195: Affair Relationships Can Last a Lifetime

Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Marie Murphy, and I’m a non-judgmental infidelity coach.  If you are engaging in anything you think counts as infidelity, I can help you deal with your feelings, clarify what you want, and make decisions about what you’re going to do.  No shame, no blame, no judgments.  A lot of the so-called advice out there for people who are cheating is little more than thinly veiled judgment, but that is not what I provide.  I give you guidance and support that respects the fullness of your humanity, and the complexity of your situation – no matter what you’re doing.  Resolving your infidelity situation in a way that is truly right for you is possible, and it is VERY worthwhile for you to invest your time and energy into doing this.  The rest of your life, beyond the drama and difficulty of your infidelity situation is waiting for you!  When you’re ready for some relief and a clear path forward, let’s get to work.  We can either work together one-on-one via Zoom, or you can enroll in my self-guided course, You’re Not the Only One.  To get started working with me in either of these ways, go to my website, mariemurphyphd.com.

Today I’m going to address the idea that relationships that start as affairs and transition into non-affair relationships either don’t or can’t last very long, and I’m also going to address the idea that affair relationships HAVE to end at a certain point.  And then, after I talk about those topics, I’m going to answer a question from a podcast listener that pertains to something completely different.

Let’s start with the idea that relationships that start as affairs cannot successfully transition into non-affair relationships.  A lot of folks I talk to are either convinced that relationships that begin as affairs, or begin as infidelity situations, are doomed to fail – or, some people aren’t exactly SURE they’re doomed to fail, but they are pretty worried that they might be.  And there are three common reasons people cite when they tell me they’re sure of this, or concerned about this.

The first reason is that they think, or they’ve heard, that relationships that start as affairs are tainted because the relationship started in the context of something bad happening, or the people involved in the relationship doing something bad, and that means that the relationship can never get onto normal footing, whatever that may mean.  Because the relationship started with infidelity, the well has been poisoned, and it can’t be un-poisoned.  That’s the idea, anyway. 

What I want you to ask yourself is, does this have to be true?  And perhaps more importantly, do you WANT this to be true for your relationship?

A lot of people may BELIEVE that relationships that start as affairs are tainted from the start, and thus, can never be “successful” by any standards.  But are they right?  I can tell you what I think the answer to that question is, but I will also tell you that you have to answer that question for YOURSELF, and here is why.  If you believe your relationship is tainted, you will, in all likelihood, act as if it is tainted.  What this might mean exactly is up to you, but generally speaking, when we believe a relationship is doomed to fail, we don’t act as if it has a chance to succeed!  We don’t do the things that could make it succeed!  We may sabotage the relationship in all kinds of weird ways – and we may not even recognize that we’re doing that.  And as a result, the relationship may not thrive, and it might indeed fail, whatever that means, and we may not recognize the role that our beliefs and actions played in creating this outcome.  And that’s a total bummer.

So if you believe that relationships that start as affairs are doomed to fail, or can’t possibly last, or can’t be successful, and yet you’re in a relationship that’s an affair that you want to transition into a non-affair relationship, you may want to invest some time and energy into examining and shifting your beliefs in this department.  Because if you don’t, your beliefs may inform your actions in ways that you don’t like very much.

As our good friend Carl Jung says, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  I’ll say that again because it bears repeating: until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.  Or in other words, until you become aware of what you are thinking, and how your thoughts inform your actions, you may continue to create outcomes in your life that you don’t like, and you may think that this is beyond your control.

Thus, I want you to consider that YOUR beliefs about what is possible matter more than what I see in my coaching practice, but I will tell you that what I see is that relationships that start as affairs absolutely DO work out.  Sometimes!  They don’t always, but sometimes they do!  Not all relationships that don’t start as affairs work out, so it’s not all that surprising that relationships that start as affairs don’t always work out as non-affair relationships.  But I regularly see relationships that start as affairs evolve into non-affair relationships that the involved parties are very happy with.  This is a thing, it can happen and it does happen. 

Furthermore, there’s no objective reason why relationships that start as affairs are doomed to fail.  We’ve got to remember that at the end of the day, the behaviors that we think of as infidelity are neutral until we give them meaning.  If a relationship between two people begins when one or both of those people is involved with someone else, that isn’t inherently meaningful.  It’s just a set of facts that we may assign meaning to.  And of course, we often DO assign meaning to infidelity; we DO often assume that infidelity is inherently bad, but it actually isn’t.  And even if you recognize this and you don’t think infidelity is all that great, which is fair enough, it may be helpful to remember that romantic relationships begin under all kinds of circumstances.  You don’t have to make the circumstances in which your relationship began into that big of a deal.  If you want to, you can make the present and the future matter more than a few details of the past.

The second common reason why people often tell me that affair relationships are doomed to fail goes like this.  Some people tell me that affair relationships, by definition, are running off of new relationship energy, or limerence.  Or they say that affair relationships are solely based on new relationship energy, or limerence.  And therefore, people sometimes tell me, the relationship will fizzle out once the relationship isn’t an affair anymore. 

There’s a lot I have to say in response to that!  The first thing is that if we’re going to assume that affair relationships are running exclusively on the high of new relationship energy, we might want to go even further and say that the circumstances associated with an affair may turbo-charge new relationship energy.  Or we might say that limerence within an affair is like limerence on steroids.  In other words, the intoxication that you may be experiencing with an exciting new affair relationship may be even more potent than the intoxication you might experience in a new relationship that isn’t an affair.  Or not!  There’s no way for us to conclusively prove this or disprove this.  The point is that if we’re going to talk about the excitement associated with new relationships, we might want to also consider the excitement that goes along with infidelity, and we might want to consider that there could be a powerful interaction effect between these two flavors of excitement.  Right?

And I think it’s GREAT to be aware of the possibility that you may feel some VERY potent excitement in relation to your affair relationship.  You may, effectively, be really, really high off of your affair relationship.  I think it’s wise to be aware of that.

But it isn’t necessarily wise or helpful to assume that your enjoyment of your affair relationship is JUST about new relationship energy, or limerence, or the combination of affair-related intoxication and the intoxication of being newly involved with someone great.  Interestingly or not, some of the people who express concern that their affair relationship is ONLY fulfilling because of the high of new relationship energy have been in their affair relationship for quite a few months, or even a few years.

And when I point this out to people, they often LOVE to tell me that there are all these studies about how long new relationship energy lasts, or how long limerence lasts, and then they love to tell me how those numbers don’t really apply to them, because they don’t get to see as much of their affair partner as they would like to, and therefore, the limerence phase of the relationship lasts longer.  So, their reasoning sometimes goes, they are obviously still in the throes of new relationship energy, and therefore they can’t possibly decide to pursue a non-affair relationship with their affair partner, because a) they aren’t thinking clearly, and b) once the new relationship energy wears off, the affair relationship won’t be any good anymore.

Whew.  That’s quite a mouthful, right?  Or that’s quite a brain full of thoughts.  Let’s see if we can approach all of these ideas in a way that helps disentangle a few things.

Although I think it’s important to be aware of limerence and new relationship energy, AND it’s important to be aware that being in an affair relationship can be extra-exciting, but I think we need to be cautious about assuming that there’s any way to know exactly how these experiences work, or assuming that we can know exactly what their impact is.  For instance, assuming that new relationship energy lasts for a very specific length of time may not be all that helpful.  Also, it may not be helpful to assume that once new relationship energy fades, there won’t be anything enjoyable about the relationship anymore.  Similarly, it may not be helpful to assume that a relationship won’t be satisfying once it’s a plain-old relationship, and not an affair relationship anymore.  This does not HAVE to be true.  And, to echo what I said earlier, if you believe this is true, you may end up behaving in ways that prove you right. 

It is not true in any absolute sense that affair relationships cannot be exciting beyond the new relationship energy phase, or beyond the affair bubble.  Can affair relationships fizzle out after an initial period of excitement?  Sure they can.  But that’s true of non-affair relationships, too.  Sometimes we get involved with someone and initially it’s really exciting and then the initial high starts to wear off and we say to ourselves, wait, what exactly did I see in this person?  I don’t want to continue a relationship with this person at all!  But just because there’s a possibility that could happen doesn’t mean that it’s a certainty.  After all, without new relationship energy, we might never begin a relationship that has the potential to turn into something great.  The initial high may fade, but it has the potential to give way to other great things, or other great chapters of the relationship. 

And that’s especially true if we’re willing to actively invest in making a relationship great.  In general, I think it’s fair to say that relationships that are effortlessly great in the beginning aren’t always effortlessly great forever.  So if your expectation is that a relationship will be as effortlessly great as it is in its exciting beginning forever, you may be quite disappointed.  But if you’re willing to take responsibility for cultivating the kind of relationship you want to have, you don’t have to worry about new relationship energy fizzling out.  You can create the next great phase of your relationship, even if it’s great in a different way.

A related concern that people mention pretty often is that they’re afraid of making decisions about their infidelity situation because they’re afraid the high of their affair relationship could be clouding their thinking.  Sometimes people are concerned that they can’t think clearly AT ALL about what they want to do about their infidelity situation because they think they might be totally drunk on new affair excitement.  I think it’s great to be aware that this kind of intoxication may be influencing your thinking, but it’s also important to consider that it may not be completely clouding your thinking.  And if you need help parsing this, if you need help assessing the extent to which you may making decisions that driven by intoxication or delirium, let’s work together.  This is something I can help you assess – and sometimes it really helps to have a neutral party who can help you look at your own thinking in a clear-eyed way.

One thing I will suggest is that if you’re trying to decide whether or not you want to pursue your affair relationship as a non-affair relationship, the question you may want to ask yourself is, am I willing to go for this?  Am I willing to do whatever I can to give this relationship a shot?  Asking yourself some variation of that question is very different from telling yourself, well, this is all just new relationship energy so I can’t think clearly.  Or, this is all new relationship energy and once it fizzles out, there won’t be anything left.  That kind of thinking will not help you make clear decisions.  On the other hand, if you decide that you want to see what is possible in your relationship with someone, whether you’re currently experiencing new relationship energy or not, that’s a lot more powerful.  And, if you decide that you do NOT want to see what’s possible with someone beyond the affair bubble, that’s powerful too.  If you’ve got new relationship energy or limerence on your mind, I have a podcast episode dedicated to that whole topic, and it is episode number 49, so you might want to give that one a listen if you haven’t yet.

The third main reason people give me when they tell me that relationships that start as affairs can’t last is that the statistics on the longevity of relationships that start as affairs “aren’t good.”  People tell me this kind of thing all the time.  They say, I’ve looked at all of the numbers, and they all say that relationships that start as affairs have a really low chance of succeeding.  And when people tell me this, they often tell me that they have scoured the internet and found all kinds of research that demonstrates this with absolute certainty.

And you, too, may have Googled and Googled and looked for statistics on the fate of relationships that start as affairs, and you too may have come upon some numbers that didn’t seem to bode well for YOUR relationship that started as an affair, or currently is an affair and might turn into a relationship that is not an affair. 

There are two things I want to say about these data that you may have found.  These data on the fate of relationships that start as affairs.

First, speaking as a recovering sociologist, as someone who used to be very involved in the production of scientific knowledge and the examination and critique of scientific knowledge and how it is produced, I want to emphasize that if we are going to take the findings of any study seriously, we need to seriously examine the study that produced those findings.  We need to be informed consumers of research.  And by saying that, I am not saying that research, by definition, produces questionable results, or shouldn’t be taken seriously.  Those are not my points at all.  However, I want to emphasize that we’ve gotta understand that not all research produces findings that are equally valid, or are equally valuable to us.  That’s an important general point. 

And more specifically, it’s hard to get good data on behavior that is conducted secretly, or that is stigmatized, or both.  And of course, affair relationships may fall into all of those categories.  That’s not to say that it’s impossible to get good data on affair relationships, but it is challenging.  In addition, researchers’ own biases may inform their study design, and although that isn’t a reason to distrust research writ large, it is important to consider when we’re looking at research on stigmatized behaviors.  SOMETIMES research on stigmatized behavior operates from the subtle or not-so-subtle assumption that the behaviors being studied are inherently problematic.  And that’s a problem! 

Finally, in order to rigorously study the trajectory of relationships that start as affairs, we need to do longitudinal studies – and finding participants for such studies isn’t easy, and longitudinal studies are expensive, and getting funding for research isn’t just a matter of having interesting topics to study.  There’s a lot more I could say about each of these points, but rather than going all the way down that rabbit hole, what I’m hoping to do is give you reasons to consider that you might not want to take whatever data you’ve found about the trajectory of relationships that start as affairs too seriously.  UNLESS you have rigorously examined the studies that produced those data, and you are comfortable with how the research was done.

But perhaps even more importantly, even if all of the studies on the fate of affair relationships that have been conducted were well designed and their findings were valid and the participants included in the study were representative of a population that is relevant to you, and even if all of these studies demonstrate that there is a low chance of a relationship that starts as an affair turning into a relationship that lasts for more than five years and is considered a happy one by all participants, this does not matter.  Here’s why.  Research of this kind describes what has already happened.  It does not tell you what is GOING to happen, or what has to happen. 

Even if every single relationship that’s ever started as an affair “didn’t work out” – whatever that may mean – before yours, that doesn’t mean that your relationship that started as an affair can’t work out.  It can.  That doesn’t mean that it certainly will, but it certainly can, and you certainly can do everything in your power to ensure its success – however you may define that.

Moreover, it’s important to recognize that a lot of us are engaging in our relationships in a fairly unconscious way.

So it’s reasonable to imagine that if studies find that relationships that start as affairs are likely to meet a particular fate, what these studies are capturing is what happens when people engage in relationships that started as affairs in a fairly unconscious way.  Or perhaps, what happens when people engage in their relationships in an expectation-driven manner.  If people are engaging in relationships from the standpoint of thinking that the relationship needs to provide excitement, or make them happy, or otherwise needs to deliver something to them without them having to do much to create what they want to experience, people may be disappointed!  And they may end their relationships from this place of disappointment.  And without being familiar with every single study that’s ever been done on the fate of relationships that start as affairs, I’m willing to bet that none of them have conceptualized a set of variables that measure the extent to which people take responsibility for creating the kind of relationship they want to have, and a set of variables that measure the extent to which people treat their relationships as Pez dispensers of happiness.

So if you’ve been looking at statistics on the fate of relationships that start as affairs and worrying about what these numbers mean for you, I want to suggest that they don’t have to mean anything for you.  It’s far more empowering to figure out what you want and what you’re going to do about than it is to wonder what’s possible – or worry about what might not be possible.  For more on this topic, listen to episode 115, which is called “From an affair to a non-affair relationship.”    

Now let’s switch gears and talk about long-term affairs, and whether or not it’s possible for affair relationships to flourish and last for a long time, as affairs.

Before I go any further, I want to mention that everyone’s idea of what counts as a “long time” varies.  People have very different ideas about what counts as a “long-term” affair.  It doesn’t really matter how long counts as a long time for an affair to go on.  What matters is that people sometimes say that they’ve been engaging in their affair for a “long time,” and there’s no way it can possibly continue indefinitely because it’s already been going on for a long time, and therefore, they must be reaching the natural limit of the affair relationship, because obviously, affair relationships simply can’t go on past a certain point.

I agree with part of this.  On one level, all relationships end at some point.  Assuming we all die, which as far as I know, we do, all of our relationships are going to end.  Or at least they’re going to end in the way we’re currently engaging in them.  I’m totally agnostic about what happens after our physical bodies die, and with that I’m open to the possibility that on some level, our relationships might continue forever, but that’s not the angle I’m operating from right now.  What I mean for right now is, in terms of how things work on the level of our physical human existence, all of our relationships will come to an end of sorts.  Maybe the end happens because someone dies, or maybe the end comes because of decisions we make or someone else makes, but everything that has a beginning has an end.

But none of that means your affair relationship has a pre-determined lifespan, or necessarily needs to come to an end at any particular point.

For better are worse, there aren’t any good studies that I know of that attempt to establish the average length of time affairs last – or any studies that attempt to capture the range of time affairs last for.  So while folks who are searching for statistics on the fate of relationships that start as affairs may be able to find some numbers that seem discouraging, folks who are wondering how long affair relationships can last may not be able to find any statistics at all. 

And that might be a good thing!  To reiterate what I said a moment ago, rather than looking for proof that what you want is possible – or proof that it isn’t possible – I encourage you to consider that it might be a lot more productive to get really clear on what you want, and what you’re willing to do in the service of what you want.  So more specifically, rather than trying to figure out whether your long-running affair might “have to” end at some point, I encourage you to get really clear on whether you WANT your affair relationship to continue or not.

This is something I talk more about in episodes 155 and 156, which are called “Nurturing a long-term affair, Part 1” and “Nurturing a long-term affair, Part 2.” 

What I see among folks I work with is that some affairs do last for years or even decades.  What’s important for me to share is that people experience varying degrees of torment within longer-term affairs.  For example, some people’s affairs last for a long time because they can’t really bring themselves to make decisions about their relationships, even though they don’t really want to be engaging in infidelity.  Being in that kind of situation has the potential to be pretty torturous.  But on the other hand, some people choose to maintain long-term affairs, and they do so for reasons that they like, and they intentionally enjoy what they love about their choices, and they intentionally deal with what they don’t love about their choices. 

What I want to suggest is that affairs don’t have to have any sort of natural expiration date.  And, even if you don’t see examples of long-term affairs, that doesn’t mean they don’t happen – they absolutely do – but even if they didn’t, that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have one.

To echo what I’ve said a few times already, instead of wondering what is possible – or telling yourself that what you want must be impossible - you may find it a lot more satisfying to get clear on what you want, and then figure out what you can do to create what you want.

Doing this may require a certain amount of tunnel vision, or a certain amount of willfully disregarding or ignoring things that seem like obvious truths.  And sometimes people think there is great danger in doing this – and I agree that there could be.  But I don’t think that there always is, and in fact, if we want to live our lives to the utmost, we may have to ignore a LOT of taken-for-granted ideas about how things should be.

On the subject of long-term affairs, the last thing I’ll say is, sometimes people tell me that everyone has an affair gets caught eventually.  And people tell me this as if it is a for sure thing.

But is it?  To my knowledge, it isn’t.  I don’t know everything, so I’m totally willing to allow for the possibility that there’s something important going on that I don’t know about.  But what I’ve seen is that plenty of people who have affairs, including long-term affairs, don’t get caught.  People do get caught, to be sure, but as far as I know, not everyone does.  And I think I’m in a better position to observe the trends in this department than a lot of other people are.

But yet, this idea is out there.  The idea that everybody who cheats gets caught eventually is out there, and if you have absorbed this idea, you are going to have to intentionally deal with it if you want to carry on a long-term affair and actually enjoy it.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  You may want to recognize that there is a possibility of getting caught, and thus you may want to do everything you reasonably can to prevent that from happening, and then from there you may want to employ a little tunnel vision and focus on enjoying your affair rather than worrying about the risk of getting caught. 

Or if you do believe that everyone who has an affair eventually gets caught and you are not interested in changing your thinking about this, and you don’t like the idea of getting caught, you can, quite simply, end your affair.

All right.  In summary, when it comes to relationships that start as affairs, and relationships that continue as affairs for “long time,” whatever that may mean, I encourage you to focus on clarifying what you want, and dedicating your energy to creating what you want.  Rather than wondering what is possible or impossible.  And of course, if you want my help navigating the transition from an affair to a non-affair relationship, or if you want help maintaining a long-term affair, let’s work together. 

Okay, now let’s turn to a question from a podcast listener.  Here’s the question.

“I am two years post-discovery.  My husband made me delete my Snapchat and Instagram.  I refused to allow him to make me delete my TikTok because it was not a means of communication with my affair partner.  I’ve cut off ties, although I long for him.  I have not been allowed any kind of freedom as far as being my individual self.  I can no longer go on overnights or weekends with my girlfriends.  My girlfriend invited me to a concert, and I am only allowed to go if he – and by he I assume that this person means their husband – comes… to a concert he will not enjoy.  It is in August.  How should I navigate this?”

Okay.  There’s a lot going on here.  I am assuming that this person’s question is, how should they navigate the concert situation. 

I don’t know how you should handle the concert.  I can help you decide what you WANT to do about the concert situation, but in order to help you in that way, I have to actually talk WITH you.  This is what the coaching relationship is for.  But I encourage you to ask yourself this question, and answer it honestly: what do you WANT to do about the concert?

What if this isn’t about shoulds?  What if this is about what you want?  And when I say that, I’m talking not only about the concert, but about your situation as a whole.

My guess is that you, the person who wrote this question, want to go to the concert with your friend, and without your husband.  If I’m right, here’s my question for you: why not just tell your husband you’re going to go to the concert without him?

Now here’s the thing.  The asker of this question said that their husband has MADE them do certain things.  If that is the case, if you are the person who asked this question, and your husband has effectively made you do things you haven’t wanted to do, whether by force or threat, then it is probably time for you to seek out a different resource.  If someone is literally forcing you to do things you don’t want to do, stop listening to this podcast right now and find a more appropriate source of help.

However.  Sometimes we think that other people “make” us do things we don’t want to do, but they aren’t actually making us do anything!  Sometimes we think we “have to” do certain things for other people, but we don’t actually have to do them.  Even if they say we do! 

Again, let me stress, if someone is telling you that you have to do something or else they’re going to harm you, that’s important to take seriously, and that goes beyond the scope of the support I’m offering on this podcast.  But outside of cases where you’re being threatened in this kind of way, it’s really important to recognize that you probably have more choice than you realize when you think that someone is “making you” do something.

For example, if someone tells you, “If you don’t delete your Instagram account, I will file for divorce,” they aren’t MAKING you delete your Instagram account.  They’re telling you what they’re going to do if you don’t delete your Instagram account.  Is it reasonable for someone to make the continuation of a marriage dependent upon their spouse deleting their Instagram account?  Maybe, maybe not.  But if someone has decided that they really don’t want to be married to you unless you delete your Instagram account, that’s their choice.  And now you get to choose what you do in response to their choice.  You could say, okay, I’ll delete my account.  You could say, okay, fine, I’m not going to delete my Instagram account, so let’s get a divorce.  Or you could say, let’s see if we can talk about this differently.  Let’s see if we can figure out ways to enable both of us to get more of what we want in this situation, and then we can see about the Instagram account.

It’s important to remember that someone expressing a preference doesn’t mean they’re making you do something.  It’s important to recognize that someone telling you what their bottom line is, or what their deal-breaker is, doesn’t mean you have to do what they want you to do.

It’s also important to consider that sometimes – not always, but sometimes – when someone says, “You have to do this thing for me” what they’re essentially saying is, “I’m really hurt, and I think that if you do this thing that I want you to do, I’ll feel better, and I think it’s your responsibility to make me feel better, so I’m going to try to get you to do this.”

And when we don’t understand that other people do not cause our feelings, this is a fairly reasonable thing to want.  If we think that other people have the power to make us feel whatever feelings we feel, then of course we’re going to try to get other people to change their actions so that we can feel better.  Right?  I talk a lot about how to take responsibility for your own feelings and how to deal with other people’s feelings in my self-guided course, You’re Not the Only One, so if this is something you’d like to work on, the teachings and assignments in my course will help you do that.

When someone gets cheated on, they may not like that very much.  Right?  And that’s fair enough.  If the person who submitted this question cheated on her husband and he’s unhappy about that, that’s fair.  And, if the person who asked this question cares about her husband, she may care that he’s upset.  She may care that he doesn’t like it that she cheated on her.  And that can be reasonable and appropriate and good.

But caring about somebody else’s feelings doesn’t mean that we’re responsible for their feelings.  And that’s true even if we’ve cheated on someone and we feel bad about that, and we feel bad that they feel bad.

Even if that’s the case, we still can’t solve for their feelings.  Only they can do that. 

Now, is it perhaps fair and appropriate to do some things your partner requests of you after you’ve cheated on them?  Yes, quite possibly.  If you and your partner want to stay together after you have cheated on them, they may make requests of you.  And on the one hand, it’s fair for them to want whatever they want – for instance, if this person’s husband wants her to delete her social media accounts, it’s fair for him to want that.  But that doesn’t mean she has to do it.  She might choose to do it, but there’s a difference between choosing to do something because you’re willing to do it, and choosing to do something because you think you have to.

And moreover, even when we do what our partner asks us to do, that doesn’t mean they’re going to feel better.

So if you want to stay in a relationship with someone you’ve cheated on, the question isn’t, how can you fix their feelings, the question is, how can you move forward in the relationship in a way that works for both of you?

And what it sounds like is that you, the person who sent in this question, may have an opportunity on your hands that extends beyond dealing with the concert that’s coming up in August.  You may want to clarify what you want in your relationship, in terms of the freedom to do your own thing, and you may want to advocate for your freedom to do your own thing in different ways.  This doesn’t mean that you have to ignore your partner’s feelings or requests – but you probably have more power than you’ve been exercising within the relationship to say yes this is okay with me, or no, this is not okay with me. 

And, you may also have some thinking to do about what you consider relationship deal-breakers.  If your preferences and your partner’s preferences are farther apart than you would like, you might want to think seriously about whether you want to stay in the relationship or not.  And that goes for your partner, too.  If you want to do things that he doesn’t want you to do, he may not want to stay in the relationship, and it’s his prerogative to make that choice.

So as far as the concert goes, I have two main suggestions.  The first is to recognize that you may have a lot more choice about what happens than you have thought.  For instance, it might be possible for you to go to the concert without your husband, even if he doesn’t want you to do that.  He might not like it if you do that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t go.  The second thing I suggest you do is think clearly about what you WANT in regards to the concert.  Do you want to go without him?  Or would you prefer to just let him come along?  Maybe you actually don’t mind if he comes.  If he doesn’t enjoy the concert, that doesn’t have to be your problem.  If he is hell bent on going for the sake of being your chaperone, and you’re okay with him coming along for that purpose, you do not have to take it upon yourself to worry about whether he’s having a good time or not.  You can have a great time with your friend, and let your husband deal with himself. 

Navigating a relationship after you have cheated on the person you are in the relationship with can be challenging business, but it IS possible to recalibrate your relationship after infidelity and experience more joy in the relationship than you ever have before.  In fact, client of mine who decided to stay with her spouse after having an affair recently wrote the following testimonial about our work together:

Ten coaching sessions with Marie likely saved me five to ten years of rumination and turmoil.  Working with her is the most useful investment you can make to define and move towards your most authentic life.  Each coaching session yielded useful new perspectives on habitual thinking.  New modes of thinking aided in breaking the hamster wheel of indecision, which led to taking definitive steps, followed by then allowing the torrent of emotion without perpetually catastrophizing – and this was the way out of the turmoil associated with my infidelity situation.  The most enjoyable part of coaching was those profound "aha!” moments when I found new freedom by realizing that old thought patterns were not as true as they seemed to be.  Ultimately, I changed my relationship with my ability to make decisions for MY life.  I decided to stay with my husband (after I had an affair) and be brutally real about who I am and what I need.  We have found truer happiness together than we’ve ever experienced before.  Having a coach with whom I could process my infidelity situation in safety was priceless.

Thanks to the client who wrote this.  And for everyone who is listening, it’s really important to remember that having a great relationship with someone you’ve cheated on requires attention to your own preferences and priorities – not just your partner’s.

All right everyone.  If you want my help dealing with your infidelity situation in a way that’s truly right for you, I can help you do it.  We can work together one-on-one via Zoom, or you can enroll in my self-guided course, You’re Not the Only One.  The way to get started with either of those options is to go the services page of my website, mariemurphyphd.com/services.  Let’s get to work and find you some relief and a clear path forward.

That is it for today!  Thank you all so much for listening, and have an awesome day.  Bye for now.