The Infidelity Fault Line

The Infidelity Fault Line

Source: Pxhere, used with permission

After many years of working with couples who are dealing with the aftermath of affairs, I’ve observed several patterns in the places couples get stuck.

One such impasse is illustrated by an interaction I had with Stan, a man who had an affair but deeply loved his wife and wanted to save his marriage.

Stan felt he was working hard at rebuilding trust and expressing sincere remorse. Nevertheless, he felt exasperated about the frequent arguments he and his wife had regarding what actually happened during the time he was cheating.

Their conversations went something like this:

Barbara (Stan’s wife): (Tearfully) I just can’t believe that you had sex with that woman several times a week for eight months! I will never get over that and all the lies you told when I asked where you were. How could you do that to me?

Stan: I don’t know where you got the idea that I had sex with her several times a week. Plus, our affair only lasted five months. You’re exaggerating.

Houston, what we have here is a failure to communicate!

Stan went on to tell me:

"I take complete responsibility for the mistakes that I made. And believe me, there are plenty of them. But when my wife accuses me of things that didn’t happen, I feel I need to set the record straight. Otherwise, she will have a distorted view of what occurred and will hold that against me."

In short, Stan wanted to “correct the facts.” Given that he was an engineer who was trained to think “logically,” Stan’s approach made sense.

But the ironic thing about relationships is that what works or what is helpful or healing isn’t always logical.

I explained to Stan that while I understood his desire to correct the record and offer accurate information about what had actually occurred, he was missing a bigger, more important piece of the puzzle—responding to the devastation his wife was sharing with him.

For example, although Stan’s wife may have gotten the details wrong, she also told him how incredibly distraught she was about his having sex with another woman and the fact that Stan lied to her so many times. Additionally, she worried she would never find a way to cope with her pain.

Stan’s wife was sitting on a mountain of emotions, while Stan was focusing on correcting the record.

When I shared that feedback with him, he immediately said, “Oh, I get it. Feelings over facts.” Stan was a quick study.

Lucky for him.

Lucky for his wife.

In the upcoming weeks, Stan reported he resisted the temptation to correct his wife when he felt unfairly accused and, instead, expressed regret and remorse that he had hurt her so much and admitted he could understand why she was so upset.

As a result, their conversations about the affair were much more productive.

If more couples were able to focus on what Stan called “feelings over facts” in all of their conversations, not just those related to betrayal, their interactions would be infinitely more constructive.

For example, one man recently told me that when he shared a disappointment with his wife, which he did in a loving manner, his wife’s response was, “I did nothing wrong.”

This woman’s critical mistake was that she was weighing the “appropriateness of her actions” rather than being curious about why her husband felt disappointed. Her response, “I did nothing wrong” minimized or negated his feelings, which of course, led to a fiery fight.

Weeding through so-called facts to hear and acknowledge underlying feelings isn’t easy. It takes practice.

And while in relationships that by their very nature can be extremely challenging, practice probably won’t ever make perfect, but it will certainly go a long way to making them a heck of a lot more loving.