Shattered Vows

Rebuild your relationship by rebuilding trust. Then open "windows" in the relationship.

By Hara Estroff Marano, Shirley Glass, published on July 01, 1998 - last reviewed on September 13, 2005

I see a lot of men who are married to very competent women and having affairs with very weak women. They feel: "This person needs me." They put on their red cape and do a lot of rescuing. They feel very good about themselves. That makes me sad, because I know that even though their partner may be extremely competent, she wants to be stroked too. She wants a knight in shining armor. Perhaps she hasn't known how to ask.

HM: Do people push partners into affairs?

SG: No. People can create a pattern in the marriage that is not enhancing, and the partner, instead of dealing with the dissatisfaction and trying to work on the relationship, escapes it and goes someplace else.

HM: That is the wrong way to solve the problem?

SG: Yes. Generally when a woman is unhappy, she lets her partner know. She feels better because she's gotten it off her chest. It doesn't interfere with her love. She's trying to improve the relationship: "If I tell him what makes me unhappy, then he will know how to please me; I am giving him a gift by telling him."

Unfortunately, many men don't see it as a gift. They feel criticized and put down. Instead of thinking, "She feels lonely; I will move toward her and make her feel secure," they think, "What is wrong with her? Didn't I just do that?" They pull away. If they come in contact with somebody else who says to them, "Oh, you're wonderful," then they move toward that person. They aren't engaged enough in the marriage to work things out. The partner keeps trying and becomes more unpleasant because he's not responding.

HM: She becomes a pursuer, and he becomes the distancer.

SG: When she withdraws, the marriage is much further down the road to dissolution, because she's given up. Her husband, unfortunately, thinks things are so much better because she's no longer complaining. He doesn't recognize that she has detached and become emotionally available for an affair. The husband first notices it when she becomes disinterested in sex -- or after she's left! Then he'll do anything to keep her. That is often too little too late.

HM: By then she is often committed to someone on the outside?

SG: Yes, which is why when women have affairs, it's much more often a result of long-term marital dissatisfaction.

HM: Can you predict which couples will get involved in affairs?

SG: Social context is a predictor. If you're in an occupational or social group where many people have affairs, and there's a sexually permissive attitude, you're more likely. Also if you come from a family where there's a history of affairs -- the most notorious are the Kennedys, where the men have a certain entitlement. Coming from one of the Mediterranean cultures, like the Greek, where the double standard is alive and well, is another predictor.

HM: You're saying that an affair is not always about the marriage. There are often cultural or contextual pulls into affairs. This is important information for women, because women blame themselves.

SG: And society blames women.

HM: So affairs can happen in good marriages. Is the marriage really good?

SG: Sometimes one person thinks the marriage is fine and the other doesn't. That may be because the more dissatisfied person hasn't communicated their dissatisfaction. Or they've communicated it and the partner has discounted it. But after an affair, people often try to justify it by rewriting unhappiness into the marital history. They say, "I never really loved you," or "You never really acted like you loved me." That is just a way to make themselves feel that they didn't do such a terrible thing.

HM: Why do some people in unhappy marriages have affairs and others do not?

SG: Number one is opportunity. Number two is values. Some people do not think an affair is justified for any reason. Others think it's okay if you're not getting it at home or if you "fall in love" with another person.

Surveys show that for women, the highest justification is for love; emotional intimacy is next. Sex is last on their list of justifications. It's the opposite for men; sex scores the highest.

HM: Is infidelity in a long-standing marriage the same as in one of shorter duration?

SG: It is potentially more threatening to the marriage when it happens earlier, and the chances of the marriage surviving are less, particularly where the woman is having an affair.

HM: Did she choose the wrong mate?

SG: She thinks so, especially if her affair partner is the opposite of her husband.

HM: From your perspective, what's going on?

SG: She's growing and changing, and she chooses somebody she sees as more similar to herself. Usually it's someone at work. Her husband may be working very hard in his profession or going to school and not paying much attention to her. She feels a little lonely, and then she gets involved. Or maybe her husband is very caring, and the relationship is so supportive and stable that it doesn't have a challenge for her.

The opportunities for affairs have changed radically in the past 20 years. Men and women are together all the time in the workplace, and workplaces are sexy places. You dress up, you're trying your best, there's energy in the air.

And you're not cleaning up vomit or the hot water heater that just flooded the basement. And it's not at the end of the day when you're exhausted. Also, you're working together on something that has excitement and meaning.