The Complexity of Infidelity & How To Begin Healing

Last updated: Jan 14, 2025

“Sometimes, when we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves.” Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

If you are one of the minority of people who have never cheated or been cheated on…congratulations. You’re a bit of a unicorn, because infidelity has become so common that about 60-70% of my clients have been on one side or the other of cheating.

For the people who’ve been betrayed through infidelity, the prevailing theory is that the cheater – as well as the person they cheated with – are clearly horrible people; end of story.

For the people who’ve betrayed their spouse – while they may not be able to say they regret it – they do feel a great deal of shame, guilt, and confusion around their actions. They often fear they’re actually horrible people deep down.

But the most simplistic responses to infidelity are often wrong – or at least woefully inadequate to understand what’s happening, how we got to this place, and how to move forward from this place.

Infidelity is incredibly complex.

For the purposes of this single post, I want to focus on one area that doesn’t get discussed enough:

Why do we continue to cheat, even when we know it can cause immeasurable hurt and pain to the people we care about?

Spoiler alert: It’s not because we’re horrible human beings.

One of my clients, a woman that I’ll refer to as ‘Donna,’ recently said to me, “I know I need to end my relationship with my affair partner for good. If my husband ever found out, it would kill him. And I feel horrible about myself and what I’m doing. So why do I continue to do it?”

We often think it’s about the other person – the person we’re having an affair with.
We think it’s about how special they are or how they make us feel that’s so intoxicating.
We assume that what we’ve created together is magical and somehow “meant to be.”

But the real answer has far more to do with you than it has to do with the other person.

This is a concept I learned through Esther Perel, one of the most profound voices in the space of understanding and conceptualizing infidelity:The reason you continue in the relationship is because of who you get to be in relationship… with that other person.

It’s very often the polar opposite of the roles you play and how you show up inside your marriage.

In your affair relationship, you’re open and vulnerable, passionate and alive.Whereas in your marriage, you’re responsible and practical, residing solely in everyday routine and predictability.

In an affair, we get to be a woman! But often, in our marriage, we’re simply mother and wife.

So yes, we say things like, “I’ve never felt this way before.” But in doing so, we give away our power to our affair partner… as though they’re responsible for this feeling. (They’re not.)

The Loving Truth is… in the context of our affair, our affair partner simply created a safe space for us to express this very different part of ourselves. This feeling and experience has more to do with how we choose to show up and express ourselves and less to do with the other willing participant.

I want all of my clients to feel powerful in their lives. But in order to feel powerful, we have to be able to understand ourselves deeply and tell ourselves the truth so that we can make more conscious choices.

When you’re the one who’s cheated, there’s so much to understand about how you got here, and just as importantly, how you move forward from here. Moving through these big feelings is deep work, but it’s also powerful work.

When you’re the one who’s been betrayed, you don’t feel terribly powerful. You feel sad, hurt, confused, angry, and rejected. That, too, is deep work: to come back home to yourself so that you can understand and make conscious choices about how to move forward.

I won’t promise this work is easy, but I will promise you that it’s worth it…and that you’re worth it.

If you’re struggling in your marriage, I will help you find the clarity you need to re-commit to making your marriage work or the strength and peace of mind to lovingly release it.

Categories

Search

Connect

If You’re Struggling In Your Marriage…

I will help you find the clarity you need to re-commit to making your marriage work
or the strength and peace of mind to lovingly release it.