Infidelity
Richard Niolon, Ph.D. 02/05

Marriage is the only war where you sleep with the enemy.
Gary Busey

Some stats on infidelity:

• in the clinical population, 25-30% of couples come to therapy in the aftermath of an affair, and an additional 30% report during therapy that there has been an affair, so roughly 1 in 2 couples in your office will have had experiences with affairs... although (consistent with Gottman's report) loss of intimacy was the larger reported problem for most couples, according to therapists

• domestic violence (minor and major types) is the only other similar kind of problem that rivals this 1 in 2 couples rate

• when client couples are asked about marital satisfaction, 34% of women and 56% of men having affairs report being happy in their marriage... so cheating can happen in apparently happy couples

• as for the general population, estimates vary from 15% of women and 25% of men, to 25% of women and 50% of men have extra-marital sex... although some of the lower estimate studies discover these rates by asking one partner if they have cheated while the other partner is present or nearby Copied from the web.

• Glass offers there are three kinds of affairs: a) primarily sexual (44% of general male and 26% of clinical male populations), b) primarily emotional (much more common in women), and c) combined, with the third being the most destructive to the marriage

Glass conceives of therapy with a couple after infidelity to be a trauma-based model with a few key developmental tasks:

• dealing with significant depression and anxiety in the "cheated" that can become PTSD level anxiety, suicidal or homicidal ideation, intense shame and guilt, and raging anger

• dealing with depression, guilt, impulsiveness or addiction, and sometimes narcissism in the "cheater"

• rebuilding of some trust and faith in the commitment

Therapy entails a number of basic issues:

• Before therapy begins, conduct an assessment in which each member is seen conjointly as well as separately, and confidentiality is held between therapist and couple member. This creates a difficult therapeutic bind though, as one person may reveal significant information and want it withheld from the other

• tracing the history of the affair should cover past affairs if there were any, which might not be revealed to the partner; however, even without past affairs, a good history should go back two years or more tracing the development of the relationship

• the cheater must end the affair (whether it is sexual or emotional, "real" or "cyber"). If the cheater refuses, then therapist should not offer couples therapy, perhaps by explaining that the therapist does not believe the couple is ready for therapy at this time. Alternately, the cheater may state that they do not want therapy at this time

• if the therapist has concerns about domestic violence or substance abuse, these assessment or treatment needs must be addressed first

• At the end of the assessment, the offered therapy is labeled as

• "marital" for those still together,

• "reconciliation" for those putting their marriage back together,

• "separation" for those who will end it, and

• "ambivalence" for those unable to decide what to do

• Therapy begins with setting goals:

• early goals include getting a short-term commitment to therapy - 12 sessions is good, but this does not count the assessment, often with a 12th session review build in; creating safety, which means ending all contact with the outside partner or ending behaviors that used to lead to affair; instilling some sense of hope for the future of the relationship perhaps by recalling the early positive days, and envisioning the future (hopefully good) days...

• during early and middle phases, you may have to explicitly teach the cheater how to respond to the pain and shame of the partner, as well as how to simply be a better partner

• you may have to tell the couple to focus on relationship building at home, but focus on the affair itself only during sessions until they are ready to talk at home about it productively - therapy may be the only safe place to talk about it

• middle phase goals include constructing an explanation of what happened, as well as dealing with "similarity errors" that occur when one partner assumes the other conducted the affair for the reasons and in the same ways they would have

• during middle and ending phases, you may have to help them grieve the loss of innocence and trust

• ending goals of understanding the reasons for the affair, including family and cultural factors, and healing through forgiveness rituals Copied from the web.

• "Telling the story" of the affair is a joint process, initially focused on the cheater explaining what, when, why, how - this takes some preparation and so too many details at first is not good, especially as lies are likely to be uncovered. However, a staggered disclosure of "a little here" and "a little there" over time is more likely to be harmful than an "all at once" approach over a few sessions. You should get only the basics at first, and once a safe place is build up, allow the couple to get into the "dirty details."

• The therapist may have to offer regular sessions, as well as crises calls and sessions. Cotherapy as well as individual therapy sessions may be offered; collaboration with outside individual therapists is likely helpful, as otherwise they can unwittingly support the affair

• Neutrality is next to impossible, and may be harmful, since it subtly reinforces the power imbalance that the affair created, and can allow hurtful feelings and behaviors to spin out of control. An active style is needed.

• You may not think the couple can make it before 10 sessions, and may not see real therapeutic gain for two years after the affair has ended, as the trauma symptoms, anniversaries, and slow process of (re)building trust may be filled with starts and stops

• Some education may be a good idea for the couple - explaining that it is common to have a re-emergence of old feelings of anger and distrust around anniversary dates; that "flashbacks" or mental images of the affair can be unwanted, unexpected, and very disruptive; and that obsessional thoughts on the part of the cheated are no uncommon

• Personally, you should not disclose your own history with affairs or personal opinions about affairs... but you better very very clear on where you stand and how it may trip you up or tip you off as needed

• I think that if a value statement guides your therapy, you should state it up front. Mine is the garden analogy - some gardens have weeds, not because they were intentionally planted there by the owners, but because the owners neglected the garden and didn't do the things they should have done to care for it. Thus, affairs "happen" in neglected marriages, and the couple must be responsible for the neglectful maintenance of their marriage. However, the decision to plant poison ivy is one person's decision, not the couple's decision, and the one having the affair must take sole responsibility for that. You have to be careful that you are not blaming the cheated partner for the affair, but if the marriage has deteriorated prior to the affair, the couple must hold some responsibility for that together.

Glass offers a couple of other ideas for therapy like:

• a private detective fund or an understanding about ongoing monitoring of the cheater

• a letter by the cheater to the outside partner explaining "it's over" and that they are choosing their spouse over the affair partner

• I would offer something about "safe" people to discuss this with - the cheated should get first say over this, but should not be able to disclose the affair details to the cheater's mother for example, or the children in the family; while the cheated may choose their own sibling or parents, they should realize that this is not likely to make family gatherings a peaceful place ever again should the marriage survive Copied from the web.

Glass says 38% of couples remain separated at the end of therapy, and so therapy reconciled the marriage in at most 62% of cases.... meaning therapy may have a 2 in 3 chance of working at best. The couple is not likely to make it after the end of therapy if the affair has been ongoing, the affair was a combined type or an emotional type for men, both partners were having an affair, and there was little commitment to repairing the marriage at the start of therapy.

One question often debated is whether an "online affair" or "internet affair" or "cybersex" is as harmful as a "real world affair" or "offline sex" in which the partners physically meet. Schneider (2000) conducted a qualitative study of 94 people who had a partner engaged in an online affair. She found several interesting results:

• in almost 40% of cases, online sex led to offline sex

• 30% of online affairs began after the partner had a history of compulsive sexual behaviors

• after learning of the online affair, participants reported feeling angry, hurt, and betrayed, as well as feeling they had to "measure up" or compare favorably with affair partners, just like people who discover a partner having a real world affair

• lieing to cover up the affair was just as common, and just as hurtful, in cases of online affairs as in cases of real world affairs

• over 20% of the couples split up or divorced after the online affair was discovered

• almost 70% of the couples with an online affair had experienced a significant decrease in relationship sex during the course of the online affair

• additional issues raised by participants were that the partner having the affair inadvertently exposed children in the home to computer pornography, and neglected care of the children by engaging in the affair while the children were home and in their sole care