Surviving Infidelity By Rona B. Subotnik Book Summary

Surviving Infidelity, Making Decisions, Recovering from the Pain by Rona B. Subotnik and Gloria G. Harris

Recommendation

“I’ve been unfaithful.” With this sentence, most marriages will never be the same again, if they survive at all. Authors Rona B. Subotnik and Gloria G. Harris pledge to provide counsel to those who are hurt and reeling. getAbstract believes this book fulfills their promise. The authors thoroughly explore types of affairs; teach you how to cope with your pain, grief and anger; and advise you how to decide if you want the marriage to continue. Then they offer compassionate guidance on how to repair your relationship. With the knowledge drawn from their clinical practices, they also show you how to heal your wounds and emerge as a stronger, better person. If you’re struggling to pick up the pieces of your life, your marriage and your heart, this book can help.

Take-Aways

• Marriage is a commitment based on trust, and infidelity breaches that trust.
• Affairs fall along a continuum depending upon how much emotion the partner invests in the outside relationship.
• Affairs fall into these four types: serial, flings, romantic and long term.
• Emotional infidelity involves a strong attachment even if there is no sex.
• Even if a marriage (including sex) is good, spouses might cheat.
• An affair is a betrayal that inevitably leads to more lies and acts of deception.
• After learning of an affair, you may go through these stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
• Take control of your negative thought patterns in the face of a spouse’s affair.
• Don’t make decisions about your marriage until you gain some emotional objectivity.
• Coping strategies allow you to survive infidelity and become a stronger person.

Surviving Infidelity Book Summary

Four Types of Cheaters

Most marriages rest on a foundation of monogamy. When one partner cheats, the foundation begins to crumble. Research shows that about half of married men and a quarter of married women stray. And the number is rising for women.

An affair is “an illicit amorous relationship or liaison.” While every affair is serious, each falls along a continuum based on how much emotion the partner invests in the outside relationship. Understanding the type of affair helps to determine if you want to salvage your relationship. The four categories of affairs are serial affairs, flings, romantic love affairs and long-term affairs.

“Infidelity, whether resulting in divorce or reconciliation, has a ripple effect that reaches far from the center and disturbs the security, peace of mind and self-esteem of all family members.”

Serial affairs are brief encounters for sex rather than emotional intimacy. Spouses who indulge in serial affairs are looking for excitement, not commitment. If caught, they apologize, are remorseful and beg for forgiveness, but they often regress to philandering. Why risk a marriage over a meaningless encounter? Some serial lovers suffer from sex addiction. Others are narcissistic. Some have emotional problems that prohibit them from making meaningful connections or sustaining long-term social interactions.

“To realize that one’s spouse loves another is a wrenching experience, whether he leaves or stays.”

Flings differ from serial affairs in that they might last for a longer period of time, but still do not involve a significant emotional commitment. Just think of Michael Douglas as the married man ensnared in a fling-gone-wrong in the movie Fatal Attraction. A real-life example is President Clinton’s involvement with Monica Lewinsky.

“Giving more time, energy, and attention to someone outside the marriage cheats the spouse of intimacy and robs the marriage of emotional energy.”

The romantic love affair has significant emotional importance to the lovers. The participants often consider ending their marriages to be with their new loves. As the affair continues, it grows more serious. However, it does not always mean the death knell for the marriage. A romantic love affair that lasts for years becomes the long-term affair. Religious beliefs, the security of the children, financial dependency or a moral opposition to divorce may cause some spouses to accept the affair and remain in the marriage.

The No-Sex Affair

When spouses form a strong attachment outside the marriage, they’re cheating even if they’re not having sex. This kind of emotional infidelity, charged with passion and sexual tension, is destructive and robs your marriage of energy, commitment and attention. How can you tell the difference between a friendship and an emotional affair? Psychologist Shirley Glass identifies the three ingredients of an emotional affair as “emotional intimacy, secrecy and sexual chemistry.”

“When everything in life seems to be going wrong, an affair may appear to offer an escape, a break from the problems, and comfort…”

The Web offers opportunities for sexless cheating. Following Glass’s three prerequisites for an emotional affair, cyberspace lovers share their innermost thoughts and feelings, hide their behavior and even bring each other to sexual climax. Cyber affairs are just as destructive as traditional affairs and can result in the dissolution of marriages.

Why Cheat

Some common misconceptions about affairs are that they are focused only on sex or that they are the result of something wrong with the marriage. Although affairs involve sex, it’s not always the motivation for cheating. Even people in wonderful, sexually satisfying marriages have affairs. Some reasons people stray include “transitional anxiety, unfulfilled expectations, unrealistic ideas about love and marriage, the need for attention, boredom, an unavailable spouse and the lack of sexual desire.” Other reasons might be that a person entered the marriage confused about his or her sexual orientation, or he or she was a “high-risk partner” from the onset – that is, someone who entered the union with issues about commitment and fidelity.

“Your spouse engaged in adultery. Then he lied to cover up. Perhaps even more than the sex itself, the deceit and dishonesty has caused you great pain.”

When people transition from one life stage to another, they are vulnerable to outside attention. Life transitions include the birth of a baby, the loss of a loved one or a change in career. Midlife also brings changes, such as coping with teenagers, the death of a parent and aging.

Many people expect marriage to fulfill every emotional and sexual need. This expectation may strain a relationship. Maintaining the intensity that marks the beginning of a relationship is difficult. Passion fades with time and the idealized version of your mate gives way to a more realistic view. People often are not ready to accept this natural evolution of a relationship.

Lies and Deception

Engaging in an affair is a betrayal that leads to more lies and acts of deception as the participant tries to keep the affair a secret. Maintaining the ruse requires great effort, and even if the affair is undiscovered, it takes its toll by creating tension, insecurity and distance.

“From the moment an affair is discovered, life seems to change in drastic and sometimes frightening ways.”

Should you confess that you are having an affair? Opinions vary. Some counselors advocate total honesty regardless of the consequences. Others recommend holding back if the confession will cause additional emotional harm or incite a violent reaction. However, revealing infidelity can allow you to work constructively on your relationship.

“The discovery of infidelity may be more wounding to your sense of self than anything you have previously experienced.”

“I’m having an affair” is a devastating sentence. Infidelity is a breach of marriage vows, a sacred commitment based on trust. Betrayed partners feel myriad painful emotions. This revelation shatters a spouse’s self-esteem and faith in his or her partner. Then both parties must decide how to handle this marital crisis.

How to Cope

“To think he’d lie to me over and over again! I’ve really been a fool. I mean nothing to him. I feel like I’ve lost everything. Didn’t he care that he’d break my heart?”

“If your spouse has agreed to stop the affair, you have the opportunity to heal the marital wounds and to work together to repair your relationship.”

This outpouring of bewilderment and grief is typical of a spouse shocked by the abrupt revelation of an affair. Only after this eruption of emotions subsides will you be able to become more objective.

When you first hear the shocking news of an affair, it is normal to experience the five stages of grief documented by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: “denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.” You may become obsessed with the breach, playing and replaying it in your mind. Although fixating on the affair is a typical reaction and part of the process of recovery, beware of being stuck in this phase or dwelling unnecessarily on the sexual aspect of the involvement.

“Even though you forgive your spouse, it doesn’t mean that you condone the behavior or will ever forget the hurt.”

A spouse’s affair is a terrible blow to your self-esteem. It’s not unusual for injured parties to feel badly about themselves and think negative thoughts. When you learn how to recognize negative thought patterns, you will understand how they distort reality. The following are examples of negative themes identified by Dr. Aaron Beck, the “founder of cognitive therapy”:

• “Negative opinion of yourself” – You compare yourself to others and consistently find yourself wanting.
• “Self-blame” – You feel you are at fault because you are not sexy, intelligent or interesting enough.
• “Negative interpretation of events” – You read disapproval into the innocuous comments made by others.
• “All or nothing thinking” – You fail to see gray, only black and white, good or evil.
• “Overgeneralization” – You apply the words “always” and “never” to situations, emphasizing the negative.
• “Mental filter” – You automatically hear the negative, not the positive.
• “Mind reading” – You feel that other people are thinking poorly of you.
• “Emotional reasoning” – You believe that what you are feeling is true, even if it is negative and distorted.

Where Do the Bad Feelings Go?

You are angry and jealous – a normal reaction to betrayal. Acknowledge your anger and then use it as fuel to accomplish your goals. Use calming techniques such as deep yoga-type breathing, meditation or visualization. Focus on governing your thoughts and changing this “self-talk.”

“No other marital problems can be addressed, nor can the rebuilding of trust proceed, until you are assured that the affair has stopped and your partner is willing to make amends.”

Express anger and jealousy toward your spouse. Communicating your feelings nondestructively increases your sense of well-being and gives you room to work on your relationship.

What to Do

Your life is upside down. What do you do now? To gain some detachment, ask yourself:

• “Is your spouse willing to stop the affair?”
• “Can you and your spouse change the reasons leading to the affair?”
• “What is the significance of the affair to him or, to her?”
• “How will your decision affect your quality of life?”
• “What is the impact of your decision on your children?”
• “What about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases?”

“The knowledge that time heals is one of the beliefs that can keep you going through the bad periods.”

Once you can be more objective, it’s time to decide if you want to stay together or separate. You may choose to work on your marriage if your spouse is truly repentant and willing to recommit to the relationship, agrees to counseling and promises never to stray in the future. Even if your spouse won’t promise to end the affair, you still can choose to tolerate the infidelity, leave or postpone your decision until you feel you are ready.

The Ultimate Challenge

An affair changes a marriage indelibly, but you can survive the rift and become even stronger in your relationship. If the cheating spouse acknowledges the affair, recognizes the pain it caused and apologizes with sincerity, you are moving toward healing. Next, it’s time to talk openly and honestly about the infidelity. Your marriage has a history, and you can strengthen your bond by reminiscing about your courtship and shared events. Set aside time each week to discuss your relationship. Lastly, create a ritual that has meaning to you and your spouse that marks the end of this difficult period and ushers in your new time together. For example, some couples renew their wedding vows at this juncture in their relationship.

Recovery and Beyond

Sadly, not all marriages survive. Recovering from a divorce is a process from which you will emerge with a new sense of who you are. The first stage of this process is denial, as you find it hard to believe and accept. The second stage is a period of acute distress characterized by worry, anger, obsession and agitation. The third stage is the integration stage when you start making the changes that will shape your new life.

“We know it is possible to meet the challenge of infidelity and survive it.”

The children of divorce also suffer. These strategies will help your children cope:

• Both parents should tell the children about the divorce calmly and objectively.
• Reassure your children that the divorce is not their fault.
• Children need to know that you still love them.
• Tell your children exactly how their lives will change.
• Do everything you can to cause the least disruption in their lives.
• Never put your children in the middle of a conflict between you and your spouse.
• Give your children permission to love and cherish each parent.

Become a Survivor

Although it might not feel like it at the time, you can survive infidelity and become a stronger person by exercising some basic coping skills. Develop your belief in a higher power and your own ingenuity. Nurture your ability to endure discomfort, gain objectivity and perspective, and let go of anger, worry and resentment. Devise a plan for the future and ask for help when you need it. Take control of your thoughts and do whatever you feel is necessary to heal.

About the Authors

Rona B. Subotnik is a licensed marriage and family therapist and is in private practice. In 2001, she co-authored Infidelity on the Internet: Virtual Relationships and Real Betrayal. Gloria G. Harris, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and co-author of the book Assertive Training for Women.

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