     TIPS | Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 06:21 am
The obsession is nonstop. It's insatiable. And people betrayed by a sexually unfaithful partner probably have to get through it.
By Patricia Miller
The betrayed partner thinks about nothing else. He cheated. She cheated. She betrayed me. He had an affair. The pain and anger deepen until they become an obsession. "Reconciliation can't begin until obsession ends," said Emily L. Brown, a licensed clinical social worker, speaking at the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists' annual conference on
May 6. Brown detailed obsessive reactions to all sorts of extramarital affairs for the Anaheim audience.
"The obsessive phase is the most critical issue in the entire process after getting an affair out in open. This is where people are most likely to get stuck," she told her audience. "Couples start out with bad guy and innocent victim. The betrayed spouse as innocent victim thinks they don't have any responsibility for the problem.
"Affairs are loaded with romanticism, morality, mythology and intense emotions," Brown said. "They're not really about sex, but about pain and fear and the desire to feel alive. The first time there's an affair, including a one-night stand, it's a major statement about breaking vows and anger."
Her latest book, Affairs: A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity (Wiley) is a guide for people who are dealing with the painful fallout of an affair, and for those who care about them.
Brown thinks women are having affairs about as often as men these days. She says there's not much difference in treating cases when women are betrayers.
She defines an affair as sexual activity with someone other than the spouse that is hidden. "But there are borderline situations," she added. "Masturbating with a computer, for instance, gets into sexual addiction, but you can broadly call it an affair. I'd guess that most of the people in this room have clients whose affairs started on computer."
"The first time there's an affair, including a one-night stand, it's a major statement about breaking vows and anger."
The couples Brown sees at Key Bridge Therapy & Mediation Center in Arlington, Va., first experience shock. Then the betrayed spouses attempt to understand what happened, as if that will change the past. The obsessed person may say something like, "If I could just understand, I could move on." But they're trying to solve emotional problems with intellectual means, and that doesn't work, Brown warns.
"For instance, I'm seeing a couple now, good battlers, who went to a party," she said. "The woman went upstairs and found her brother's wife with her clothes off, her own husband in the closet pulling his pants up. He tried to say it wasn't an affair because they hadn't had sex, but admitted that they would have if his wife hadn't come in. She went into shock, then came to see me in a week and was in full-fledged obsession."
The five types of affair
Brown divides affairs into several types. She says that understanding the meaning of the affair is crucial for healing:
The Conflict Avoider's Affair. It happens to the nice couples who never fight but never solve anything either. Conflict avoiders are terrified to be anything but nice They can't stand up to each other when there's a problem, so they can't resolve their difference and the marriage erodes. Both men and women have these affairs.
The Intimacy Avoider's Affair. In all affairs intimacy is an issue, but here it's the issue. They're frightened of getting too close, so they keep the barriers high. Conflict is one barrier, affairs are another. Their emotional connection is through frequent, intense conflict. Often, each spouse becomes involved in an affair. These couples are the mirror opposite of conflict avoiders.
The Sexual Addict's' Affair. Sexual addicts use sex to numb inner pain and emptiness, much as alcoholics use alcohol. Men are sexual addicts more often than women, and married sexual addicts are usually male. Women are more likely to put up with being married to a sex addict. "We have a national poster boy at the moment," Brown added.
The Split Self Affair. This used to be primarily a man's behavior, but now more women are doing it. This is the passionate, serious affair that runs parallel to marriage for two years or more. People who have these affairs had to take on a lot of responsibility early in their lives. They then pick a similar spouse and set out to build structure in their marriage rather than intimacy. There's a lot of depression. Both spouses have sacrificed their own feelings and needs to take care of others, and the deprivation has caught up with one of them. The spouse who is having the affair focuses on deciding between the marriage and the affair partner and avoids looking at the inner split.
Exit Affair. The affair isn't the reason for the split but it's the vehicle for the exit. This and conflict avoidance affairs are the most common. It's used as "Can I get you to kick me out." Most people who have exit affairs are conflict avoiders, but they take it further. One spouse decides to leave the marriage and the affair provides the justification. The other partner usually blames the affair rather than looking at how their marriage got to this point. An "equal opportunity" affair.
How much should the betrayer tell about the affair?
Brown claims that no matter what betraying partners say, it won't be believed. If the betraying partner answers everything, that's not necessarily good, because it just gives the betrayed spouse a lot of painful material to deal with. Also, the conflict weighs so much on the betraying partner that it can erode the will to work on the problem. But the betrayed spouse does need specific information:
Who?
How long?
Is it still going on?
Who else knows?
Did it occur on martial turf, bed, home, vacation cabin, favorite restaurant?
Was sexual protection used?
Rebuilding
Brown sees obsessive behavior as a protection against what people are really feeling—pain and fear. No one wants to have those feelings, but they do help, she contends. She suggested to her professional audience ways they can help.
"Always assume that the affair is a symptom of a mutual problem," she advised. "How did the two of them together set the stage for an affair? How did they make enough room in their marriage for a third person to move into the middle?" Brown warns that it's easy to be drawn into taking sides.
When a couple comes in, Brown finds that one spouse is likely to be obsessing, the other appeasing or fed up. If it's calm, she asks how they met. If not, she asks the betrayed person what they're feeling. Most people who are obsessing don't know what they're feeling. Then she asks what their body is doing right then.
"That helps them start paying attention to what's internal," she said. "Tell them feelings ebb and flow. This one won't be there forever." When they're calm, Brown asks what attracted them to each other, whether the good things were still there when they were engaged, when they married? She then asks what changed and what they said to each other about changes they didn't like. Few people say anything intelligible to each other about changes they don't like, Brown has discovered. ""I think we should have more fun' means 'I don't like way you've been treating me,'" she said. "Couples often don't talk about all sorts of things. One father of new triplets didn't tell his wife he was scared. When his wife went into the hospital for bed rest, he had an affair. They didn't talk about fear."
Brown plays the story back to the couple and tells them they need to learn to talk straight to each other. The betraying partner needs to hear the fear and the pain. She assures them their pain is very important.
The likely outcomes of each type of affair
Brown doesn't know of any valid statistics on affairs and their outcomes. She bases her conclusions on the many couples who have come to her for therapy.
"I get the impression that conflict avoiders and intimacy avoiders are likely to work it out," she said. "Split selves—the marriage is in big trouble. Exit affair marriages will end. Sexual addicts will stay together, but not necessarily get help."
She sees obsession in all affairs, but it shows up least in sexual addiction. The spouse typically puts up with it and often denies it. "Conflict avoiders can be obsessors—silent, pouty obsessors," Brown said. "And intimacy avoiders are wonderful at obsession. They fight all the time anyway. Usually both have had affairs, so the sin is not as great because it is equalized.
"Split self spouses may blame themselves. But if the partner leaves and stays gone, the abandoned spouse may be very obsessive. Exit affairs show the most extreme obsession. The person being dumped gets a double whammy, both getting dumped and the affair."
Can anything positive emerge after an affair? Sometimes, Brown concludes. An affair can force a couple to look more carefully at their marriage, and that can be good, even if it's a painful way get things out into open. |
