelity. Take a moment and fill out our 8-question demographic survey. Transcript: Laurie Watson: Adam, we're going to talk about extramarital affairs today, a difficult subject and something that certainly brings up a lot of pain for couples, but we want to offer some hope and some new ways to think about it. Hello again, and welcome to Foreplay – Radio Sex Therapy. I'm your host, certified sex therapist, Laurie Watson, author of Wanting Sex Again, and blogger at Psychology Today and Web. MD, and I have with me Dr. Adam Mathews, my co-host, who's a couples therapist, psychotherapist, and President of NCAMFT. Foreplay is dedicated to helping couples keep it hot. Thanks for listening. Now, onto today's topic. Adam Mathews: A tricky subject today on the podcast, affairs, extramarital affairs. It's tricky for a lot of different reasons, right? Laurie Watson: It is. Adam Mathews: People classify affairs in a lot of different ways, in how you label affairs whether, because then, a lot of people, it's not just a sexual affair, it can be an emotional affair. Some people are going to define kissing somebody else as an affair. Somebody might even just describe not telling their partner about a relationship that's forming with somebody that they're attracted to as an affair, and so it's wide-ranging and it's one of the more devastating things to a relationship, right? I think it's devastating in part because of how much it breaks the trust, the core trust in the relationship. It's for most people, especially people in committed monogamous relationships, they believe that their sexual relationship is like the primary boundary that distinguishes their relationship from every other relationship that they have in life, and so that primary boundary gets violated and it gets broken, and so it's very difficult to recover from something like that, but it is recoverable. Laurie Watson: It is. Adam Mathews: There are ways that you can begin to move through a healing process in an affair. Laurie Watson: And rebuild trust. Adam Mathews: And rebuild that trust. Laurie Watson: Yeah. Adam Mathews: Right? Laurie Watson: Yeah. I think that affairs happen for two reasons. One, an affair is a refuge from a relationship problem in the marriage, or in the committed partnership, but it also comes from a pain in a person's life. There's two forces often, or one or the other force that's happening. The classic midlife crises is the person who, maybe there are marital stressors, but they're facing aging, they're facing disappointments in their career. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie Watson: There are many internal issues that they're going through that caused them to act out and have an affair. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Yeah. I would call this the push-pull effect, right? If there's relationship problems going on that can often be pushing them out of the relationship, where they turn to other things, or the internal that's pulling them towards something that they're wanting, that they feel like is lacking either in them internally or in the relationship, and so like recognizing that, those things, you then begin to just turn to something that you feel like is going to give you what you're lacking in that, either that safety in the relationship that you're not experiencing, the excitement, the attention, or it's going to satisfy that kind of pain. Laurie Watson: Right. That's the push. Adam Mathews: That's the push. Laurie Watson: That's the push out of the relationship, and the pull toward is what? Adam Mathews: Yeah. It is something that you're missing internally in yourself, confidence, loneliness, meaning in life, feeling like there's something that you're missing out on. Laurie Watson: And they're trying to find that in a third-party. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Right. It's difficult because those things, those things feel very real to the person that's seeking them out, right? Laurie Watson: Yeah, and I'm aware as we're talking about this in a very methodical therapist-like way, we understand that if you've been betrayed, this is very painful. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Laurie Watson: Very, very painful, and so we don't want to minimize the person who was in the relationship that did not step out their pain, but we also want you to think about this from two parts. I mean, this recruitment of a third-party actually allows stability to happen without real change, so the person maybe splits off and says, "Okay. I'm going to get my sex needs met over here. I'm going to keep my family intact, and that way, I can have what I need. I can feel stable without actually growing, developing, changing, or making the marriage better, or confronting the issues between myself and my partner, or in myself. Adam Mathews: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it provides a sense of it's safer, right? It's safer than doing the hard work of addressing those things in the relationship or in the self, and I would say- Laurie Watson: Temporarily say. Adam Mathews: Temporarily, yeah, and I think that oftentimes, when people, say the person that has been cheated on says that, "I was blindsided by this. I didn't see this coming," a lot of times, I think it's an effect of that because for a while, it makes the marriage or the committed relationship more stable than it was, and so it feels like things are good, and it's hard to see that, right? As a person that's been cheated on, you're feeling blindsided, you're feeling run over, you're feeling like it's extremely personal, like it's a reaction to you, and to a flaw that you have, or something that's wrong with you, which is not true, but it's hard to see that you didn't really miss something. It just, that introduction of that third person into the relationship made it feel more stable, but that doesn't last, right? Laurie Watson: It doesn't. Right, and it's also false because the fantasy of who that person is includes you're always dressed up, you always have time for each other, you're not talking about the bills, you're not talking about the stressors of your kids. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie Watson: I mean, it's a fantasy, and there's very little that competes with that gilded fantasy. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's lots of research that's just, might be helpful to mention too about the fact that affair relationships, people that leave their spouse for affair relationships, those relationships rarely last. Like the longest that they last, the top end is something like three years, so- Laurie Watson: Wow, I didn't know that. I believe that. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie Watson: I mean, I think the problem with an affair in terms of the person who's acting out is they're not developing and growing. They're not changing. Adam Mathews: Right. Yeah. Laurie Watson: Whatever dynamic was not working in the marriage, they haven't fixed that. Adam Mathews: Right. Laurie Watson: They haven't confronted it, and so how can they kind of expect that they're going to turn to another person? It's a fantasy to believe that, "I'm just with the wrong person." Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie Watson: As it turns out, we bring ourselves to every relationship, and so we're going to recreate similar problems. Adam Mathews: Yeah, your problems are going to follow you in those cases, because you're not actually dealing with anything that's significant, either in the relationship or within yourself, that's going to change it, so you end up having those same problems in the relationship if you fully lean into the affair relationship, right? Laurie Watson: Yeah. Right. Adam Mathews: That when, to be able to do that, most people... I am fully convinced that the vast majority of people do not go into their marriage or enter their long-term relationship feeling like they are going to have affairs, right? Laurie Watson: Absolutely not. Adam Mathews: They're not planning on having an affair, and so to get into it, you have to begin to demonize the person that you're with to some extent, right? Laurie Watson: Yeah. Adam Mathews: It's either at the very minimum, it's a belief, like you were saying, that they're the wrong person for me, that I'm just not supposed to be with them, and so you have to be able to do that to be able to then be with the affair partner, and so then with the affair partner, you begin to build them up higher than they actually are, right? Laurie Watson: Yeah. I was treating a couple who had an incredibly sustainable marriage. They had been good friends for quite some time, and I mean, really had a good relationship, and somehow or another, an affair had entered in. I think what had happened was they went from this good relationship, and the partner who was having an affair began to tell themselves, "Well, this person is not really going to be with me in the way that I really want them to be with me sexually." The reason they denigrated their partner was because in their heart, the affair partner was truly monogamous, so the only way they could sort of justify what was happening was by saying, "But my partner isn't going to meet my needs, therefore, I need a new partner," because they were violating their own ethic. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie Watson: Their own ethic was one of being with one person, and so they couldn't do that without suddenly, kind of putting on the sunglasses and seeing all the flaws of their partner, and also putting on the rose-colored glasses and seeing all the blessings and the excitement of the new partner. Adam Mathews: Right. Laurie Watson: I mean, in order to resolve this cognitive dissonance, we have to do something on the inside, and this is what the partner who was having the affair was doing, was just making their partner bad. Affairs do happen in good marriages. Adam Mathews: Absolutely, but that cognitive dissonance thing is important because it's very real, and it's helpful for the injured partner, the spouse that's been cheated on to understand that that is happening in the mind of the person that cheated, because it's not... They almost have to... A lot of times in, when an affair is happening, the partner will go, "Well, it's..." They become a different person, right? They become a person, "I don't know who that person is," and that is the resolution of that cognitive dissonance. Adam Mathews: They're trying to resolve that, and in doing so, you have to almost become somebody that you're not to be able to have that affair. You have to look at the other person differently, build up the affair partner, and then choose between the, justify these behaviors that for most people, are behaviors that they say they would never engage in. Laurie Watson: Right. I mean, I think the difficulty is people say it's, "The line in the sand," which is a very weird metaphor to me. Like a line in the sand is very shiftable, but anyway, the line in the sand is, "I was going to leave my partner if they cheated," and then they have their real partner cheat, and they realize, "But there's all this good in the marriage," and of course there's huge injury, and if they don't get help quickly, they can't resolve that. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie Watson: An affair is basically a solution that doesn't require the couple to face their inadequacies, in their relationship, and their sexual problems, the emotional distance or fusion, as we talked about last week, that result in a lack of eroticism. Adam Mathews: Yeah. Laurie, why don't we come back after the break, and we want to be sure to tell you how we would deal with it in treatment, and keeping in mind that it is not an easy solution, but there is a solution and a way forward in relationship. Laurie Watson: Okay. Yes, and there's hope, we believe. We want to remind all of you that we are thankful for the way you've shared the podcast. We continue to grow. It is our greatest honor when you share with a friend the work that we're doing and trying to help people so that they can make positive changes and strengthen their marriages and their partnerships. Laurie Watson: We would like to invite you to our retreat in November. is where you find us, and I think the last thing we'd like to say is both of us are doing intensives, so if you would like to work with us, let us know and call our centers. You can find us at foreplay-radio-sex-therapy.com.