It may be hard to accept the idea that when your spouse has an affair, it doesn’t have to mean the marriage is over. For most men or women, betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s hard on the person who’s cheated on. It’s hard on the person who cheated. But it’s hardest on the marriage as the couple tries to recover who they were before the cheating. An affair doesn’t mean a marriage is over, but it does indelibly change the marriage.
Complications
Relationship experts cite over and over that affairs are not about the sex. The reasons why infidelity occurs are as varied as the couples themselves. Pointing your finger at just one is nearly impossible because every couple is different and every individual in a couple is also different. Sure there are some people who are just out for reckless kicks and an affair may fill that bill, but often times it’s far more complicated.
A man may cheat on his wife because he is dissatisfied or distressed. It doesn’t have to be sexually. It can be related to the frustration of being husband, parent and provider and struggling. I’ve seen men who adored their wives inexplicably cheat on them, not because they weren’t getting something from their wife, but because they needed to escape the pressure or the stress in some fashion. Does the affair mean something to him? Is it really a commentary on his relationship with his wife? Or is it just his ‘blowing off steam’ so that when he goes home, he isn’t taking out that same stress on his family? These are the types of questions that have to be explored. Sure we can be dismissive about it when we’re hurting or feeling betrayed, but the reality is often messier than we might want to believe.
As for wives? The number one reason a woman cheats on her husband is emotional deprivation. She gives and gives and gives and feels little reciprocation – it can fill a void to turn to someone else who ‘needs’ nothing from her, but gives her everything. Too often we forget to make our spouses feel special because we get bogged down in the day to day living. I’ve been there. I know, intellectually, how needed I am and how much he appreciates me, but sometimes he doesn’t show it very well because he’s so focused on his problems or the financial problems or running away from both.
Self-Expression
If we look at an affair as self-expression, we have to ask ourselves, what are they trying to say? What part of themselves are they revealing? Are they revealing their loneliness? Their fear? Their pain? We can shovel dirt with the best of them on why he or she cheated on their spouse, but most of the time – the affair is a snapshot of what is going on inside the person who is cheating — not the marriage he or she is cheating on.
While an affair can be devastating to the trust within a relationship, it doesn’t have to end it. It can wake the couple up to the problems they have individually and together. If you can work towards forgiveness, you can treat the source of those issues and strengthen the marriage.
The Repair Bill
It’s important to remember that the majority of the work after an affair has to come from the person who did the cheating. The person who was cheated on, may need to look at what he or she can do to help their partner, but it was the cheater that was lacking something, needing something, wanting something and they need to be able to identify it and work towards a healthier way of filling that void. They need to communicate and they need to cope with the blame they will feel and the shame.
Some people who commit infidelity are not prepared for the guilt or the shame they feel afterwards, especially when it’s all out in the open. Even when their spouse can forgive them, they may not be able to forgive themselves for being diminished in the eyes of their partner. But confronting yourself, if you were the one who strayed, is fundamental to repairing yourself and by extension the marriage. Forgiveness and acceptance are a part of that package.
No an affair doesn’t have to be the end of a relationship – but only if you’re willing to do what must be done to recover from it.