Andrew G. Marshall - I Cant Get Over My Partners Affair: 50 questions about recovering from extreme betrayal and the long-term impact of infidelity

I CANT
GET OVER
MY PARTNERS
AFFAIR

I CANT
GET OVER
MY PARTNERS
AFFAIR

50 QUESTIONS about recovering from extreme betrayal and the long-term impact of infidelity

ANDREW G. MARSHALL

The letters in this book are from people who have written to me via my website and the case histories are based on persons with whom I have worked in my therapy practice. Their details have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Marshall Publishing Method

London Florida

www.marshallmethodpublishing.com

ISBN: 978-1-7830182-1-5

Copyright 2015 by Andrew G. Marshall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover and interior design: Gary A. Rosenberg www.thebookcouple.com

To Alice who didnt give up,
learnt a lot in the process
and shared her journey with me.

You want to forgive and move on from your partners infidelity.

Your children would be heartbroken if you split up but recovery seems an impossible mountain to climb. Your partner is full of remorse and says he or she wants to save your relationship but often you doubt it. Perhaps he or she is still in contact with the affair partner or moody and difficult which is doubly painful after what he or shes put you through or becomes evasive or angry if you try to pin down what exactly has happened. No wonder you swing between thinking it will be OK and fearing that if you STILL cant get over the affair that your marriage must be doomed. Dont worry, youre not alone!

One in seven divorces are granted on the grounds of infidelity in the UK (according to the Office for National Statistics) but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Research commissioned by Grant Thornton the financial and business advice group of one hundred leading matrimonial lawyers found an affair was the primary cause of marriage breakdown in 32 per cent of couples seeking their help. This figure is up 10 per cent since 2005. Over a similar period, the number of people hiring private investigators to find out just what their partner has been up to has risen from just 18 per cent to a staggering 49 per cent. Meanwhile a separate study for the Internet Research Institute of Oxford University found similar levels of distrust with 44 per cent of spouses checking their partners phones and reading their private texts and emails. In the US, the number of women admitting to having an affair has risen by 40 per cent over the past two decades and has reached 14.7 per cent of all wives. The number of men committing adultery at some point in their marriage has held constant at 21 per cent of all husbands (according to the National Opinion Research Centers Social Survey).

Since writing the international bestseller How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, Ive had hundreds of letters from people who were struggling to truly forgive and find a future together. Ive also counselled countless couples who have seen other therapists but were still stuck. So whats kept all these people bogged down in the aftermath of an affair despite all the excellent books, helpful advice on the Internet and skilled counsellors? I think there are three problems.

Firstly, there is an unhelpful myth which I hear time and time again when I appear on the TV, radio or am interviewed for newspapers that affairs are resolved pretty quickly. You discover your partner has been cheating and either throw him or her out or after lots of tears decide to forgive and forget. If I asked the TV hosts and journalists to speculate on how long this process would take theyd probably say a month three months at tops. I wish it was this simple because I know from 30 years working with couples that the pain is overwhelming, we hate uncertainty and long to believe the myth that infidelity can be sorted out quickly once and for all. When I wrote my book, I stressed over and over again that the first year is the worst and how easy it is to get stuck into the recovery process. However, I didnt want to push the message too hard because its really depressing if youve just discovered infidelity and thats the majority of the buyers of these books. I can be more straightforward here because you know from first-hand experience how recovery can often seem two steps forward and three back. To be honest, I dont consider it particularly unusual or worrying if couples are still struggling with the aftermath of an affair two years after recovery. Ive also seen people dealing with the fall-out five years later and STILL been able to help them move on together. I hope that is more reassuring than scary.

Secondly, in the last five years, affairs have become increasingly toxic and recovery more complex. There are hook-up sites and apps designed to facilitate easy sex, and while previously it was unusual for someone to be cheating with multiple partners, Im afraid that its become only too common. The more widespread acceptance of pornography which markets itself as another branch of the entertainment industry facilitates access to professional sex partners. On most porn sites users are just one click away from a prostitute. The increased competition between pornographers has made their material more explicit and more likely to feature kinky stuff and special interests. So in the aftermath of an affair, when most people do a forensic search of their partners web history, they are uncovering not only tastes their partner has kept secret but those which actually disgusts them.

Even if the infidelity had been relatively normal and understandable drinks were involved, a line was crossed and it only happened a couple of times it is much harder to put the past behind you. Facebook, Twitter and other social media provide a never-ending stream of updates about the affair partner. Mobile phones allow someone to ping a message into your home at any time of the day or night while in the past, affair partners who were up late night drinking and getting maudlin would have had to get in their car, risk arrest for drunk drinking and come round to ring your front door bell. The same technology also allows the discoverer of the affair to read all the messages between the affair partners, which means that particularly hurtful phrases get stuck in their minds. If they are particularly unlucky, like some of my clients, they will discover short films or pictures of their partner having sex with another woman or man.

Our culture has shifted in other ways that make it harder to recover from infidelity. Men and women are more likely to be friends something that was much rarer 30 years ago when I started out as a marital therapist. So I have many clients where the unfaithful partner thinks its OK to remain friends with their affair partner and accuse their partner of being controlling if he or she is uncomfortable with the idea. Worse still, while new technology has made it easier than ever before to stray, our society is becoming more judgmental not only of the cheaters but the men and women who try to stand by them. So my clients report that their friends are sometimes critical of their decision to work on their marriage and claim I would have more self-respect. Even if friends are supportive in the first few months, they lose patience when it drags on and on. With everyone so down on infidelity even though it is more common it also feels as though you are being disloyal to your partner if you reveal the full extent of his or her behaviour. The result is that the discoverer, who needs lots of support and tender loving care (TLC), is left feeling either alone or exposed.