To Stay Or Not? After Infidelity

In a fit of anger and hurt and being lost in a trauma vortex after the discovery of her partners infidelity, she told her family about it, his and some of their friends. Her family and friends mostly were pretty shocked, and encouraged her in subtle and not so subtle ways to leave the marriage. She found herself in a bind. As she discovered more info about the affair her partner was having, she did not want to tell her family and friends more, in part because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to try and stay and work things out or if she was ready to leave. And she didn’t want to be pushed one way or the other because of it. She was confused enough. 

After infidelity comes to light, often when friends and family are told or find out they really want to be supportive. And often they are hurt for their friend/family member. So they may offer advice solicited or not- that isn’t always helpful. Ultimately its her life and she has to choose what she is going to do. And if she stays, its helpful for her to affirm to herself that she is choosing to stay, and why. 

This is a critical part of negotiating any betrayal trauma in coupleship, including infidelity. There is so much powerlessness when a betrayal by one’s spouse comes to light. Some of the decision making the betrayed spouse has is to decide if they stay and on what conditions. A betrayed spouse becomes even more powerless when, in their desperation they give all their power to their spouse and demand their spouse fix them and their relationship. Sort of “you broke us, so you fix us and me”. But it doesn’t work like that. 

The betrayed spouse has to do their own healing, reflection, decision making- much of this away from their spouse. So they are able to have the time and the space to feel, and ultimately to decide. And in this process being careful about who they choose to talk to, to reveal info about their marriage to is important. Sometimes there is added stress/trauma in the changing or loss of relationships that comes when others learn about the betrayal. There can be a partial or total loss of social contacts, circles, friends, associates, family members. Dealing with this difficult situation in isolation tends to exacerbate things further. 

There are usually multiple variables that go into a betrayed spouses decision to stay or leave the marriage including: financial situation, children, the nature of the betrayal (sexual, emotional, repeated, length of time of betrayal etc.), the willingness of their spouse to be empathetic and do work to heal him or herself and the couple, related to this the likelihood a betrayal may happen again. It does become more challenging when the betrayed spouse doesn’t feel like he or she has a choice and has to stay. 

Along the lines of it needing to be her choice, a common pitfall is when a betrayed spouse is encouraged to forgive prematurely. Forgiveness is a step in a spiritual journey of grieving a loss. If it is emphasized, encouraged or forced too early in the grief process- it can do more harm than good both to the individual and the couple. Again there can be well meaning people or institutions who offer forgiveness as a next step, when the person hasn’t begun to process the loss or even the shock of what has happened. 

Facing betrayal often involves a reckoning with ones self about reality. And a mistrust of ones self, their spouse and others. This is a painful confusing and desperate place to be. This is lessened if their spouse is contrite, remorseful, and willing to do the hard work to rectify and help heal the pain they caused. Its also lessened when both people in the relationship have supports outside of the marriage. And especially helpful if they have more neutral supports, informed/experienced with betrayal. Thats why therapy and men’s and women’s groups can be so helpful in couples and individual healing. 

Its pretty easy to judge someone from outside the relationship. Things seem so obvious as to what the person should or should not do. But until a person is in that situation (in this case betrayal) you don’t know all what goes into that experience and subsequent decision making process. And each situation or betrayal is different. Whether she (or he) chooses to stay and why, is her personal decision. And there tends to be loss either way they decide. People often may not understand her decision or disagree. But after grappling with the many losses that come with betrayal, being able to have choice can be a small but significant piece of autonomy and control, in an otherwise very powerless situation.