What is the difference between an affair and a betrayal?
In an intimate relationship having an affair is not the only way that we can be unfaithful and betray our partner’s trust. We betray our partners when we keep secrets of any kind from them. These kinds of secrets may involve our finances (secret bank accounts, credit cards, income, etc) , an addiction (internet porn, gambling, recreational drugs,), or in other ways “protecting” them from something we believe will upset them and cause us grief if we tell them (like visiting massage parlours, hiring an escort while on a business trip). Things like setting up profiles on dating websites in a name other than our own and “flirting’ online, or having an “emotional affair” which takes time and attention away from our partner even though they are not physically intimate. Even things that are seemingly innocuous, like continually prioritising work over time with our partner or prioritising a hobby or interest before time we spend with our partner, is a betrayal. Belittling, criticising or otherwise disrespecting our parter in private as well as in public is a betrayal. Complaining about or criticising our partner to others, particularly someone we are attracted to, is a betrayal. Sharing private information about our partner without their consent is a betrayal.
So an affair is a betrayal which involves a secret and intimate relationship (usually sexual but sometimes emotional) with another person. Often there will have been other betrayals before an affair happens.
Are you the partner who has discovered an affair or betrayal?
If you are in the crisis of the aftermath of an affair or a major betrayal being discovered you will be in shock, even if you had suspicions that your partner wasn’t being honest with you. Shock activates our defence mechanisms of fright, flight or freeze and this may mean that initially you feel hyper-vigilant and anxious, full of rage and anger or completely numb and unable to function or a combination of all three at different moments. You may swing back and forth, from thinking that you can get your head around what you have discovered to feeling like absolutely nothing makes sense in any part of your life. Life as you knew it has completely changed and your old map of your life is completely useless, you have no idea what the “rules” are any more. In addition you may feel full of grief and sadness that this could have happened.
If your partner is genuinely remorseful about creating this major land mine in your life together you may feel willing to try and work through this difficult experience but it is equally possible that you have already decided that for you the only way forward is to end things. Either way it is the end of your old relationship, but it can also be the beginning of a new, healthier relationship whether you remain together or part.
Are you the partner who had the affair or betrayed your partner’s trust in some other way?
In the wake of this being discovered by your partner you may also be in a state of shock that the secrets you had kept have been blown wide open. You may be feeling shame or even humiliation on being confronted with the devastation that you have caused for yourself as well as for your partner. Sometimes there is relief that things are at last out in the open but the pain of facing up to the consequences of the choices that you made can feel overwhelming and incredibly painful. It will take as much courage for you to “stand in the fire” and work through this experience as it will take for your partner to learn how to trust you again. It could also be that, like your partner but for different reasons, you aren’t sure you want to do the work that will be required to stay together. Maybe you still think you can keep you partner but also your affair partner somehow or just don’t feel able to make a commitment to either of them.
Initially you may not be fully be aware of the “whys?” that your partner will want answers to. You may instinctively want to cover some things up to avoid your partner experiencing further hurt, only to discover that your partner cannot let things go and seems to sense that you are holding information back. You might want to be more open but be afraid that things will only get worse if you are.
Moving forward can be difficult - because you both have different agendas
Generally speaking, for the partner who has been betrayed it feels imperative to understand exactly how this has come about, you want to know your partner’s reasons for doing what they did and learn every detail of what they did, when they did it, how they did it and what deceptions they used in order to be able to do it without you knowing. You want to leave no stone unturned in this, no matter how painful it may be to know the answers to all your questions and you feel you can’t move forward in repairing or ending the relationship until you have had all your questions answered. But sometimes the answers just spawn more questions and you can’t stop asking them and your hyper-vigilance increases.
If you are the partner who has been keeping secrets it feels equally imperative to draw a line under what has happened so that you can stop feeling guilty, ashamed or humiliated by what you did. It just feels too uncomfortable to go over things again and again for your partner’s benefit and often you may not see the point, for you it just opens things up to scrutiny that never seems to end. You feel that this upset for your partner and for you is only increased by talking about it and you want to set it to one side because from your perspective that is the best way forward.
So one of you wants to talk more and the other wants to talk less, one of you wants to uncover every detail and the other wants to retreat from scrutinising everything that happened. Paradoxically you are both right but it isn’t either you talk about it or you don’t, either you go over all the details or you don’t … instead it is about having periods of exploration (where you both move towards a shared narrative and chronology about how this happened) followed by periods of consolidation (where you practice being with each other here and now and get to really “see” each other again).
How can counselling help if we’ve got different agendas?
The overarching agenda in counselling is the therapeutic agenda rather than just your individual agendas. This has to be agreed before the repair work can begin (repair can be about ending the relationship as well as about beginning again) and is about deciding if you are both willing to do the repair work and give it a reasonable period to be done despite your different individual agendas. If you are the partner that has had an affair you need to be clear that you have either ended the affair or that you are unsure about which relationship you want and be willing to at least suspend the other relationship (with no contact) until you know. If you are the partner who has discovered the affair or betrayal you too may be feeling ambivalent about whether you want to remain in the relationship or end it and will also need to be willing to do the hard work of recovery. The other important part of the therapeutic agenda that has to be agreed is that you are both committed to transparency … the agreement to be honest and open with each other and to do the hard emotional work that will help you move forward either together or apart.