Recognizing the 10 common betrayals in your marriage.
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What most people don’t recognize is that the affair isn’t the first betrayal.
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If you’ve been in a long-term committed relationship, you’ve undoubtedly worried about your partner having an affair. You may also worry about being drawn into an affair yourself. You may even have had to deal with an affair in your marriage and you know how devastating an affair can be. What most people don’t recognize is that the affair isn’t the first betrayal. It is usually the result of many, less obvious, betrayals that have been going on for years in your relationship.
“What kind of sorry excuse for a man am I that both my wives wanted to have sex with someone else?”
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I’ve been married three times. In my first marriage, my wife had the affair. We tried to work things out in therapy, but there was too much pain. The trust had been broken and we weren’t able to build it back. The marriage ended after ten years. After some time of healing, I fell in love again and we married. Once again my wife had an affair. I felt enraged and betrayed. But I also felt ashamed. I wondered “What had I done to deserve this?” “How did I let this happen again?” “What kind of sorry excuse for a man am I that both my wives wanted to have sex with someone else?”
If I ever married again, I vowed to figure out what had happened.
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Before marrying again, if I ever married again, I vowed to figure out what had happened. I learned a lot and when Carlin and I fell in love, I felt some confidence that this time things would be different. We’ve been married now for 35 years (it was the third marriage for both of us) and we’ve learned a lot about how to recognize and prevent the betrayals that lead to an affair.
I could help others but was blind to the problems in my own life that lead to marriage breakdown.
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Even though I’m a well-trained marriage and family counselor, it didn’t prevent me from having my own problems with marriage. Like many professionals, I could help others but was blind to the problems in my own life that lead to marriage breakdown. Sometimes being “an expert” can blind us. I thought I knew what was important to know about the field of creating healthy marriages. I may have known the facts, but I needed to learn, “the rest of the story.”
When I came across the work of John Gottman, and his wife Julie, I knew I had found a couple who could take my learning to another level. John has conducted 40 years of breakthrough research with thousands of couples. He is the author of 190 published academic articles and author or co-author of 40 books, including the bestselling The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work; What Makes Love Last; The Relationship Cure; Why Marriages Succeed or Fail.
Julie is a highly respected clinical psychologist and co-founder with her husband of theGottman Institute. She is sought internationally by media and organizations as an expert advisor on marriage, sexual harassment and rape, domestic violence, gay and lesbian adoption, same-sex marriage, and parenting issues.
In his recent book, What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal, Gottman has a chapter titled “Ten Other Ways to Betray a Lover.” He says
“the devastation of sexual disloyalty is not the only breach of trust that can ruin a relationship. Other forms of betrayal can be just as damaging as an affair, but too often go unrecognized or minimized, including by the victim.”
He goes on to say,
“Relationship killers are founded on two building blocks: Deception (not revealing your true needs to avoid unpleasant conflict) and yearning for emotional connection that seems unavailable from the partner.”
Here are the ten common betrayals that Gottman has found can undermine even the best relationships.
10 Common Betrayals That Often Go Unrecognized Until It is Too Late
Conditional Commitment
Many of the people I counsel have made a commitment hoping that the relationship would deepen, but consciously or subconsciously are still looking around. As Gottman says, “The underlying attitude is: ‘I’m here for you…until someone better comes along.”
A Nonsexual Affair
When we’re unhappy at home, we often look for comfort, understanding and support with work colleagues or people we may see regularly. We tell ourselves that “they’re just friends,” but emotional intimacy outside the relationship can become a nonsexual affair.
Lying
The deceit can take many forms. Sometimes a man or a woman will hide money. Other times they hide a meeting with a sexy stranger. We may not tell our partner about our unhappiness because we don’t want to hurt her feelings. We tell ourselves that they are just “little white lies to avoid conflict,” but the lies undermine trust and weaken the bond of love.
Forming a Coalition Against the Partner
When we’re unhappy with our partner, we often seek solace with friends and family. We tell our best buddies about the things we don’t like about our wife or women will turn to their relatives or girlfriends for support. Short-term support can turn into long-term feelings of doubt and distrust.
Absenteeism or Coldness
When we’re the most vulnerable, we need our partner for support. A wife is diagnosed with cancer and asks her husband to go to the doctor with her. A crisis occurs at work and he cancels. A wife withdraws emotionally from her husband to attend to the children. We feel abandoned and uncared for, even though there may be good reasons for the choice.
Withdrawal of Sexual Interest
Life changes impact our sexuality. We may age or put on weight. We still want to feel sexually attractive for our partner. We may make an “innocent” comment about our partner’s attractiveness that may cut to the quick when we’re vulnerable. Feeling judged or put down, we withdraw our interest. We feel less sexy, act less sexy, and sex begins to diminish.
Disrespect
Disrespect comes in many forms. We don’t have to call someone nasty names to show disrespect. It can come in a look or a shaming comment or a contemptuous and superior attitude. With men disrespect can lead to violence. “He dissed me,” can trigger intense rage.
Unfairness
The world at large is often unfair. But at home we want to feel that we are being treated fairly. If there’s work to be done, we want to feel our partner wants to do their part. When we feel things are not fair we begin to build up resentments that can be toxic.
Selfishness
A healthy relationship requires sacrifice. At times we have to put our own needs aside in favor of the partner. Often one partner gets in the habit of sacrificing and the other is more self-centered. Selfishness is corrosive and balance is necessary for long-term health.
Breaking promises
“A broken vow,” says Gottman, “is as perilous to love as an intentional lie.”
Even small agreements are important. If we say we’ll be home by 9:00, returning at 9:05 is a broken promise. Some broken agreements are inevitable, but none are unimportant, and amends always need to be made.
Most of us grew up in dysfunctional family environments where many of these betrayals were common place. There was often some level of abuse and neglect. We learned to accept them as part of life. Having a healthy relationship requires that we recognize each betrayal as a breach of trust that can harm the marriage. We all make mistakes, but acknowledging the mistake and working to strengthen the marriage can keep betrayals at a minimum and keep the affair from ever happening.
I look forward to your questions and comments. Come visit me at www.MenAlive.com.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Base on my experiences, It actually depends on your partner. Not that I don’t agree cause this is a great article. However, no matter how much you give or how much you cherish and love your partner, if he/she fell on temptation then they’ll cheat on you cause that is their decision. It’s a dangerous world out there and it’s not that easy to give trust anymore.
Regarding relationship killers:
Communication goes both ways.
Or at least it should.
if you experience that your partner is shutting down and don’t let you in on the everyday events o the extent that YOU think they should, then increasing your own volume of the communication instead of trying to slow down and actually listen is probably not going to help…
LOVE this comment!!! So well put FlyingKal!!
Jed, this is a great article. I agree that too often it’s the “little things” that, added together, bring someone to the point where they decide to cheat. Tending carefully to a relationship can not only help fend off these betrayals but bring a close couple even closer.
Thank you for sharing this piece here on The Good Men Project.
Thank you Jed,this is good!
These have been issues I’ve dealt with throughout my adult life and I’ve found that many others share my experience. Too often we put men (and women) down for the betrayal of an affair, but fail to recognize the betrayals that may lead up to it.