Shattered Vows

HM: Can you tell whether someone is secretly continuing the affair?

SG: A sign that the affair is continuing is when the unfaithful partner isn't doing anything caring and keeps making excuses -- I don't feel it yet," or "It would be false if I did it now." Sometimes it feels disloyal to the affair partner to be too caring.

HM: Is it hard to get over an affair without a therapist?

SG: It's hard to do with a therapist. People can get over it, but I don't know that they resolve the issues. Usually the unfaithful person wants to let it rest at "Hi hon, I'm back. Let's get on with our lives. Why do we have to keep going back over the past?" The betrayed person wants to know the story with all the gory details. They may begin to feel they're wrong to keep asking and may suppress their need to know because their partner doesn't want to talk about it. They may stay together, but they really don't learn anything or heal.

HM: Can it ever be the same as it was before?

SG: The affair creates a loss of innocence and some scar tissue. I tell couples things will never be the same. But the relationship may be stronger.

HM: How do you rebuild trust?

SG: Through honesty. First, I have to build safety. It comes about by stopping all contact with the affair partner and sharing your whereabouts, by being willing to answer the questions from your partner, by handing over the beeper, even by creating a fund to hire a detective to check up at random.

It also requires sharing information about encounters with the affair partner before being asked; when you come home, you say, "I saw him today, and he asked me how we're doing; I said, I really don't want to discuss it with you."

That's counter-intuitive. People think that talking about it with the spouse will create an upset, and they'll have to go through the whole thing again. But it doesn't. Instead of trying to put the affair in a vault and lock it up, if they're willing to take it out and look at it, then the trust is rebuilt through that intimacy. The betrayed spouse may say, "I remember when such-and-such happened." If the unfaithful spouse can say, "Yeah, I just recalled such-and-such," and they bring up things or ask their partner, "How are you feeling? I see you're looking down today, is that because you're remembering?," trust can be rebuilt.

HM: Eventually, the questioning and revealing assume a more normal level?

SG: Yes, but things will often pop up. Someone or something will prompt them to remember something that was said. "What did you mean when you said that?" Or, "What were you doing when that happened?"

In the beginning, the betrayed partner wants details. Where, what, when. Did you tell them you love them? Did you give them gifts? Did they give you gifts? How often did you see them? How many times did you have sex? Did you have oral sex? Where did you have sex, was it in our house? How much money did you spend? Those kinds of factual questions need to be answered.

Eventually the questions develop more complexity. How did it go on so long if you knew that it was wrong? After that first time, did you feel guilty? At that point they're in the final stages of trauma recovery, which is the search for meaning.

HM: And they have come to a joint understanding about what the affair meant?

SG: By combining their stories and their perceptions. A couple builds trust by rewriting their history and including the story of the affair. Some couples do a beautiful job in trying to understand the affair together, and they co-create the story of what they've been through together. When couples really are healed, they may even tease each other with private little jokes about something that they know about the affair partner or about something that happened during the affair. You can see that they finally have some comfort with it.

One of the signs that they are working in a much more united way is that their perception of the affair partner becomes more integrated -- not all evil or all angel, but a human being who perhaps did manipulate but also was caring.

HM: Some people, particularly men, are philanderers; they have repeated affairs. What's going on?

SG: First of all, there are different kinds of philanderers. Sometimes it's easier to deal with this kind of infidelity, because there isn't the emotional involvement; sometimes it's harder, because it's such an established pattern.