Dr. Jane Greer
May 3, 2023
Working together to rebuild a relationship.
BASIC POINTS
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Will an affair make or break your marriage?
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An affair can be a wake-up call for a marriage.
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It is possible to reconnect after a relationship and regain lost intimacy.
We often put refusal into action in an attempt to soften the blow, to make something we know will hurt us seem less bad. If we pretend it’s not happening, then it can’t touch us, right?
The truth is that ignoring a problem can make it worse in many ways. Think infidelityfor example.
If we have the impression that our spouse or partner might betray us, emotionally or physically, we often turn our backs on the details that make us wonder and brush them under the rug, telling ourselves it’s not happening. This is an understandable initial response. There is no question that infidelity in a Marriage is it destructive; it brings your world to a grinding halt
pause. Everything you thought you could rely on has been shattered.
Ignoring it, though, won’t make it go away and it won’t make your life better in the end. It will do the opposite. Looking carefully at the facts will allow you to take control and have a hand in whatever the next phase is.
In many cases, surprisingly, the discovery of an affair does not always have to mean the end of a marriage. Sometimes it can be what starts your relationship back in a good place. Actor Joshua Jackson, who has been married for four years, recently spoke about this, saying he believes a relationship doesn’t need to be a negotiation. He thinks he can be forgiven.
Can they be? Can your marriage not just survive an affair, but can an affair actually be the catalyst to breathe new life into a marriage that may already be in trouble and rebuild it? Can it still, with a lot of hard work, make your connection stronger than it was before? If so, how do you go from ignoring the truth to facing it head on?
It is difficult to deal with the suspicion that your partner is unfaithful to you, that he is intimate with someone else. So when they stop coming home at their usual time, or you find them on the computer all hours of the night, or they disappear for hours at a time on the weekends, or they just don’t seem interested in having sex with you, you tell yourself that you are imagining things, that you are stupid. You explain the inconvenience.
If it goes beyond that and you finally ask about your concerns, but your husband assures you that you are wrong, that you are making a mountain out of a molehill, you believe what they tell you, which is one of the characteristics of denial. You don’t want this to be your new reality, so you do everything possible to avoid it.
In my new book, AM I LYING TO MYSELF? How to overcome denial and see the truth, I discuss how easy it is to pretend something disturbing isn’t happening when you suspect it is, in order to protect yourself. But I advise my patients to do just the opposite. I tell them to pay in person caution in everything they see and not dismiss that nagging feeling in their gut.
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One of the important skills I share is what I call Look In the Rear-View Mirror. Stop letting denial tell you that what you see is nothing. Instead, examine it, focus on it. If there are enough signs pointing in the direction of an affair, if there are indications that things are not well, then it is worth checking them out. Review your experience to make sure you’re considering everything that might be coming your way.
Discovering an affair is a wake-up call for a marriage. Once out in the open, the response can take a couple in one of two directions.
In the first, the anger and the resentment is so great that the cheating partner sees no choice but to leave and end the marriage. Alternatively, both partners can commit to rebuilding the broken trust and continue as a couple. Basically, you can either go or stay. I have worked with many couples over the years who have decided to stay—almost fifty percent of those who engage in a relationship—and most of them would agree that their commitment to each other, the level intimacy, and overall their relationship is even better now than before. But to get to that point, you have to be willing to do some heavy lifting.
A relationship is never about one person. Usually it is two people who have grown so much together that another person has been able to fit in the space in between. There was probably tension in the marriage before the affair.
If you decide to stay together, getting over your denial can allow you to focus on what went wrong that led to the affair. If your husband is willing to work to regain your trust, this can allow you to move forward as a couple and you may eventually find yourself in a brighter and happier place than you have been in a long time.
As painful as an affair and its aftermath may be, dealing with it requires taking stock of what was and wasn’t working for each of you. This awareness can allow you to work together to regain your lost intimacy and reconnect in a new way that can bring you closer.
By defying denial and learning to look in the mirror, you will begin to see what is really going on and know the truth you must face. From there, anything is possible.
