Could your marriage survive an affair?

Does infidelity always mean a relationship is broken? Therapist Andrew G Marshall explains how to heed the warning signs in advance – and how to repair the damage afterwards

No wonder adultery is often cited as a reason for divorce – the emotional devastation wrought by an affair can be irreparable. The urge to unshackle yourself from the painful grip of a wretched relationship peaks around now. Jan 6, the first Monday back at work after the supposedly festive period, is called Divorce Day by lawyers as they receive a surge of calls from people desperate to end their marriages.

But for all those who conclude that infidelity is the ugly confirmation that they should part, many realise that cheating was a terrible mistake. Their partner can feel justifiably betrayed, disgusted, destroyed, angry, and full of hate – yet despite this maelstrom of awful emotion, frayed threads of love remain.

Impossible though it may feel, if both partners are sufficiently determined and committed to change, it is possible to recover from an affair. Indeed, Andrew G Marshall, a marital therapist for over 30 years and author of new book Why Did I Cheat?, believes if the reasons are properly addressed you can revitalise your marriage and –

Every couple who have been together for more than 18 months have issues to talk about

unlikely as it sounds when you’re mired in horror and hopelessness – grow closer than ever before.

“The wonderful thing about infidelity,” he says wryly, “is that it gets right down into the plumbing of your relationship. You’re going to have a really good clean out of all the stuff that’s bunged up in there, and that’s painful and difficult, but ultimately – it’s wonderful.”

So why do people cheat? It’s complex, says Marshall.

We might consciously think, “I’m unhappy” or, “we haven’t had sex for two years”, but often there’s also a glut of difficult feelings we’ve ignored in favour of moving swiftly on, maybe buying a new dress or car. He adds: “A lot of people are not comfortable with their feelings. Men are told to man up and get on with it, and women are told to put other peoples’ feelings first. It might work for a while but eventually neglected issues play out in destructive ways.”

Unconscious motivation is also key – say, if your sister was “the pretty one,” and you feel unnoticed by your husband, you might be susceptible to falling for the colleague who finds you gorgeous. But affairs never “just happen”. Marshall sums it up in an equation: “Problem + poor communication + temptation = affair”.

“We’re not taught how to communicate properly,” he says. “If your parents argued like cat and dog or they never argued at all or they split up, how do you learn to argue? You don’t.”

“There is no couple who’ve been together longer than 18 months who haven’t got difficult issues to talk about and that’s OK. But we’re frightened of difficult issues.”

With good reason. What we have to say might be hurtful, says Marshall, “And you might not have ways to say it. ‘I don’t find you attractive’ is possibly better done with a therapist there, because they can look at why.” Often, this isn’t because your spouse is older or has gained weight, “it’s possibly to do with the fact that you’re angry with them.”

What about these topics we don’t broach but feel increasingly unhappy about? “People are unfaithful because they feel hopeless. They feel often nothing can change in their marriage – that it’s stuck.”

Dissatisfaction can spring from the relationship feeling like a business partnership; like it is boring.

He says, “if you’re bored – brilliant. Own up to it.” (But apply tact – “I’m bored”, rather than “you bore me.”)

Marshall thinks that there’s nothing wrong with being bored, not finding your partner attractive or being angry. “We can then begin to do something about these things – but you have to be honest with yourself and each other. Be curious: why are we bored?”

Don’t get defensive. Even as your pulse quickens, say “Tell me more”. If you want to affair-proof your marriage – or recover from one – braver, better communication is key. So, how to start?

Marshall suggests initiating a conversation on a positive note, “What are all the great things about our marriage? Let’s each list five.”

Next question: “What can’t we talk about? What topics are forbidden that we both know about?”

Then you might address “the topic I find difficult to raise with you.”

You might also both discuss aspirations for the next five years, and how you can support each other. This helps you take stock of your marriage. And find time for yourself, but also ‘couple intimacy time’ – cosy family time is not the same thing.

It’s also extremely important, says Marshall, “to talk about what you like about your sex life, what you’d like more of, and how can you achieve it”. Keep the focus positive – do not list any negatives. He adds, “Affairs are not about sex a lot of the time. They’re about feeling intimate and desired. Sex is one of the ways to get to that.”

Consider how good you are at resolving tricky topics – what stops you? Often, one person is more articulate. Great talkers can be poor listeners. Marshall says, “The first thing I teach people is to listen to each other. I often get people to summarise each other’s main points. You have to really listen. Most people aren’t listening – they’re just waiting for their chance to say what they want to say.”

Sometimes we shut down discussion, as a subject elicits profound

The thing about infidelity is that it gets down into the plumbing of the relationship ANDREW G MARSHALL

shame, guilt, anger or pain. But then problems remain unaddressed. Marshall says, “Stay in what I call the ‘crucible of conflict’ for longer. Often, even just staying with painful feelings allows you to move the topic on.”

“We try to rush away from uncomfortable feelings,” he says. Particularly after an affair, this makes the unfaithful person seem cold – your spouse can’t see your pain. So report how you feel, says Marshall. Likewise, the betrayed partner. “Better to report your feelings rather than act them out. It’s better to say ‘I’m really angry with you’ rather than chop up their clothes.”

Once you’ve done that, the next level is to acquire a deeper understanding: if you can work out why it’s so hard for you to discuss, say, money (perhaps money was a source of stress in your childhood), you can explain that. You can also say, “What was money like in your family?” Marshall says. “These things can all be solved, but we need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Understanding can also help the betrayed partner feel more forgiving – though they’re still entitled to be angry. To this partner, Marshall stresses, “It’s not your fault – even if your partner keeps insisting it is. The affair is the responsibility of the person who was unfaithful.”

In that sense, the betrayed partner is “the victim”. But the unfaithful spouse often casts blame – we no longer find our partner attractive is one such claim. Yet Marshall says this is a way of avoiding our own issues – “how attractive do I feel? An affair covers up our insecurities. Someone else is finding us attractive, therefore we must be attractive. So instead of dealing with our unhappiness, self-loathing and insecurities, we’re blaming them on our partner and saying the solution is over there.”

The temptation to attribute blame should be avoided, says Marshall, adding that no one is without flaw and no relationship is perfect.

“Every marriage has legitimate complaints – but that doesn’t mean you have to use illegitimate means to resolve it.” An affair solves nothing – it merely outsources our problems. Instead, Marshall advises that “we actually look at ourselves. Why don’t we feel attractive any more?”

Also to be avoided is thinking in terms of “goody” and “baddy”. “If you just stick on ‘bad person’ and ‘victim’ you get stuck in what I call the ‘drama triangle.’”

The third point in this unhelpful dynamic is “the rescuer.” The onus is on the “baddy” to make it all better for the victim. But as Marshall says, “You can’t rescue people – they are responsible for their own lives.” And so both partners take turns feeling angry or victimised. “Sometimes people come to me three years after the affair and they’re still in that triangle, going around and round.”

The excavation of issues in your marriage can be profoundly painful – but if you avoid the truth, and try to make amends without doing the dark detective work of self-knowledge and uncovering problem areas in order to address them, your marriage remains vulnerable.

“You’re doing veneer,” says Marshall. “You can make it all look very nice, but often, the reason couples have got to

this point is they’ve been doing so much veneer, there’s nothing behind it.” To strengthen your marriage, “You’ve got to get back to the natural wood and see what’s there.’

Needless to say, this requires courage. To avoid panic, rash decisions and behaviours after an affair, Marshall advises both parties to accept their feelings, but challenge their thoughts. “So if your [betrayed] partner is angry, accept it – they’ve every right. Accept your shame, rather than push it away. Then challenge the thoughts – sometimes they’re exaggerations – ‘we’ll never get over this.’ By accepting the feelings, you’re not burying them, you’re dealing with them. The minute you change ‘never’ to ‘the next six months are going to be difficult’ – your feelings calm down.”

Marshall also advises the cheater tells only the truth – “painful and difficult but nowhere near as painful and difficult as trying to cover stuff up”. Offering information freely, though upsetting to your partner in the moment, can help them to regain trust. “Trust is the fruit of the recovery,” he says.

Yet if the betrayed partner demands gory details, Marshall asks that they truly think about why, and the implications. “People feel if they have all the facts, it will help them understand the affair. What they really need to know is why they had the affair, not how it played out.”

But the unfaithful spouse shouldn’t downplay what happened. “You’ve probably minimised the problems between the two of you all along,” says Marshall. Minimising also enables us to cheat. While saying something like: “We only had sex twice. It didn’t mean anything!” afterwards belittles our partner’s pain, suggests they’re overreacting. Essentially, you’re saying “Your feelings are not that important to me.” Who’d want to be in a relationship with such a person?

Instead, the person who had the affair can show they care by taking responsibility. Counter-intuitive though it seems, you raising the subject you dread talking about (rather than always leaving it to your partner) can help heal your marriage, says Marshall. “You might say, ‘How are you doing? What’s been difficult for you?”

This would risk causing short term pain, but for a long-term gain, as it shows that you’re really committed to the recovery journey, and to understanding more fully how the affair affected them, says Marshall.

And sex? Marshall suggests couples ask, “How can we revitalise our love life – what needs to change?” Again, the rule is to discuss positives only. “When you first got together, what was good about it? What works? Then we can have more of that.”

Sex post-affair can be wonderful, he says, as you’re trying to reclaim each other. “It can revitalise your sex life. But it can also kill it off.” This happens when the betrayed person keeps imagining their spouse with the affair partner. Marshall says, “Make a cup of tea, talk about it, have a cuddle.” Whether you then postpone or resume proceedings, there’s understanding. One way forward in the bedroom is to “discover new things to do together that belong just to you.”

Viscerally painful though it is, people are often willing to look deeper after infidelity. “It’s sometimes better to have a real marriage than a veneer marriage,” says Marshall.

“If both partners are committed to growth and understanding, the wonderful thing is, they generally come out with a better, happier relationship at the end.”

It’s better to say ‘I’m really angry with you’ than chop up their clothes ANDREW G MARSHALL

Find time for yourself, and ‘couple intimacy time’ – cosy family time is not the same thing

BLAME GAME Avoid thinking in terms of the ‘victim’ and the ‘baddie’