Dear Dr. K,
Every time my boyfriend kicks me out of his house, I find things when I go back that belong to a girlfriend of mine, and he denies it. He doesn’t know how they got there. They always disappear, and she’s gone, too. Do they know what they do?
Shattered Trust
Dear Shattered Trust,
I am going first to suggest that you read this article that addresses repetitive intrusive thoughts. Here’s the summary:
This article discusses how to manage intrusive thoughts following infidelity in relationships. It explains that rumination after discovering an affair is a common psychological response that, while evolutionarily adaptive, can become destructive if prolonged. The article outlines specific techniques for managing these thoughts, including “thought stopping” (visualizing a stop sign and redirecting attention). It emphasizes the importance of professional therapy, mindfulness, and self-compassion in the healing process. Research suggests that with proper support and coping strategies, many couples can successfully rebuild their relationships after infidelity.
A few additional things to consider:
- People proclaiming love to each other amid an affair is hardly new. It is usually more about the promise this new relationship holds and less about what will actually happen if they remarry. The success rate of marriage between affair partners is dismal. They often are in “love with love,” or the way this dream person makes them feel more than the actual qualities of the people involved.
- The sex is often less satisfying with an affair partner, not more. That shocks most hurt partners.
- The affair’s clandestine (sneaky) quality and “naughtiness” are often a big part of the allure.
- Long-term affairs are often unstable because there is no agreement to commit to the partner. If there were, both would divorce and remarry. This instability makes it all the more “hopeless” and binds the couple in their insecurity.
- People play out different aspects of their personalities in long-term affairs, sometimes called “Split Self Affairs.”
- Split-self affairs typically occur in middle to late life (40s-60s), where one partner maintains a long-term double life with both a spouse and affair partner, each fulfilling different needs. The spouse provides social stability, while the affair partner offers emotional intimacy and romance.
- These affairs often involve men who grew up in emotionally disconnected “as-if” families, leading them to develop a divided self that maintains superficial marriages while seeking emotional fulfillment elsewhere. Treatment usually begins with Discernment Counseling, as these individuals struggle with high anxiety and typically only seek help after a crisis or discovery of the affair.
But your first step is to realize that “moving on” is a process that doesn’t function on a timeline. The ground beneath your feet, which used to be concrete, is now shifting sand. Now that you know this vital information about this man, your husband, you must decide what you want from this relationship. Do you want to stay and work it out, knowing you have been lied to for over a decade? What do the scales look like when you weigh the damage versus all of the good times? Is there a clear winner?
While people in your position often focus on whether he wants to stay with you, the focus must be on the reverse. What will you need from him and yourself to recover from this heartbreak? If you decide that your marriage holds more good than bad, you have much more reflection to do.
- Imagine that you have decided to divorce and then remarry this man. Under what conditions would you accept remarriage? Don’t focus on what you think he would agree to; decide what you want from him.
- If it is a Split-Self Affair, where you have met the role of the “socially stable” one, how would you now like this to change?
- How deeply do you genuinely know your husband? What would you need to know about him to decide whether you want to remain married to him?
Most importantly, once you are eating and sleeping more regularly and are able to gain better control of your emotions, it’s time to explore your marriage in couples therapy. While individual therapy is helpful in the early stages, couples therapy is essential to learning just what’s left of the marriage after this disclosure.
- It is a paradox that the only person who can truly heal the hurt partner is the involved partner who has created this very hurt.
- Now is the time for clear and direct honesty. If your husband is willing and able to be truthful with you, regardless of the cost, you can begin the very slow recovery process.
- Is he willing to place your needs first? Or is he hurrying to “ignore the man behind the curtain” and just get on with his “as-if” life?
- Once you know what you need and want to heal, does he argue that your needs are too costly, inconvenient, or impractical?
In my clinical experience, women in your situation typically ask too little and not too much of their spouses. Traditional cultures consider an affair the “woman’s fault” for not pleasuring their husbands, and when men cling on to that argument, it bodes poorly for the future of the relationship.
If he’s kept things superficial and pragmatic, now is the time in therapy to talk about his deepest longings and fears. It isn’t enough for him to simply break off the relationship with his affair partner. The goal is to re-integrate himself into a man who can both romantically and pragmatically love the same woman.
Couples therapy begins by examining the marriage and determining what needs to be repaired generally and then more particularly.
Our work allows for a meticulous examination of your marriage and provides concrete suggestions about the state of your union. It is conducted over a weekend and only after each person completes a very extensive assessment online. The weekend allows the time for an issue to be thoroughly explored versus the “stop-start” process of weekly work.
Affair recovery work is a delicate and vulnerable process for both people. It should not be attempted by anyone who isn’t a devoted couples therapist. Most therapists work within the constraints of an insurance-driven model. These types of emotions don’t fit neatly in a 45-50 minute box.
Thanks for reaching out. When you are ready, contact one of our client services reps if you are interested in learning more about our weekend couples therapy retreats for affair recovery.
Dr. K
