Show Notes

While it may seem like the definition of infidelity is clear-cut and unwavering, the concept of infidelity has significantly shifted over the decades and centuries. Where proof of sexual impropriety once served as the sole and clear intent of unfaithfulness in conventional marriages, the onset of love matching in modern day marital relations has blurred the lines for what constitutes indiscretion. We unpack why that is, and what to do about it.

In this episode we cover:

• What is Infidelity?

• Emotional Affairs

• Myths about Cheaters

• Repairing a relationship after an affair

• Should I Stay Or Should I Go After An Affair?

Transcript

Meredith Shirey (00:00):

You know, if you see your, your partner swiping on Tinder, like maybe it's a problem, but more about like, okay. So if I have a former boyfriend from high school who starts messaging me on Facebook and we start reminiscing, does that at any point, cross the line, you know, and what is that line?

[Theme Music]

Meredith Shirey (00:25):

Hey everyone, I'm Meredith Shirey. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, specializing in relationship issues.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:31):

And I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney.

Meredith Shirey (00:33):

This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:40):

And the impact our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me or Leave Me.

Meredith Shirey (00:49):

Hey everyone, welcome back. It's hard to believe this is already the 11th episode of love me or leave me, but here we are, and we're finishing up that mini series we were doing on sex, monogamy and infidelity. We wanted to save infidelity for the last episode that was intentionally done because we want to make it very, very clear divide. When we talked about monogamy and especially the idea of consensual, non-monogamy the emphasis. There is on consent. When we're talking about infidelity, we're talking about what feels like a betrayal, where it feels like there was not consent. And one person made a unilateral decision that affected both people in the relationship. So that's why we wanted it to be a separate episode. So Isaiah, I'm so curious about some of your thoughts when you hear the word infidelity or affair, what comes to mind for you?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:38):

You know, obviously the traditional definition is where one spouse or partner has had sex with some other person outside of the relationship. And really this reminds me of kind of the conversation that we had about sex in episode nine, where the first question we kind of asked is, well, what is sex? Because you know, when you ask the question, everybody thinks they know what it is. And then everybody has a different definition. Well, when it comes to infidelity or cheating or adultery or whatever you really want to call it, where's the line? How do people define this?

Meredith Shirey (02:07):

Why this has become so much more of a complex issue is because it is an ever-changing line. And it's very, very different for each specific person within each specific relationship. And what the line used to be is very different than what it is now, because 200 years ago, emotional affairs, weren't really a thing. Whereas today there are a million different ways that you could have an affair that might not ever actually involve physically contacting another person. And people still feel equally betrayed.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:35):

You know, I, I see a lot of people come across my desk where, you know, the strip clubs involved or lap dances or massages. And then you have people having debates as to whether or not that's cheating. And like you said, nowadays with quarantine, you have situations where that kind of physical contact has been taken away. And so you have non physical context, so you may have an emotional affair or texting or flirting. And then I hear people say sometimes that's sometimes just as damaging as having a physical, sexual relationship with somebody.

Meredith Shirey (03:06):

For you and yourself. When you think about what would feel like a betrayal, right? What would make you question your relationship or that, you know, you're, if your partner crossed X line, this would make you feel hurt and less trusting in them. And I think it's about just being really, really honest with yourself about what that is and talking to your partner, because it's very, very likely that you have different lines and that they're going to mean different things to you. And you're right. So emotional affairs, especially in this time of quarantine have taken on a life of their own. And it's not just an emotional fair. Like if you're on a dating app, that's a fairly easy one. Right. You know, if you see your, your partner swiping on Tinder, like maybe it's a problem, but more about like, okay. So if I have a former boyfriend from high school who starts messaging me on Facebook and we start reminiscing, does that at any point, cross the line, you know, and what is that line?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (03:56):

Where is it all of a sudden unhealthy? Because we all have people text us. We have people email us and call us and not everything is a trail or an unfaithful act. So how can the people out there know this is where it can really get concerning?

Meredith Shirey (04:11):

Here's the thing. I think that it would be really, really easy to get lost in defining the content and setting parameters on this operational definition of what it is, what it isn't. And that's actually not helpful because again, we could have differing opinions on this and instead of trying to arbitrate who gets to win and who doesn't, that doesn't actually get you the connection in the relationship that you're longing for. So what you have to do is to take the content. So the specific again, what happened, what didn't happen out of it and focus more on the feeling, right? If I'm feeling betrayed, why is that? Where was the line for me? What is it that I want my partner to know? And so for the partner, the more important thing is instead of for you to justify or qualify the behavior itself, to listen to how your partner feels betrayed and to attend to that feeling.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (05:02):

When people go into these things, you know, then all of a sudden they question the entirety of everything that's ever happened there.

Meredith Shirey (05:08):

That we've defined infidelity. And also just the importance of what this means in our relationships has really changed and evolved over time. So when marriage was more of an economic arrangement versus a love match, it didn't matter. And it was actually very, very normal for you to have what would now be probably considered like an emotional affair. You were expected to have a lot of people in your life, right? So to quota, Esther Perel, what we used to get from a village, we now expect from one person. And so when marriage became more of a love match, what happens is we put so much more pressure on this person to fill everything. We want them to be our best friend, the best sex we've ever had, our career coach, you know, our partner for parenting and our Friday night movie buddy. So the point is, is that when we've put that onto one person and we expect all those things for one person, we've set the bar so high so that if they fail, if they fall out of it, we feel like it's no longer just a, okay, you cheated, but you've now created this crisis for me.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:06):

Isn't that the idea of a Western marriage that you would rely on one person for all those things?

Meredith Shirey (06:10):

Yes and no. It depends a lot on your cultural context. It depends again on what your definition for marriage is. If you come from a collectivist culture, if you still live in a place where maybe marriages are arranged, or your family's expected to have a huge degree of influence in making that decision for you, if someone was unfaithful, it might not be this devastating thing because you didn't do it based on this love match. And it's not to say that the love match is wrong because certainly in the West, we do this. If I was going to get married, I don't want to just do well. Okay. You're the only person on my block left. Like, all right, let's do it right now.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:44):

The question is, do we want our parents choosing our spouses Meredith?

Meredith Shirey (06:47):

Yes and no. It's so depends.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:49):

For me, it's a no, for me, I'm just going to throw that out there. It's a no. No, thank you. I can figure that out.

Meredith Shirey (06:54):

Mom and dad. I love you, but absolutely not. But you know, it's an interesting thing though. So here's an interesting little tidbit on that. There's some research that suggests that more successful relationships come from when it was a match that a family member suggested. So again, like not going to take sides on that, but the point is, is that you do expect a lot from your partner because when we're doing this as a love match, again, we're looking for our quote unquote soulmate. So if you've put all this work into figuring out yourself and figuring out, you know, who I am in this life and what I want, and then I found this other person who is the counterpoint in the reflection of all these things that I built in myself, right? So you can see how that's a great thing. And when we find that it feels wonderful.

Meredith Shirey (07:37):

The problem is we leave a very, very small margin for error. When we do put all that pressure on one person, one relationship, the couple, and specifically the person who feels betrayed again, we're leaving that very, very open-ended about what that means, but the person who feels betrayed a lot of times experiences a lot of symptoms consistent with PTSD. So like the hyper-vigilance right, the looking for clues wanting to be the detective, wanting to look through every text, every email, give me your password to this, give me your password to that. And then being on the attacker, wanting their partner to explain, right. And the other person having to really, and honestly take a lot of heat during that time.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (08:13):

I think at that point is usually when people have a discussion or at least an internal discussion as to whether they're going to leave, we're going to stay with kind of like the title for our show, love me or leave me. And I guess the question really is, is like, what are people consider at that point? Is that even okay? Is it okay to, to think about staying and what does that mean?

Meredith Shirey (08:31):

That's exactly why we named this love me or leave me because we're looking at both sides and I want to say very clearly and unequivocally, there's not a right or wrong. There is no absolute. It very much depends on each person and each relationship and each situation. And so you are making the best decision you can for yourself based on the information that you have. And it's not going to be the same thing for every person. It's going to be very, very individualized. So there is not a right answer. It's not right to stay. And it's also not right to leave. There are so many complex levels to what you have to consider, because especially when you're in a relationship. And so like for you and your wife, you guys have been married for a long time. You have two kids. You've got probably a lot of overlap with family and friends, right?

Meredith Shirey (09:14):

You've got these very, very interconnected lives. And so depending on what happened, you have to really weigh the decision of, is it worth on weaving all of that. And especially again, if our, if our relationships overall good, the affair can either be the catalyst to the breakup, the beginning of the end, that last straw, or it can be a new beginning. That depends on your specific situation. So if you're unhappy in a lot of other areas of the relationship and it's been falling apart for years then, yeah. Even if you've been together for decades, finding out someone cheated might be the thing that says, you know what? Now I'm done, right. Versus if we're overall in a very good, happy, healthy relationship where we still have very, very connected and this happens, it's not a good thing. You're going to be devastated and that's okay.

Meredith Shirey (09:59):

But it's deciding, do we want to try to rebuild the trust to say all these other things about our relationship that work really well, and that are very positive in our lives, and there's not a right or wrong answer there. It just very, very dependent on your situation. The way that the us looks at affairs, we tend to be very shaming of people who stay. We tend to think, okay, well, if this person cheated, what are you doing? Why are you staying? We almost tend to shame people for not leaving. When in most of the other parts of the world, it's actually looked at the very opposite way. It's more faux pas to leave than to stay. And where divorced has not the automatic assumption of what should or shouldn't happen because the importance is more put on the family. It's almost seen as more shameful to break up the family just because it's happened now. No one likes it when it happens just to be very, very clear.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (10:50):

You know, we just have to kind of keep our minds open because we're not saying staying is the right thing to do, we're not saying that leaving is the right thing to do either. Also there's a bunch of legal considerations, particularly if you're married or you have joint property or kids.

Meredith Shirey (11:02):

I'd imagine that there's a difference between what the law says happens regarding infidelity versus how you emotionally, probably want to enact revenge or act out your anger towards someone who was unfaithful.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:13):

It depends on which state you're in, but generally speaking like in New York and adultery is obviously a cause of action for divorce, but many you can get divorced because of it. But most people don't use that anymore. It's difficult to prove. So most people will just go on under irretrievable break down the marriage, which is basically the no-fault divorce. This is something that the courts are very used to. They tend not to pay a lot of attention to it, unless drugs are involved or a lot of money or dissipation of assets and things like that. So, I mean, it's, it's not necessarily something I would recommend is to litigate those types of things in your divorce. It could just get very expensive, you might not get very much back. Unless of course there's been a lot of dissipation of assets and things of that nature.

Meredith Shirey (11:49):

Okay. So don't go into court with your manifesto every time, this person wronged you in your mind.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:54):

Unless it's really important, right? And your attorneys will guide you in that, in that, in that regard. But here's my question. So we say, it's okay to stay. It's okay to leave. How do you repair that? You're thinking about staying. You're not thinking about leaving because we know what you have to do to leave. You're married, you get divorced. If you're not married, then you kind of move on with your life and figure out what you know, but what's the process like for thing.

Meredith Shirey (12:12):

It's hard. It's really, really tough, very dependent on the relationship. You have to rebuild trust with yourself, not just with others. And it's a process. And again, a lot of it is kind of mourning the life that you once had. So it is possible to move on from infidelity and actually believe it or not to further your relationship. So this is a question I probably get the most when people come in and they're talking about needing to process infidelity is can we actually move past this? And the answer is yes, with the big caveat of how much work are you willing to put in because it is a lot of work and we almost kind of look at it in phases. So the first phase is the most reactive, intense phase where the person who feels betrayed is probably going to be extremely unhappy, angry, no, at times, even emotionally, a little more volatile where like one minute they might be happy with you.

Meredith Shirey (13:06):

And the next minute they might be texting you and saying, why did you do this to me? And I'm leaving. So the person who quote unquote was the perpetrator of the affair. If we want to call it that that person needs to be willing to take responsibility and to take accountability and to take a lot of heat during that time. Because what happens, I think too often is that people try to say, well, why is this coming up? Why are we still talking about this? Because the person who had the affair wants to move on, right? But they have to remember that their partner has no idea what their process was. Their partner's new to this information about the relationship. And so that's the first phase. And then after that, you really have to go into a lot of meaning-making and understanding what happened because it gets so convoluted where people want to assign blame or say, you know, was this person better than me?

Meredith Shirey (13:55):

Do you like them? Or were you unhappy? And if the other person doesn't confirm what they're thinking, it can get really, really confusing and tricky. So if you're perfectly happy with me, then why did this happen? Because the person who felt the trade is trying to, in their mind, reconcile this dissonance between who they thought this person was quote unquote and who I see them to be now. And so they're reconciling all these memories and trying to make sense of how can I hold both of these things. And so it's a lot of question asking, and I think it takes both people being extremely honest with themselves and with each other. So if you're the person you also cheated, you need to be able to look at yourself and to say, what did I gain from this? Or what did happen on my end that this seemed to be, you know, either a solution or an option?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (14:39):

Well, it seems like a lot of work. And I would think that a lot of people out there thinking to themselves, well, is it really worth it to put in all this work? I mean, isn't it true that once a cheater, always a cheater?

Meredith Shirey (14:51):

The short answer to that one is no. I want to honor and have some compassion for the sentiment behind that. Because the assuming if they've cheated, once they'll always cheat, that is the protective part of you that doesn't want to be hurt again, because it's almost a trauma. And so it makes sense to try to rationalize that, but there's actually no evidence to support that. So to answer your question about, is it worth, it, it can be, it can be because after this people who actually do the full recovery from infidelity grow closer to their partners, but it's because you literally have to mourn that your first relationship is over and you do have to do that. And it also, the other icky thing that people don't like to talk about and do is you have to understand. So for the person who had the affair, where are they in terms of mourning the loss of that other relationship? Are they still in it or are they not?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (15:40):

Okay, so you're mourning the passing of a relationship. And then I guess creating a new one. I mean, don't both people have to be on board with that because I would imagine that the cheater maybe doesn't think that that first relationship is over.

Meredith Shirey (15:51):

A lot of it does depend on where is the person who cheated in terms of that third person? Are they still exploring it? Are they ambivalent or have they let it go? And they've either mourned it. And here's the thing too. The partner has been offended. The partner, he feels betrayed that is unbelievably painful, right? To know that we're trying to mend our relationship and you're mourning the loss of this other person. How am I supposed to hold space for all of these things? So that has been, I actually think it's important to do some individual work there because it might not always be helpful to do that in the same circle that you're trying to heal your relationship. So like when I'm working with a couple, if the partner who's having the affair is still active in the affair and has no intent to leave or is very ambivalent. I say, then why don't we focus on individual work for you to figure that out or for your partner, but we need to put couples work on hold until you're both ready and have an idea of where we think we want to take this because otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and you're hurting both people.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (16:52):

So here's my question, right? Let's say you have two spouses or two partners and one spouse cheats because he or she feels like they're not getting emotional support from the other spouse. Maybe a spouse is critical of their job and they'll either make money. And so that person meets, let's say a person that's maybe a little younger and has an affair with that person because this new person's now very self-affirming for him or her. And now we're now we're in a therapeutic situation. And obviously the other spouse feels like, well, the cheater is wrong. And now, you know, you never deal with that underlying reason why the affair kind of happened. And that person is always now considered kind of the bad person and at fault. So how do you deal with that from a therapeutic point of view, or do deal with that in the therapy point of view, then what happens kind of after to these people?

Meredith Shirey (17:37):

So if you want to make meaning, if you really want to understand, you know, the quote unquote why this happened or where this came from, you have to open up the possibility for your let's call it the offending partner for that person explore what they learned about themselves. Because that might be something that I did this because I did not realize it until it happened, but I felt really inadequate in our relationship. I wasn't getting that need met. And this person admired me in a way that I haven't felt admired in years. And so it felt good. This is why it's, it's honestly a very, very difficult thing, because if you're trying to do that in the phase one where the hurt partner is still just like wrapped up in the rage. It's not going to work because they're not going to want to hear, Oh, so you had to go and learn how to feel adequate somewhere else, like, you know, bye by.

Meredith Shirey (18:22):

That's not going to work, which is why you have to kind of make that distinction. But it is very, very important for the person who had the affair to be able to look at and to explore without shame without the labeling, "you're a bad person," what they learned about themselves, because that will help you to move to the meaning-making and actually being able to further the relationship. If you only stay in that phase one where the one person's angry and you never get to phase two, you will not be able to heal from the affair. Because the other part of that too, is that you cannot use this idea that someone cheated on you as like your ACE in the hole for every fight you have. If you bring that up as though you're going back and forth and your last card is, and you cheated on me, you will ruin your relationship because it cannot be something where you're just using this as fodder to rub someone's nose and their mistakes.

Meredith Shirey (19:13):

Now you are allowed to process your hurt. You're allowed to talk about your triggers, but you can't do it. If your partner says, Hey, you didn't take out the trash. You can't be like, well, you cheat it. That doesn't work. You also then have to move to that stage where you're saying, I want to understand from a loving place, what you were getting there and how we can recreate this here in our relationship. So to your point, it is very, very difficult, but it's an essential piece that we're not demonizing the person who cheated because that shaming

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:43):

Pretty intense process of mourning, recreation, or maybe like rebirth of a relationship. It seems like something that will take quite a while.

Meredith Shirey (19:50):

Especially in this culture, we tend to be so instant gratification. So I can't tell you how many people have been in my office and a month after the affair. They're like, why is this still coming up? And it's like, well, because it's going to like, you know, it's, especially if it's like, well, it's, you know, you were having the affair for three years. Yeah. We're not going to fix this in a month. But I think people forget because they want to rush through the hurt, which makes sense, because it is unbelievably painful to find out that your partner had an affair. But what happens is if we rush too quickly through these stages and we don't actually give them the time that they need to really process and to sink in, then it feels like we're just kind of, you know, slapping a bandaid on something and not taking the time. So this is one of those things. You almost have to think about it like a complex recipe that takes a long time to simmer.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (20:36):

May even be more complicated because nowadays you may not even agree that an affair took place and then what happens that just brings us to like really the need to communicate, you know, next week, we'll talk about what happens when communication is completely broken down in options with divorce and all that. But you know, really we've had 11 episodes and two of them, we labeled communication episodes, but we really had 11 episodes on communication and the importance of communication because infidelity, what does that mean sex? What does that mean? What are all these things mean and how they impact your relationship? And it seems to me that if you don't have those clear lines of communication, then you can end up in a place where there's all sorts of unintended consequences and things going on. So really, I guess at the end of the day, you know, communicate, communicate, communicate.

[Theme Music]

Rich Hackman [Producer] (21:37):

Love me or Leave Me is a podcast production of the Bored Brand. This podcast is for informational purposes only it does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnoses or treatment, always follow up with a licensed attorney or healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.