Vera is utterly shocked and furious. Her entire life lies in pieces in front of her. After 35 years of marriage and raising two now grown-up children, her 59-year-old husband, John, walks out to leave her for a woman who is barely older than their children. Everything has lost its meaning for Vera, the many years she invested into raising their kids and supporting her husband in his executive career to establish a comfortable lifestyle. In one more year, they planned to retire full-time in their house in Florida. Her husband gave her no indication of how he was feeling. After having had an affair with a much younger colleague for over a year, he walked out and left Vera to pick up the pieces. Her children, especially her son, are disgusted, cynical and angry. After a volatile confrontation, the son decides not to have any more contact with his father.
Shift in Perception
Vera, who held her husband on a pedestal for their entire marriage, used to see him as an influential, charismatic, respected, and consistently successful man with integrity. Now, she only perceives the man who is unfaithful, deceitful, destructive, immoral, disgusting, and who lied and cheated. Meanwhile, her husband’s colleagues and business acquaintances still have a flawless image of him. At this point, Vera starts to work through her shock and grief with me and to put the pieces of her life back together.
Affair Recovery
Six months later, John wants to return home. Vera is as surprised as when he first left, gives herself a few days to consider this and then decides to save her marriage if John is willing to do what is necessary for an affair recovery. At first, she still wants him to suffer and needs to see that he feels remorseful—a very normal response of a spouse who has been cheated on. John feels so guilty that part of him is happy to be “punished” and “make up” for what he has done by agreeing to all conditions of absolute transparency.
- The most important step for John is not to make excuses or downplay the impact his infidelity had but to take full responsibility for the affair.
- He agrees to break up with his affair partner Olivia while Vera listens to the phone call. He lets her know he cannot see her anymore, not even at work. That is the first step to rebuilding the shattered trust between John and Vera.
- Through reorganization, John’s colleague Olivia is working in a different department. John commits to letting Vera know if their paths should still ever cross.
- John also gives up all other privacy and allows Vera access to his business credit card records (in addition to the private credit card statements), phone messages, e-mails, and calendars.
- He agrees to tell her where he is at all times of the day.
- The most challenging agreement for John is to provide Vera with answers to questions she needs to ask to get a complete picture of the affair. John must handle his shame without deflecting by blaming others and respond as calmly and factually as possible to pertinent questions. Therapy is helping them to distinguish between questions that provide needed information (e.g. “Did you use protection when you were intimate?”) and questions that do not serve the healing, e.g. asking about all details of sexual intimacy.
Theoretically, a couple could continue with this dynamic of one partner having to completely give up their privacy due to their actions for many years. However, this is supposed to be a stage of the affair recovery until the betrayed partner has regained trust.
The Inner Moral Voice
Vera naturally displays righteousness after the betrayal; she sees herself as the one with higher integrity and morals. We all have a moral voice inside that will tell us that something is “wrong, immoral or disgusting.” This judgemental voice often protects us from feeling more vulnerable emotions and, unfortunately, keeps us stuck in the hurt. Moral indignation usually soothes the hurt of what the partner did. But Vera had to learn to express how John’s betrayal and the traumatic nature of his leaving made her feel. Whenever she did that, and he held her in her feelings, they took significant steps towards healing.
When we stay stuck in righteousness and moral judgement of our spouse, we cannot rebuild an equal partnership between two human beings who could both be the ones causing a betrayal. As humans, we cannot claim that we will never make a mistake that will hurt our spouse tremendously.
After enough time had passed for John to take full responsibility, make amends, and show the willingness to rebuild the trust, Vera needed to acknowledge that he had learned from this huge mistake and was wholeheartedly invested in saving their marriage.
Understanding the Dynamics of the Betrayal
Vera and John understood that his choices were highly motivated by the heart attack he had in his mid-fifties, his fear of getting older, and his fear that his active life would be over with retirement coming up. As usual, the affair was about something other than the spouse lacking anything, but it was about John and what a love relationship with a younger woman represented for him.
Being with Olivia allowed John to pretend to be young again. It helped him to distract himself from the fear of aging and retirement. She also personified a certain softness and helplessness, which John was subconsciously attracted to. He perceived his wife Vera as extremely capable, strong, and resilient—somebody who solved all her problems and the families without requiring his help. Her tough and independent energy served this couple well in building their life. But they both realized they missed out on vulnerability. Vera and John admired each other’s strong qualities. She saw him as the perfect husband, intelligent and respected by influential people in business and politics. He, in turn, admired and relied on how she ran the household, raised the kids, supported his career and networked with him at countless official functions. She always looked flawless. He never saw her without a perfect haircut, manicure or make-up, and elegantly dressed. She exuded grace, composure and capability.
Negative Comparisons
When he started working with Olivia, John felt young and attracted to how she needed him. She was also down to earth and free, caring much less about appearances. Everything he didn’t experience in his marriage was initially new and exciting with Olivia. He started negatively comparing Vera and Olivia. He thought, “Look at Olivia smiling at me and laughing at my jokes. I feel so relaxed around her. And buying her a cup of coffee made her so happy. That was so nice to feel. I wonder what it is like to be with her…” John began telling himself that he would be happier with someone like Olivia.
When we compare a long-term partner to someone new to us, we “compare apples and oranges.” These comparisons are not just unfair but also destructive. Naturally, the new partner will be less critical of us and laugh at all our jokes; after all, they haven’t heard them a hundred times like our spouse.
According to Dr. John Gottman, when a partner spirals down this road of unfavourable comparisons, they focus more and more on their spouse’s negative traits and downplay or misinterpret their positive qualities. A spouse being “loving and affectionate” can now be perceived as “really needy.” In John’s case, he began to see Vera’s qualities of “composure” as her being “unfeeling,” her “talent for creating organization and routines” as “inflexibility,” her “capability” as she “doesn’t need me,” and her unwavering respect for him as she “doesn’t really know me.”
Preventing An Affair
John wasn’t aware enough to tell Vera that maintaining a perfect appearance of success had been weighing on him. He couldn’t speak about his heart attack or about getting older. He missed being needed by his wife and longed for her to be more positive and affirmative. He didn’t understand that his life and their marriage lacked spontaneity and unpredictability. Had he been able to express all of this and ask his wife to work on bringing all those qualities into their interactions, his attraction to Olivia would have faded early on.
Image by Erika R. from Pixabay
To have a close, intimate relationship with somebody, we must be in touch with our vulnerability and needs. Vera worked on bringing out her softer side and allowing John to be there for her more often. She let go of the capable facade and learned to show her emotions and ask for help. John learned to make the necessary repairs and found the courage to work through his fears and express his feelings and needs. They both discovered a different side of their spouse and started over with each other.
Vera and John came to me in 2015. Nine years later, they have fully worked through this traumatic period in their marriage. The affair hardly ever comes up anymore. Vera trusts John, and they continue to enjoy their retirement. Most importantly, they committed to expressing attraction to others because they understood that any attraction is not about a third person but what we miss and long for in our life or marriage. John has also rebuilt his relationship with his son and has earned the young man’s respect for taking responsibility and consciously moving forward after causing a betrayal.
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