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of
for high-nurturance families and relationships |
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Perspective on Extra-marital
Affairs
The Real Reasons Mates "Cheat"
By Peter K.
Gerlach, MSW |
 The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/08/affairs.htm
Clicking links below will open a full window or an informational popup, so
please turn off your browser's popup
blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit Web site.
This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological
building
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
and preventing divorce.
This introduction describes the Web site's
purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part
of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you
read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs.
replace, other
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
+ + +
Microsoft's Bookshelf defines an "affair" as "A romantic and
sexual relationship, sometimes (of) brief duration, between two people who
are not married to each other."
This article proposes a way
to understand and use extramarital affairs constructively.
It aims to raise your awareness of.
why
typical affairs occur,
how to judge people who choose them, and
the article encourages you to...
understand the implications of these
ideas, and to
profit from affairs in your
home, family, and family tree.
To get the most from reading
this, first study...
-
this introduction to personality subselves
and psychological wounds (slides or
text article)
-
this overview of the toxic [wounds +
unawareness] cycle that stresses most families (slides
or text)
-
this introduction to
surface needs and primary needs,
-
this array of typical
that mates try to fill in
their relationship;
-
these suggestions about improving marital
sensuality and sexuality; and...
-
premises about solving (a)
any relationship problem and
(b) most marital problems effectively.
Ignoring these useful preparatory readings may indicate you're dominated by
a false self.
+ + +
Do you know anyone who has had an affair? Have you
had one? History and headlines endlessly hint or trumpet ordinary and famous
people breaking vows of marital fidelity. Most (all?) religions and ancestral values proclaim that having an affair is wrong, immoral,
and sinful.
How were you
taught to judge men and women who "cheat" on their mates? How about
judging professionals who become romantically and/or sexually involved
with a client, student, or patient? Typical opinions are that such people are
corrupt,
weak, shameful, immoral, despicable, sick, selfish, pitiful,
criminal, and irresponsible. What are your favorite
adjectives? How would each of the adults who raised you describe
someone involved in an affair? Did any of them or their ancestors
"cheat"?
I
write this brief perspective because many of the ~1,000 separated,
and
adults I have worked with since 1981
have described being affected directly or indirectly by affairs. These women
and men usually focused on
(a) their reactions to the affair/s, and/or (b)
judging the persons involved.
| I have never met one person who tried
to compassionately understand the primary
of the adults affected by an affair. Failure to do this blocks
the chance to identify and correct the personal and marital
reasons for an affair, and increases family
and
|
Premises
See how you feel
about these ideas...
adults and kids act (behave) to fill needs -
i.e. to reduce current emotional, physical, and spiritual
discomforts and to experience short-term pleasure.
most adults and all kids are unaware
of the unfilled
that
usually cause their
conscious surface or secondary needs.
any day, a person (like you) can learn to use
and
awareness and
to
below surface needs to identify
and fill the underlying primary needs. Learning to do this is part of
family
in this Web site; and...
effective
between two people (like mates) happens when both
want to ...
-
be consistently
by their
-
respect each other's
needs and dignities
-
learn how to use effective-communication
basics and
and
want to...
-
help each other identify and fill their respective
primary needs in a mutually-satisfying way.
If
you disagree with any of these premises, what do you believe?
In
28 years' clinical experience working with hundreds
of typical Midwestern-U.S. persons and couples, I
estimate that
under ~5% of them knew how to problem-solve
effectively. This was usually because they were
(a) unaware of significant psychological
and (b) didn't know they needed to learn effective-communication basics.
Could this describe you?
Typical
Surface Reasons (Needs) for
Affairs
Meditate on your opinions about why two people choose to
have an affair, even though it risks shame, guilt, embarrassment, scorn, and
possible divorce trauma. Then compare your reasons to these:
People choose to have affairs
because they (their dominant subselves) ...
want excitement and adventure, in an otherwise dull or
boring life or marriage;
want to feel desirable and sexually potent with an
attractive partner;
hope sexual desire and behavior will fill a desperate
need for love, intimacy, and companionship;
want to (re)experience the "thrill of the chase" and
"succeeding," and/or being seduced;
want sensual pleasure and sexual release they're not
getting from their mate;
act impulsively, rather than making a well-considered decision;
"don't know why"
they choose the affair, do it anyway, and usually regret it;
want to hurt or "make a point with" their partner or
someone else, despite harmful consequences;
want to defy social, religious, parental, and/or ancestral
rules to prove "I am independent!" to someone; and/or they...
feel sorry for the new partner and want to
him or her; and/or
people choose to have affairs because they...
want to avoid facing the painful realities of aging and what that
means; and/or...
add your own reasons ...
I propose that
none of these are the primary reasons for
typical romantic/sexual affairs. If so, then attacking,
arguing, criticizing, explaining, defending, suing, or guilt-tripping over
them will not fill the primary needs that cause the affairs - and may
amplify them.
To
profit from affairs personally and as a couple, mates must want to
identify the...
Primary Reasons for Affairs
Secondary reasons for romantic-sexual affairs like those above are usually
cause by primary problems like these:
1) One or
both original partners were ruled by a
false self, and no one knew it. That means...
-
Possibly
one or both partners
were so psychologically
they could not
with
their (or any) mate, so they pretended to bond ("pseudo intimacy").
This means that neither partner gets their core
marital needs met. It also means that the mate initiating the affair
may have felt there was no real commitment to betray, and nothing of value
to lose. And possibly...
-
The "betrayed" partner was
unfinished or
in mourning prior
(broken bonds), so s/he could not really
bond. So their partner eventually began looking for relationship satisfaction
with another person, because neither mate knew of (a) false self
or
blocked
grief, and (b) how to reduce each of those via
and
And
false-self dominance may have meant...
-
Either or both of the original partners had psychological and/or organic
malfunctions with their sexual desire or with normal sexual responses.
Once admitted, these are often correctable with
skilled help - specially if the mates are working to
their true selves as empathic teammates.
-
The
personality
ruling the mate
who took part in the affair
were burdened with excessive
and/or
and could not
risk honesty with their mate about thinking about or
having an affair. Once the affair started, these dominant subselves'
combined shame,
and fears
to over-come the true Self's wish to be
self-responsible and honest with the other mate, so s/he "lied." ("I am
not having an affair!")
There
may be
other false-self dynamics that can add to these.
2) The second
primary reason for any affair is that the original
(wounded, unaware) couple
doesn't know communication
basics and the seven
communication
Therefore, they couldn't
(a)
and
their
effectively
or (b) do win-win
to help each other fill their
needs as teammates. They also couldn't assess
and resolve their mix of communication
Can you name the seven skills and
when to use each of them? If mates are dominated by false selves, even if
they know these basics and skills, they'll still have ineffective
communication because their subselves will often broadcast and perceive 1-up or 1-down
3) The third
real reason for an affair is that the third adult (a) has
unfilled primary needs, and (b) is also ruled
by a false self and doesn't know it. Various needy subselves - like
the
and
- use
(denial, minimizing,
numbing, ration-alizing, idealizing, delusion, repression, projection) to justify the
deception, betrayal, dishonesty, and damage to all adults and kids involved.
4) For some
mates, a fourth reason for affairs is that if s/he seeks relationship help before the
affair, the professional/s s/he or they hire (a) focuses on surface problems like
those above, and (b) may be ruled by a false self also.
+ + +
|
Bottom line: typical sexual/romantic affairs are really caused by (a)
one or more of the people being controlled by a needy false self and not
knowing it, and (b) the original couple not knowing how to identify and
assert their unfilled primary needs and problem-solve
effectively together. These factors may have caused one or both mates to
make up to three unwise courtship choices. |
Notice your
reactions to this premise. Does it make sense to you? If not, have you
taken the time to follow the
reading links at
the top of this article and reality-test the ideas they
present? Is your true Self (capital
"S")
this article?
Implications
If the
premise above is true, consider...
-
People choosing an
extra-marital or professional-client affair are psychologically wounded,
needy, and in protective denial - not sick, selfish, immoral, weak,
shameful, sinful, irresponsible, etc.
-
The betrayed partner usually owns half the
primary relationship
problem, vs. charging "It's all my mate's (or the third adult's)
fault."
Fighting over who's to blame for an affair is like trying to prove who
caused Winter to happen.
-
Shaming or scorning a person who chooses an affair and
lies about it is equivalent to saying someone with cancer or Alzheimer's
disease is morally corrupt and despicable.
Adults and kids lie when they feel it's
not safe to tell the truth. Staying safe is a survival reflex, not
"good or bad." Wounded people still must confront the
of their
wounds, unawareness, and behaviors...
-
Striving to "fix" any of the surface problems
above
(i.e. the symptoms of the primary problems) can never
succeed, long term.
The real fix is to commit to...
-
admitting (vs. denying), and
false-self wounds,
-
growing and using
effective communication
and possibly...
-
completing or freeing
up
-
Originally committing to the wrong mate, for the wrong reasons, at
the wrong time can be endured but not "fixed."
-
Mates who use
pornography to satisfy unfilled primary-relationship needs are
often motivated like partners who have affairs; and...
-
Typical mates will need to work patiently
together to (re)gain genuine trust as part of
their growing from an affair. And another implication is that...
-
Family adults who don't...
teach other family members the
difference between the surface and primary needs - in general, and related to
affairs; and who...
insist
that people who
have affairs are bad, wrong, corrupt, evil, and sinful; and
who...
promote family relationship-problems like
and
significant relationship
risk hindering...
-
families from grieving and stabilizing,
-
new family members from bonding, and...
-
all involved families from raising
their
- which
all...
-
(a) increase minor kids' wounds, and (b) hinder their
development and
adjusting to major family changes like
separation, divorce, and parental re/marriage.
Such
adults
are unintentionally lowering the
nurturance level and wholistic health of their family relationships.
And a final implication of the "Bottom line" premise above is...
Recap
This article exists because of...
-
the universal human reality of some committed partners
choosing romantic / sexual affairs,
-
the personal and family stress that causes
and results form affairs, and...
-
the common reaction to blame such
people rather than seek to (a) understand the wounds and unfilled needs that cause
typical affairs, and (b) how reduce the wounds and fill these needs in healthy ways.
The article's basic premise is that adults who participate in affairs are
needy, wounded, and un-aware, not bad, self-centered, selfish, immoral, weak,
or sinful. They are not getting some important needs met in their primary
relationship. This does not excuse them from owning responsibility for the
hurtful effects of their behaviors on themselves, family members, and
others.
Major implications of this premise include (a) the betrayed mate is always one third
of the problem, and (b) typical
romantic and sexual affairs are an opportunity to learn and heal,
rather than whine, complain, rage, scorn, punish, blame, divorce, and deny their real
causes.
In order to accept these premises and apply them,
all affected adults need to want to
take respon-sibility for (a) keeping their true Selves
of their
personality subselves, and for (b) reducing any
ignorance and false-self
Often that doesn't occur until wounded men and women have hit true
in midlife or later.
Also see this article on family secrets
(like affairs).
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article. Did you get what
you needed? If so, what do you need now? If not - what
you need? Is there anyone you want to
discuss these ideas with?
Who's
these
questions - your wise resident
or
+ + +
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