This is an article for people who are having or had an affair, and who are considering counseling.  If you are in a relationship with someone who is having or had an affair, you can click here for another article, which I recommend you read first.

Note:  In this article I refer to affairs that involve both emotional and sexual elements.  There are many kinds of affairs, but those that involve both sex and emotional connection are the most compelling for affair partners, and the most potentially damaging for all involved.

“Good people in good marriages are having affairs.”  --Shirley Glass, from Not Just Friends

Affairs are ubiquitous in our culture right now—many people are going outside the agreed upon structure of their relationships to experience emotional connection and sex with people other than their primary partners.  Most marriages will experience an affair over the life of the marriage—some of the latest research reports that up to 70% of marriages will experience an affair.  Affairs happen for many reasons, but the conditions that most favor affairs are found in relationships in which open, honest communication has become shut down for some reason and has been replaced by emotional deadness and/or entrenched patterns of anger, disappointment, and silence.  Relationships in which attraction for others is not openly discussed as a natural part of life are particularly at risk for affairs.

If you had or are having an affair, and are considering counseling, it is likely that some part of you feels out of balance with your values.  You may feel justified about your underlying reasons for having an affair, but still feel some conflict about the actions and decisions it took to have it.  Affairs almost always involve deception, omission of information, and outright lies to your partner.  Very few people would say that dishonesty is in line with their core values or is an accurate reflection of how they usually relate to others they care about.  That said, affairs can be the source of some extremely powerful, positive emotions for many people involved in them.  The universally positive reflection most people get from their affair partner feels great and is often an electrifying experience, especially when compared to the more grounded, familiar feelings present in long-term relationships.

People commonly mistake the powerful emotional rush they experience in their affair for love.  The feelings of adulation, obsession, magnetic attraction, and exciting sex in many affairs can result in affair partners feeling “swept away” together into a state of bliss.  They may experience charged emotional intimacy together and may feel comfortable experimenting with new levels of emotional vulnerability.  All of these feelings are similar to those experienced at the beginning of a new relationship.  However, there are two additional factors, specific to affairs, that make the emotions experienced therein even more intoxicating.  The first is that affairs exist in a world apart from the day-to-day world.  In a typical affair, you never have to see your affair partner’s dirty laundry, argue with their relatives, or talk about financial pressures.  You are allowed to be a perfect version of yourself that is free from normal social roles.  Even better, you are able to experience a perfect reflection of this perfect self from your affair partner.  Someone is seeing your best qualities, and they adore you.  What more could you ask for?  The second factor that makes affairs so exciting and addictive is their secrecy.  Many people get a charge from the elicit nature of affairs, and indeed, from the elicit nature of anything.  People often want what they are told they can’t have.  Once the line into emotional and sexual intimacy has been crossed in an affair, many affair partners find themselves doing things they never could have imagined doing:  Lying to their spouses, sneaking time with their affair partner, and becoming less interested in life’s major responsibilities such as work, kids, pets, friends, family, finances, long-term goals, etc.

If you are considering counseling about your affair, you are probably starting to realize that the feelings you experience in your affair come at a price.  For starters, it is hard work living a double life.  The weight of all the lies breaks many people down after awhile, which is why many affairs are eventually discovered or admitted to.  In addition, most people coming to grips with their affair ultimately realize that it is largely based on fantasy.  When exposed to the light of day, affairs start to lose their polish and look more like a normal relationships—and there is nothing inherently magical about relationships—as wonderful as they can be, you get out of them what you put into them.  The honeymoon period doesn’t last forever in any relationship, and once over, the quality of the relationship depends upon the quality of the honesty and communication  shared.  The reality of leaving one’s primary partner for one’s affair partner is typically quite sobering—especially if there is significant history or family involved in the primary relationship.  Moreover, many people have an intuitive sense that beginning a new relationship on a foundation of deception, betrayal, and the loss of their former life is probably not a recipe for a healthy new start.  The research supports this intuitive sense:  Only 3-7% of new marriages that began as affairs last in the long run.

I can help you explore the feelings and needs that led to your affair.  I will coach you toward honesty with yourself, with me, and if you choose, with your primary partner.  I can help you explore the decision to leave or stay and work on your primary relationship.  I can help you navigate the stressful time that follows an affair’s discovery, and help you repair the damage to your primary relationship, if you choose to stay in it.  I can help you explore and come to terms with long-standing relationship dynamics, fear of intimacy, or historical factors that may have contributed to your decision to have an affair.  I will be a non-judgmental source of support as you work to better understand your feelings and needs, elements of your affair, your relationship, and your future choices.  I can recommend readings for you and will encourage you to stay active in your own learning and research process.

If you would like to schedule a free consultation or initial session, if you have questions about my approach to working with affairs, or if you’d like reading suggestions, please email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call me at (503) 757-6259.

Frequently asked questions about affairs:

Will you judge me or blame me for my affair?

No.  I will support you toward honesty with yourself and with me about your affair and the circumstances that led you to it.  We will work together on the elements of your situation that you find important and I will give you my feedback and point out themes as I see them.  I will coach you toward taking responsibility for the choices you make and help you to work on relationship patterns as they come up.

I’m afraid to tell my primary partner about my affair, but I don’t want to keep lying—can you help?  I don’t know if I should leave my old relationship or stay, knowing that it will take a lot of hard work before things get better.  What to do?

Yes, I can help you explore these important decisions.  If you had an emotionally and sexually involved affair, it is key to realize that your primary partner has almost certainly noticed a change in your behavior and may be coping by using denial.  As you can probably guess, the admission of an affair usually precipitates a crisis in the primary relationship.  What happens next is dependent on the level of commitment and love that exists between you and your primary partner.  Most marriages that experience affairs do not end in divorce (70% do not), but healing the relationship will be hard work.  Relationship counseling is helpful during this time, and couples that use counseling to help mend their relationship after an affair show much higher rates of survival and long-term happiness.  The research shows that the partner who strayed must be dedicated to understanding the traumatized response of their partner, and must also work hard to regain trust.  After you have worked together through the initial crisis of discovery (which can take 2-6 months) and have adequately processed the intense emotions of betrayal, anger, sorrow, guilt, shame, and resentment that will surface, you can then take the next step toward exploring historical relationship dynamics and patterns of deadness and blocked communication.  This can ultimately lead to a relationship that is stronger and more deeply connected than it was prior to the affair.  Affairs throw relationships into crisis, but that crisis provides an opportunity for both of you to tear down worn out patterns and replace them with more honesty and intimacy.  If you decide to be honest with your partner and stay to work on your relationship you will have your work cut out for you.  You will also be choosing a path that could lead you and your partner toward significantly more happiness and connection than you shared before.

How do I cope with my partners extremely hurt/angry/sad response to discovering my affair?

This is a very important question.  If your partner has recently discovered your affair (or if you admitted it to them) you should know that they are likely to react as people do when they experience a trauma.  An affair constitutes a massive betrayal to most people, and it can cause them to reassess their view of you, the relationship, and their perspective on the world in general.  A typical reaction may include shock, anger, sorrow, sadness, loss of sleep, changes in appetite, obsessive thoughts about the affair, a pressing reoccurring need to have questions answered (Why?  How could you?  Where?  When?), a feeling of vulnerability, and a need to know your whereabouts and your communications with others through phone, email, etc.  It is important that your partner be allowed and encouraged to feel and express what comes up for them.  If you are invested in mending your relationship it will be important for you to support your partner and try to understand their response.  Couples counseling is essential during this time—the couple will greatly benefit from a neutral supportive party who can coach them through the stages that follow discovery.  Getting past the initial crisis is the first step, and examining the underlying relationship and personal dynamics that led to the affair can only happen afterward.

What are some reasons people have affairs?

People have affairs for many reasons, and some people have affairs even though they are in perfectly happy relationships.  Most people, however, have affairs to try and meet needs that are no longer being met in their primary relationship.  Because honest communication is shut down in their relationship (or may never have existed in the first place) they did not have the tools to talk with their partner about what was going on—which ultimately blocked the couple from making changes in the relationship to meet unmet needs. 

There are many kinds of affairs (short-term, long-term, emotional, sexual, one night stands, etc.) but the common modern affair is both emotional and sexual.  Most people do not go looking for an affair—they tend to slide into it after becoming friends with someone at work or in the social circle.  After a time, an emotional connection develops which starts to include intimate sharing.  Boundaries become blurred, and are then crossed.  Once people have crossed their normal boundaries of emotional and sexual intimacy, it is very difficult to reestablish them.  Here are some specific reasons people cite for having affairs:

• “I was bored and lonely in my relationship.  It felt great to have someone pay attention to me.”

• “I had been putting work into my relationship forever, and I felt like this was my time to do something for myself.”

• “I’ve been feeling hurt and angry and unfulfilled in my relationship for a long time, but we didn’t have the communication skills to do anything about it.  The affair was a fun escape.”

• “I fell in love with someone else, and by the time I realized it, I was too far in.”

• “I didn’t want to leave my marriage, but I felt like life was passing me by.  The affair was like a reminder that I was still alive.”

• "We were about to take a major step in our relationship (e.g., buying a house, having a child, etc.), and I was scared.  The affair provided a distraction from my anxiety and created distance in our relationship."

(c) 2009 Great Northwest Counseling