Almost one in five couples who come to my marital counseling office are dealing with the fallout from an affair. In fact, it is the fourth most common reason for seeking my help. According to Kinsey’s groundbreaking research in forties and fifties America, 26 percent of married women and 50 percent of married men had cheated on their spouses; while the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project found that 55 percent of the adult population have committed adultery at some point. Subsequent research has produced similar findings. When you throw in all the couples who have been living together or dating, the numbers are even greater. At times, it feels like a tidal wave of misery, betrayal, and hurt is flooding my therapy office.
However, it is not all bad news. Infidelity might be a terrible crisis but the Chinese symbol for crisis is made up of two words: danger and opportunity. If you have bought this book after discovering your partner’s adultery or because your own adultery has been discovered and your relationship is hanging in the balance, you will be only too aware of the danger. My aim is to open your eyes to the opportunity. Infidelity turns life upside down and makes you question everything. The fear that it could all happen again shines a spotlight on all the murky corners of your relationship and provides the impetus to change. Sometimes clients moan: “I just want my old life back.” That’s not possible, but if you seize on the opportunity part of crisis, you can find a deeper, more durable, and ultimately better relationship.
I have tried to keep the tone of this book compassionate. (There are exceptions, but few people set out to have an affair.) It is mainly aimed at the Discoverers of adultery—because they are generally the most hurt and most in need of answers—but each chapter has a box addressed specifically to the Discovered. My hope is that couples will share the book and find that the exercises provide them with a bridge to understanding each other better. If you are the third party in the affair triangle, you will find less of a direct benefit. However, I hope this book will provide an insight into the dynamics of adultery and, if your affair has ended, to help in the healing process.
In writing How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, I have drawn on clients from over thirty years of marital therapy as well as interviews with people not in counseling and questionnaires filled in by visitors to my website. (This research was publicized in articles about infidelity in several leading UK newspapers and by the Huffington Post—the Internet newspaper. In total, fifteen hundred questionnaires were submitted from all over the world. Sixty-eight percent were completed by people who had discovered their partner’s infidelity, 32 percent by those who had been unfaithful—and of these just over half had confessed to their partner about the affair.) To protect confidentiality, I have blended sometimes two or three cases together. My thanks, as always, to everyone who has shared their experiences. I hope it helped make sense of what happened and provided the building blocks for a brighter future.
How to use this book:
• The main part of each chapter is written for someone who has discovered their partner’s infidelity.
• At the end of each chapter, there is a box for people who have been unfaithful. This is followed by a section about the particular lesson from this stage in the journey and a summary of the whole chapter.
• It is better if both you and your partner read the whole book. However, I have designed the program so that it will work if your partner only reads his or her section.
• Don’t worry if your partner distrusts self-help books, or is uncertain about the future; this program will help you cope better, think before acting, and become more balanced. This, in turn, will have a positive knock-on effect on your partner’s behavior and enable the two of you to cooperate better.
• Read the whole program, so that you have a sense of the overall journey, and then concentrate on your particular stage.
• When you are in crisis, depressed, or under stress, turn back to the previous chapter. It could be that you have missed some important piece of healing and need to return and complete that stage.
• Take a deep breath. Keep calm. Things will get better.