Download Audio: When Married Woman Have Affairs
A large proportion of the clients I see are dealing with affairs, and the majority of those are married women who have had an affair, are having an affair, are on the brink of succumbing to an affair or are flirting with the idea of having an affair.
So, it’s very common.
In my own clinical experience, these are some of the reasons women have affairs. These reasons don’t excuse the affair, and many of the reasons don’t really make sense, but here they are:
Some women have affairs for primarily sexual reasons:
Some women have affairs for primarily emotional reasons:
No doubt there are many more reasons - as many reasons as there are adulterous women!
What’s the common thread here? She’s unhappy. She’s either unhappy in her relationship, or she’s unhappy with her life and her relationship is not supporting her to address her unhappiness.
So, if you want to move on from an affair then you need to address the root cause of the unhappiness and turn that around. That will undoubtedly include personal issues, relationship issues and lifestyle issues. Without addressing those underlying causes, no matter how remorseful she might be, if the problem is still there, then there’s a risk she’ll do it again (or do something else damaging such as become an alcoholic or overeat.)
Of course, if the husband knows, you need to address his hurt. He has been betrayed and trust is gone. It can seem impossible to move on from that. But you can if the remorse is there and the underlying issues are addressed. An affair can even make you stronger as you become more self-aware, better able to communicate and better able to deal with difficult issues. When dealing with an affair it’s a double whammy of difficult issues - the deceit and the underlying cause.
There’s no one way of dealing with an affair, and you probably will never quite ‘understand’ it. Affairs are rarely cold and calculating, they are more likely irrational and emotional. Often in retrospect they look ridiculous, but at the time they make you feel better, and that is the attraction, the intoxication, of affairs.
How you deal with it will depend on you as individuals and as a couple. You need to be strong and committed, as it’s usually quite a process. You must be prepared to both be more honest and more vulnerable than you have ever been before. All the illusions are gone, it’s time to be real.
Once you get real though, positive change can occur, and you have the opportunity to create a truly great relationship.
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