The Unruly Path of Healing After an Affair

In accord with ethical standards of practice, client identity has been protected through alteration of unique identifying details. Previously published in Family Therapy Magazine (AAMFT, Nov/Dec 2017, p. 26-29). Reprinted with permission. To see the original printing in FTM, click here to view a digital copy.

Mac and Liz were somber when they arrived to their intake session for couple’s therapy. At some point, Liz shared a heart wrenching story of Mac’s betrayal in a nine-month affair that ended nearly two years ago.

Somewhere between the third and thirteenth session—Mac said, “It feels like you want to beat me down and have justice.” She turned to me and said, “When I want to talk to him about how I'm feeling about what happened, he gets defensive." Stuck doesn’t unstick itself, and there is no formula for healing after betrayal.

Shame, Fear, & Anger

I remember one session that Liz began crying and became very visibly shaken and shared the distance she feels from Mac especially in those arguments when "I am trying to convince him of how I feel and why I feel the way I feel." As she did, Mac reached out and held her hand, but as she began to share greater detail in a timeline of Mac's stealthy activities during the affair, he kept his hand in hers but turned away from her, held his chin with one hand, and had a very intense and disagreeing look on his face.

Liz said she is "not willing to let him in if he is not willing to put his guard down." Healing will never happen on the cold terrain of logic, and healing will never happen in the churning waves of anger. Healing happens where we're most vulnerable, in that space when we are willing to be fully who we are at a place of deep disappointment and fear, and we’ll only go there if we feel safe.

Liz began to cry and shared how much she wanted to be able to speak with Mac about how hurt she was and rejected she felt because of his affair. He retorted that she is stuck in a victim posture without taking any responsibility for the distance and disconnection that had long since, in his view, characterized their marriage. She asserted he was looking for a justification for his actions. This tit-for-tat conflict went on for a little while and seemed to be a repeat of the arguments they have been stuck in for over a year.

Liz had shared that she felt "raped" by Mac's affair. He sharply defended that her use of such a word was just a vicious attack. She said it was a figurative expression of the complex traumatic feelings she had of having something that she couldn't control thrust onto her marriage without consent.

I confessed to Mac I myself had a difficult time hearing what he is feeling under his fa?ade of anger. Mac reacted, "Yes, that's right, I'm always just the angry man.” Then he took some time to regroup and shared, “I’m ashamed. At my age I haven’t saved any money, I have no career, I’m in a job I hate, I have no self-worth left, and I’m on the verge of losing everything.” I reflected that I heard him communicating sadness and shame but wondered if that resonated at all with him. He said, "Absolutely, it does. That's what is underneath my anger."

Tailspin & Liftoff

Early on I had asked Liz, “What does moving forward look like to you at this point?” and she had responded, “First it means to be able to talk to one another about difficult stuff in healthy ways, and then it means to build new memories together, courting one another again, and building a new future together.” Months later, they still found themselves in the midst of not building so new a future together, stuck in the same-old vicious cycle of one being critical and aggressive and the other defensive and distant.

Infidelity can impose an attachment injury, especially when there is already deep hurt and disconnection prior to the affair. Both spouses have a fundamental need to feel safe and loved in their marriage. The way forward must be a path that moves a couple toward safer, softer, and more emotionally responsive interactions.

Liz shared that when she is feeling fearful and distant, she has a difficult time not exploding at Mac. I reminded her of a recent episode in which she exploded initially but had been able to identify that what she really wanted from him was "more affection" and that when she communicated again, softer and more direct about her need, he had reached out and held onto her before she even finished.

Liz asserted that she resonated with how experiencing safety builds trust and feeling trust builds confidence. I noted that it is a "virtuous loop" and that as the good stuff develops, the hard stuff is less hard. Mac again expressed that he is hopeful this is true but not yet convinced. I expressed that such reticence can become a self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling prophecy and asked him to continue to "lean into the marriage."

Liz began one session describing a volatile fight she and Mac had just been having in the car. Mac was wearing a shirt that reminded Liz of a picture she saw of him wearing that shirt with his mistress. They had found themselves going round and round in a vicious argument full of accusation with neither feeling heard or understood. They sat at a distance on my couch and hurled accusations and defensive retorts at one another.

I intervened when Liz said to me, "Mac just doesn't know how to even show me the affection I need from him. It's like he doesn't care or is incapable of loving me at all." I asked Liz if she was open to me editing her statement, as I told her I heard underneath the words, "I want Mac to show me more affection." I asked if that was true. She said, "Yes, of course." I asked if she would be willing to simply turn to Mac rather than to me and to say to him, "I want you to show me more affection" and to then not say anything else. She told me she didn't think she could without crying, and she began crying. I told her it was okay to do this while crying.

She did turn to him and began to say this, and Mac immediately reached his arm across the couch and touched her arm while she said it. I asked how that had felt when she finished, and she said, "Better."

Liz said she feels she has to watch her back now. Mac listened intently without interruption. I shared that his listening was indeed different, less defensive. He said he thinks it's because "the further I get from the fantasy state I was in, the more I realize what it was and the easier it is to listen."

Beyond the Fog of Difficult Conversations

Several sessions later, the couple laughed with me as they discussed their visit to a coffee shop. I was careful not to short-circuit an opportunity to revel in Mac and Liz as a bonded couple. Near the end of session, I cast hope in “looking beyond the fog of difficult conversations.” Minutes later, we steered back into the fog.

Liz shared that she had been surveying Mac’s mistress’s social media activities from during the time the affair was active, speculating on every potential innuendo. He contended she was looking for triggers and making it difficult for them to move forward. She argued that she can’t fully trust him, has lots of questions, and wants to better understand what happened and why. I reflected that there will not likely be satisfying answers.

I reflected that there was a difference in how they were now arguing, that they both seem steadier and more respectful in their posture and tone, remaining engaged versus either merely attacking or shutting down. Mac reflected that he saw what I'm getting at but still finds such arguments very difficult and emotionally taxing.

By the time they left therapy, Mac and Liz remained in difficult times in their marriage and had significant work ahead to cultivate trust and healing in their relationship, yet they had demonstrated a capacity not just for the necessary work yet to be accomplished but also the ability to be at ease with one another, to laugh, to enjoy trivial conversation, to dream together of the future, signs of vitality not to be underestimated.

Blake Griffin Edwards is a psychotherapist, clinical fellow in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and behavioral health champion for the American Academy of Pediatrics whose writing has been featured by the American Academy of Psychotherapists, the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice in the UK, and the AAMFT, as well as at GoodTherapy.org, GoodMenProject.com, RelevantMagazine.com, and PsychCentral.com.