infidelity Archives - Center For Love And Sex Couples Sex Therapy Coaching In New York City

Most sex therapists, at one time or another, find themselves sitting across from a woman who has just discovered that her husband, boyfriend, wife, or partner has cheated on them. Before those sessions, I work to ground myself so that I can hold space for their shocked, hurt, and rageful reactions.

Research estimates that up to 25 percent of committed monogamous relationships struggle with infidelity at some stage of coupledom. Whether that infidelity is emotional or sexual, involves texting, online chat rooms, or meetings in person, is an ongoing affair, or one-time hookup, involves paid sex workers, or sexually compulsive behavior–infidelity’s emotional impact is immense. It is akin to the fallout of an earthquake in which the ground under the hurt partner has cracked open to reveal the seismic fault lines of the relationship below.

Many women make misguided assumptions about themselves, the relationship, and their partner based on infidelity myths that permeate our culture. This is the first blog of a two-part series, which will bust myths 1 to 4 of the 7 most common myths believed by betrayed women. Part 2 will cover myths 5 to 7.

The relationship is over
My partner/spouse cheated because they don’t love me
My partner/spouse isn’t attracted to me anymore
My partner’s narcissism is the reason they cheated

Myth #1 “The relationship is over”

Many of my clients whose partners have had extra-monogamous affairs or casual hookups fear that if they don’t leave, she is and will be seen by others as a loser who is letting someone “walk all over” her. Feeding this fear is the common cultural belief that infidelity means the end of the relationship–but that is not true. In fact, according to a study by Marin et al., 60 to 80 percent of married couples remain together after an instance of infidelity.

Whether a woman wants to remain or leave their relationship, it is crucial that the therapeutic space is left judgment free. It’s critical that hurt partners are encouraged to express all their divergent emotions in treatment after infidelity discovery. While friends or family members in their lives may express strong opinions about what they ought to do (frequently based on these cultural tropes), the therapy or coaching should be centered on exercises, techniques and reflections that allows each woman to wade through those divergent emotions–including relationship ambivalence.

While I don’t encourage couples to simply return to the way their relationship was before the infidelity, it is common that betrayed partners experience denial and go back into their previous cycles in order to stabilize their roller coaster emotions. This denial halts the therapeutic process. Unless the couple is able to identify what precipitated the betrayal, it will be challenging to rebuild a stronger, more authentic relationship. It sometimes takes up to a year for couples to repair their relationship/marriage after infidelity–but it is work that has long standing benefits.

Myth #2 “My partner cheated because they don’t love me”

There are a number of reasons that people commit infidelity. Some people may cheat because they have fallen out of love with their partner. Others cheat to explore a secret sexual interest, because of a need for intimacy that has been lost due to a variety of circumstances, or due to a desperate compulsive need for positive reinforcement after a childhood filled with bullying or abuse. While these are not excuses for breaking a monogamy agreement or marriage vow, they are explanations based on emotions that can co-exist with the love a person has for their partner.

All of these explanations are rooted in the person who cheats’ inability to communicate their emotions or needs to their partner. Often, the straying partner didn’t grow up around examples of securely attached romantic relationships, or relationships that model how to communicate relational needs. With no tools to communicate with their partner, someone may find themselves doing whatever it takes to have their needs met–even going against their own ethics or values. In many cases it is through therapy that the betrayed partner is able to see that it isn’t a lack of love for them that led to infidelity, but rather their partners’ internalized fear and desperation.

Myth #3 “My partner isn’t attracted to me anymore”

When my clients tell me they fear their partner is no longer attracted to or turned on by them, I try to educate and expand their definition of “attraction”. Our culture tends to define attraction as purely sexual–which is not the case. Someone can be attracted to their partner’s confidence, sense of humor and fun, openness, emotional intelligence, or intellect and wit. Sexual attraction is complex.

According to Janssen and Bancroft’s Dual Control Model of sexuality, the source of sexual excitation (or what we sex therapists refer to as the gas pedal) can be squashed by an increase in inhibitory responses (or the brake pedal). A person’s inhibitory response can increase due to anxiety, stress, panic, awkwardness, physical pain, or psychiatric disorders. And often, someone experiencing one of these inhibitory responses holds tremendous shame for having them. Untreated shame may lead people to have breakdowns, relapses, or result in internal split selves–which many partners consciously or unconsciously hide from their partners. Shame and secrets lead to a disembodied or disassociated sexuality rather than integrated or aligned sex that combines love and lust.

Myth #4 “My partner’s narcissism is the reason they cheated”

Many people attribute infidelity to characteristics associated with narcissism. These include an increased sexual appetite, more permissive attitudes towards casual sex, and overly positive beliefs about their abilities–including their ability to hide their extra-monogamous relationship or convince both partners to forgive their infidelity. While my clients often report that their partner has some of these traits, it does not mean that they have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

I have found that some behaviors the betrayed partner interprets as narcissism is actually the result of resentments held by the person who cheats. Often, the betrayer will tell me that they feel their partner is ignoring their emotional or sexual needs. They might feel vindicated in breaking the monogamy agreement because they believe they are entitled to having their needs met and that their partner “let them down”. This kind of attachment breakdown may also be the result of growing up with poor models of communication.

COMING SOON! 7 Myths about Infidelity Believed by Betrayed Partners: Part 2

Princess Diana’s Bulimia Disorder

The Crown‘s latest season shows Princess Diana’s longtime cycle of Bulimia, an eating disorder involving binging on food then vomiting it up soon afterwards. The depiction of Diana’s patterned rituals is quite graphic in its detail. In this period of social distancing, increased loneliness and upcoming meal-based holiday season, here are some psychological concepts audiences can learn from the Netflix show.

After eating emotionally during a hearty holiday meal, it is all too easy for a person suffering from disordered eating and eating disorders to engage in a litany of self-criticism and potentially binging. The intensely negative self-talk often leads to internal negotiations around forms of restriction. Inevitably, the unforgiving rules imposed on oneself in moments of harsh guilt will reach a tipping point. At that moment, the person’s shame and rebellion lead to an overthrow of the restrictive policies leading to new overeating or binging. This is the cycle of eating disorders and disordered eating.

We see extreme cycles of Bulimia in the latest season of Netflix’s The Crown. The introduction of Lady Diana to the royal family was presented as a fairy tale romance in the press. Her public image, however, was somewhat a foil to her private life. In the television drama, we see Princess Diana in a secretive isolating cycle, experiencing years of intermittent bulimia. Starved of physical touch, kindness, sympathy, and sexual intimacy from Prince Charles, Diana sought control, expressing hurt, anger, loneliness and possibly vengeance by binging on royal delicacies and then making herself throw up afterwards.

The Connection between Infidelity, Betrayal and Eating Disorders

Eating disorders (like Bulimia and Anorexia) and disordered eating patterns are interpersonal as well as intra-personal disorders, meaning that they are triggered by feelings of betrayal or abandonment by others then turned inward as hatred or humiliation of oneself. What Diana experienced was an extreme sense of isolation almost immediately after she first became engaged to Prince Charles. Soon after the engagement announcement was made public, she became aware that Prince Charles was still romantically involved with Camilla Parker-Bowles. In Diana, In Her Own Words, a documentary also on Netflix featuring secret recordings of Diana, she states that: “The bulimia started the week after we got engaged.”

After discovering that the whole engagement and courtship was totally fake and that the marriage was solely “a call to duty” and nothing more, Princess Diana experienced infidelity’s pang of betrayal as a deeply interpersonal wound. Turning Charles’ rejection against herself, she tried to be more of what she thought her husband wanted, hoping to win him back. As a sex therapist working with couples after the discovery of infidelity or an affair, the betrayed partner frequently takes out feelings like self-blame and anger at their partner out on their own bodies. At times they begin behaviors of binging, purging or restrictive diets to lose weight in an effort to compete with their partner’s lover or a paid sex worker, who they assume are thinner than they are.

In a BBC1 Panorama Radio Interview Diana gave in 1995, she described how after spending her days fulfilling her royal duties visiting charities which involved comforting others, she was left feeling emotionally depleted and rejected by Charles who was giving his emotional and sexual attention to Parker-Bowles.

“I’d come home feeling pretty empty, because my engagements at that time would be to do with people dying, people very sick, people’s marriage problems, and I’d come home and it would be very difficult to know how to comfort myself having been comforting lots of other people, so it would be a regular pattern to jump into the fridge.”

Eating Disorders in the Media

While in reality, Diana’s eating disorder thrived in secrecy and shame for years, The Crown’s decision to portray bulimia in graphic scenes could be seen as glamorizing the disorder. Mary Anne Cohen LCSW, author of French Toast for Breakfast, says: “[Depictions of eating disorders in the media] can be a tremendous relief and, hopefully, become the first step to make the decision to get help and share one’s burden.”

Generally, eating disorders are treated by therapists who are specialists through individual and group therapy with a focus on healing a client’s attachment style, learning regulation skills, and mindfulness techniques while creating new habits.

Attachment Styles and Eating Disorder Treatment

Secure attachment to caretakers extends to one’s secure attachment to comfort in eating and feeling comfortable in one’s own skin. Insecure attachments, on the other hand, come from early unmet developmental needs. Diana revealed through her secret tapes In Diana in Her Own Words that she had been treated like “the virgin, the sacrificial lamb” by Prince Charles, the royal family and her own family. “Isolation with pastry needs to be replaced by intimacy with people,” writes Cohen.

A crucial element of eating disorder treatment involves helping a client learn how to express their emotional needs directly to people they can rely on and to cognitively shift from a diet mindset to an anti-diet mindset. An anti-diet mindset is precisely what eating disorder specialist Alexis Conason Ph.D. recommends for those struggling with this punishing cycle.

A New Year’s Resolution Worth Trying: The Anti-Diet Mindset

Dr. Conason suggests a sustainable and fundamental shift in mindset. “You haven’t failed your diet,” writes Dr. Conason, “Your diet has failed you.”

An anti-diet mindset is an agreement to eat in a way that honors your body’s needs, connecting to one’s body in a nurturing and peaceful way rather than a belittling, abusive one. Repairing this relationship with your own body is a way to repair the insecure attachment of childhood and the as outcome of infidelity.

People have traditionally created New Year’s resolutions to begin a diet after weeks of emotional holiday (Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa) eating. However, given that 2020 saw an avalanche of COVID-19 weight-gain memes, with people feeling so guilty about their added pounds, we can logically expect the 2021 New Year’s diet self-recriminations to be even more rigid and punishing.

Many times people who are dieting may feel too weak or less desirous of sexual intimacy. Whether they are waiting to show their body to a partner when their body is at the “perfect” size, or too ashamed to have their partner touch them for fear they will feel a part that has too much fat , many people with eating disorders deprive themselves of sexual pleasure.

Part of their healing is to understand that all emotions are human, including the desire for sexual intimacy and comfort. Helping them to turn toward a person instead of food or dieting to alleviate hurt and express anger is a critical step in their recovery.

The Trifecta: Sexuality, Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia

Sexual disorders, Bulimia, Anorexia and Body Dysmorphia are interrelated issues. Researchers in an NCBI study “Sexual Functioning in Women with Eating Disorders” found that more women with eating disorders had:

loss of libido
prevalence of sexual anxiety, tension, frequent changes and higher frequency of detached relationships
relationships without intercourse and fewer with intercourse
avoided sexual relationships

In Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words, Andrew Morton quotes the Princess of Wales saying: “My husband [Prince Charles] put his hand on my waistline and said: ‘Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?’ and that triggered off something in me.”

Some of our CLS clients verbally express body disgust for their own bodies in session to their therapist in addition to directly telling their partner their aversions. Most often their partner still feels quite attracted to them, continually trying to reassure them of their desire for them, yet feeling helpless to have their compliments authentically received. If a comment about one’s weight is made unwittingly by a partner, the partner with the eating disorder catastrophizes and thinks their entire body is revolting.

Another important fact to consider is that Body Dysmorphia (BDD a persistent and intrusive preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in one’s appearance) is not exclusively a women’s disease. In one American survey, for example, found that an estimated 2.2% for men and 2.5% of women suffered from Body Dysmorphia. Whether the focus is on weight, the thinness of hair or the longing for more muscles, men can be as secretive about their body shame and disordered eating as women. BDD interferes with male sexual desire and connection in similar ways as other eating disorders.

How to Approach the 2020 COVID Holiday Season as an Anti-Dieter

Understanding the larger context of a meal is the first step to enjoying the holidays as an anti-dieter. With the additional stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, I encourage more self-compassion and present-moment mindfulness. Make sure you have a buddy who you can call on when feeling triggered to binge, purge or withhold food. Give yourself permission to take a walk to ground yourself if feeling overwhelmed.

Coach yourself to receive sexual pleasure. Erotic intimacy should be considered a place to play and feel aroused rather than a space in which one needs to perform or pose. High Sex EsteemⓇ means that one accepts the notion that erotic behavior is a pleasurable, connecting place we go to experience comfort, fun, stress relief and passion, all basic human needs. Given that most Americans won’t be travelling long distances to gather with large groups of relatives this holiday season, use the extra time to have some mindful, sensual touching sessions with a partner who you can rely on, whether that be someone else or yourself.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, a free resource in the U.S. is The National Eating Disorders Association. They offer extra chat hours over the holidays: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/.

Tag Archives: infidelity

7 Myths about Infidelity Believed by Betrayed Partners: Part 1

Watching The Crown’s Portrayal of Bulimia as a Sex Therapist