SERVICES
AFFAIR RECOVERY
Can Couples Really Recover
From An Affair?
It often depends on how well you can confront… yourself
The Special Problem of Workplace Infidelity
I have an unusual secondary Master’s Degree that’s not typically found among couples therapists. In 2008, I earned an M.S. in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts. I learned about labor law, how HR departments work, essentials of work rules and common practices, etc..
I also learned and how class, race, gender, and power dynamics play out in the workplace.
Little did I know that nearly a decade later I would also earn a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Antioch of New England in 2016. It’s no surprise that I was immediately drawn to the work of Dr. Shirley Glass.
Shirley Glass was a renowned therapist and expert on infidelity She published her groundbreaking book "Not Just Friends" in 2003. She has been called “the Godmother of infidelity research.”
The Infidelity Crisis in the Modern Workplace
"Not Just Friends" explores what she described as an “infidelity crisis” in how the modern workplace has become a fertile source of complex emotional and sexual attractions that impact committed relationships and families.
It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of infidelity and how to prevent it.
Shirley’s research was the first high-quality research on workplace infidelity.
Twenty years later, even though her book did not fully anticipate the “me-too” movement, Her research has aged incredibly well, and is still my go-to approach for C-level workplace infidelity.
A Shift in the Center of Gravity
Dr. Glass's expertise in the area of infidelity stems from her extensive experience as a therapist. Like many therapists, she’s worked with many couples who have struggled with the aftermath of an affair.
But she was the first thought leader to make the prescient observation that the center of gravity of American Infidelity had shifted to the social sphere to the workplace.
In "Not Just Friends," Dr. Glass draws on her years of clinical experience to offer insights into why workplace affairs happen, how they can be prevented, and how couples can recover from the devastation they cause.
The Dilemma of Attractive Others
One of the key points that Dr. Glass makes in "Not Just Friends" is that emotional affairs can be just as damaging as sexual affairs. She notes that emotional affairs often start innocently enough, with two people becoming friends at work because they are tasked with working together
I like how Shirley directly names these people as “attractive others.”
Shirley’s research on workplace infidelity unpacks how the mechanics of disclosure gradually results in crossed boundaries, and sharing increasingly intimate details about their lives.
However, these friendships with “attractive others” can quickly cross the line into emotional infidelity when they begin to rely on one another for emotional support and companionship that should be reserved for their partner.
Animal Spirits take over when trust is broken.
Dr. Glass explains that emotional affairs can be particularly insidious because they are often more difficult to detect than sexual affairs.
Shirley also emphasizes the importance of establishing clear boundaries in workplace relationships to prevent affairs from happening. I call this a Prophylactic Mindset, and I’ll be talking more about that later.
She encourages couples struggling with workplace emotional infidelity to have open and honest conversations about what constitutes infidelity.
A couple in my care would also establish appropriate awareness of attractive others, transparently disclosing workplace dynamics. Dr. Gottman calls it a “stress reducing conversation.”
I find it to be a marvelous too for establishing guidelines for appropriate behavior with attractive others.
Why are we so vulnerable to workplace infidelity?
Shirley notes that setting boundaries can be challenging, but it is crucial for maintaining the trust and integrity of the relationship.
Like most thought leaders, Dr. Glass offers practical advice for preventing and recovering from affairs, but Shirley also conducted significant field research, exploring and identifying specific psychological and emotional factors that contribute to infidelity.
Dr. John Gottman remains enthusiastic about the depth and quality of Shirley’s work. I’ve personally worked with dozens of C-level executives caught in the quicksand of a workplace affairs. Recently a CEO invited me to work with his HR departments to review workplace culture, methods of team building, and ways of keeping the office a “family-friendly” rather than a family agnostic environment.
The Role of Neglect and a Lack of Fulfillment
Dr. Glass noted that workplace affairs often occur when one partner feels neglected or unfulfilled in the relationship, and that understanding and addressing these underlying issues is the essential key to preventing future infidelity. Shirley’s work was a perfect fit with what the Gottman Institute was also noticing; an alarming increase in couples seeking to heal from workplace infidelity.
Overall, the book "Not Just Friends" is remains a comprehensive and insightful examination of the complex and painful topic of workplace infidelity, even 20 years later.
Dr. Glass's expertise and experience as a therapist shine through in her compassionate writing style. But Shirley was also hard-nosed, and always followed the science.
Shirley’s approach to helping couples navigate the aftermath of an affair remains both practical and inspiring.
The references below demonstrate the breadth and depth of Dr. Glass's thinking on workplace infidelity and its impact on relationships. Shirley’s work spans a variety of disciplines, including psychology, communication processing, and family systems.
Dr. Glass passed away shortly after completing her publishing research in 2003. She has been sorely missed.
RESEARCH
Glass, S. P. (2003). "Not Just Friends: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal." New York: Free Press.
Glass, S. P. (1998). "Psychological consequences of marital infidelity." Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(2), 167-185.
Glass, S. P. (2001). "Preventing infidelity: Guidelines for maintaining boundary clarity." In G. P. Mallory & L. A. Gale (Eds.), The new handbook of psychotherapy and counseling with men: A comprehensive guide to settings, problems, and treatment approaches (pp. 329-341). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Glass, S. P., & Staeheli, J. R. (2003). "Extramarital involvement and marital satisfaction: A brief research review." In G. K. Rhoades & S. W. Stanley (Eds.), Advances in marital therapy: Research and practice (pp. 55-72). New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Glass, S. P., & Wright, T. L. (1992). "Justifications for extramarital relationships: The association between attitudes, behaviors, and consequences." Journal of Sex Research, 29(3), 361-387.
Glass, S. P., & Wright, T. L. (1997). "Exploring the meaning of extramarital involvement through personal interviews." Western Journal of Communication, 61(3), 346-365.
Glass, S. P., & Wright, T. L. (1998). "The impact of computer-mediated communication on extramarital involvement and marital satisfaction." CyberPsychology & Behavior, 1(2), 151-162.
Glass, S. P., & Wright, T. L. (1999). "Sexual infidelity in a national survey of American women: Differences in prevalence and correlates as a function of method of assessment." Journal of Marriage and Family, 61(1), 213-229.
Glass, S. P., & Wright, T. L. (2002). "Affair-proofing your marriage." Psychology Today, 35(2), 52-57.
I'm married and my partner is having an affair. This has happened before…Can my relationship really recover?
Absolutely!
I’m sure you’d love to hear that.
Some therapists go as far as to offer this blanket reassurance on their website.
I say it depends.
Healing from infidelity is not just about your sexual entanglement. It's sometimes more about the perverse investment some partners make in their sexual, emotional, and power fantasies.
The distancing, withdrawal, and resentment that their hurt partner might engage in as a reaction to serial betrayals further complicates the issue.
But not only for the couple, but also for their children, as they process the meaning of the parental infidelity, bad faith, and deceit that has been normalized for them.
Infidelity is such a widespread American phenomena, it seems sometimes that we’ve all been touched by it in one way or another. I hope you will heed my clinical, cautionary tale.
The Story of Charlie and Arlene Davenport
When my client Charlie Davenport (not his real name) first got involved with his ex-wife Arlene in 1995, she was not only already married, she was also having an online emotional affair …she was an impressive early-adaptor of online sexual banter.
In the early days of the internet, she would slink out of bed she shared with her then-husband Dave, and, in the middle of the night, she would compose complex sexual fantasies and email them to a plumber named Blair Wyfefleecer (not his real name) from Peoria Illinois… a married man with 3 kiddos she met online, but that Arlene had never met, or ever would meet, in person.
Poor Blair ran into a serious financial problem. Perhaps instead of fixing clogged toilets, he was spending too much time emotionally massaging horny wives long distance.
So, while Arlene was married to Dave, and having an affair with Charlie, she sent her cyber-boyfriend Blair 5K to bail him out of his financial jam.
Talk about your red flags. I was particularly impressed with a comment Charlie shared in session about Blair’s wife response to his relationship with Arlene:“Hey, if she wants to send you dirty stories with a check for 5 grand …I’m ok with it!”
I love pragmatic women… don’t you?
Blair decided to kill 2 birds with one stone.
Instead of paying Arlene her 5K back in cash …Blair deeded Arlene his time share in Lake Havasu Arizona!
When the horny and hapless Arlene accepted this dubious form of payment from Blair, she never bothered to consult her then live in boyfriend, Charlie.
Mr. Wyfefleecer also dispensed with an extremely inconvenient $1200 per year time share service fee. That’s the art of the deal!
The Struggles of Charlie
Charlie was pretty bitter that in the early days of his marriage to Arlene, he was struggling to launch his accounting practice, Arlene was oblivious to his stress.
Every year poor Charlie had to hustle to pay that $1200 in service fees. What was Arlene doing while Charlie was hustling? Whatever she felt like …but not working.
It pissed me off that the divorce court acts like she worked. She worked all right. She worked at getting attention from strange men……
Charlie is an accountant. He is really good with numbers.
I added up the service fees over the lifetime of the marriage …it added up to over 25K in service fees on a friggin’ timeshare in Arizona that I never friggin’ used…”
Arlene was truly an “involved partner.” She was involved in her own solipsism.
Arlene’s emotional affair had its own financial archaeology. She was content to have Charlie pay for the unused timeshare while she blissfully ignored how her affair financially burdened her then new fiancee… after all… It was a wee bit too embarrassing, wasn’t it?
Tired of Serial Betrayals
But after nearly 20 years of serial betrayals, poor Charlie reached a tipping point.
It was Arlene’s birthday. Arlene and Charlie rented the rooftop lounge at their Rincon Hill apartment in SoMa, and invited about 50 close friends and relatives.
Charlie’s friend Jerry brought some weed that they vaped together.
Unlike like his friend Jerry, Charlie was not a heavy a pot smoker. Feeling increasingly dizzy and uncomfortable, Charlie left the party, but passed out, and collapsed in front of the elevator in his building.
He thought he might be having a heart attack. He was terrified, and that just made his sense of panic worse.
Not at His Side… or on His Side…
Charlie became keenly aware that while he was contemplating the merits of dying in front of an elevator, while ambulance medics poked and prodded him, his wife Arlene was cooly watching him along with a small crowd of onlookers from a distance …but was not at his side.
Charlie lowered his head. His voice trembled. “I never forget Arlene just watching me. She looked bored.. but I also never freakin’ talked to Arlene about it either afterward …I own that… but that was my epiphany. I had to leave her.”
Charlie chuckled. His sardonic laugh peaked, and then grew quiet. “I gotta come clean here, Daniel, I did bring it up one time. She was furious. You know what she said, Danny? She said I ruined her birthday … That’s the last time I brought it up.”
3 months later, Arlene starting whining about how lonely she felt. It was hard to get attention during a pandemic lockdown.
“I feel bad for her son, Michael.” Charlie voice dropped and he grew solemn.
“I ‘ve known Michael since he was born. After the divorce, Arlene’s now ex Dave did his best to work with us as Mike got shuffled back and forth between Dave and us. That was over 25 years ago. He’s in his 40’s now. He’s dropped out of college three times. He’s 41. No wife. Not even a girlfriend. No kids. No education. Mike seems content to watch his friends succeed in love and life while he idly observes.”
Charlie paused and rubbed his eyes.
“He’s like Peter fucking Pan.” Charlie dropped his head …“Years of watching Arlene and I, no doubt, shaped him that way.”
For some reason that Charlie still struggles to explain, he abruptly left Arlene in their high-rise luxury apartment in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco in May of 2020.
“Outside of removing myself from Arlene’s self-absorbed babbling.. I didn’t have a plan. I longed for the solitude of my home in Pescadero.”
Unfortunately, Charlie was in pretty bad shape after his divorce in 2022.
”It was a relief, to send her that friggin payment book for that stupid time share.” Charlie lowered his head and muttered in staccato fashion under his breath. “The weird thing is the service fee means nothing now. It has only been an annoyance to me for the last 10 years …but I can remember times in the late 90’s when after paying that bill …and I’d have 20 bucks left in my checking account until payday.”
Charlie Returns to Pescadero
Charlie returned to the home he and Arlene shared when they lived in Pescadero. After living alone for 4 months, Charlie was a reader of my now-erased CTI blog. Charlie already had a great therapist helping him with his anxiety, depression and panic attacks, but Charlie “wanted help stepping out of his life to see it differently for a change.”
Charlie and I meet on Zoom on a regular basis. “I used to believe I was sad and scared… I used to care what Arlene wanted from me…but now I see that I just got used to her always identifying me as the designated problem.” Charlie blew out a sigh. ”Eventually, I accepted that bullshit as truth…and that’s nobody’s fault but mine.”
I saw Charlie the other day. I asked him what he was noticing after 3 years of living alone.
Every morning, Danny, I notice the refrigerator magnet I bought on Etsy when I got my final divorce decree:
“Sometimes divorce is better than marriage.”
Sumner Redstone.
Serial Infidelity and Personality Disorders
Involved Partners stray from the promise of trust and transparency with their committed, chosen partner.
Gottman has carefully mapped how this unraveling of connection erodes a marriage long before the infidelity is discovered or disclosed.
But serial infidelity, such as what Arlene demonstrated, is indicative of a more severe serious personality disorder.
I learned in session that Charlie endured his ex spending an entire weekend with her former high school boyfriend, Steve Marsho, on a whim.
“She went to see him because she was annoyed with me at the time. I found out by reading the note she left behind for me.” Charlie reported.
Charlie… he was…Disgusting!
“For 3 days I waited for her to come back home to Pescadero. We had a big fight, and went I came home she left a note that she was in Portland with Marsho”. Charlie blew out a sigh.
“When Arlene returned she was sober and quiet. Was she disappointed in Marsho? Hell, I could never understand why after 40 years she would just show up and spend a weekend with him… or why he would even agree to host her for an entire fucking weekend.” Charlie shrugged, then scowled.
At one point, Charlie mocked Arlene’s voice …”Oh my Gawd, Charlie! He’s addicted to coke and was missing some of his front teeth… Charlie, (he snorted for effect here)…he was…he was… disgusting!“
Charlie had 20 years worth of Arlene stories.
On another occasion, a friend of Charlie awkwardly confided to him that she had walked in on Arlene a state of dishabille with a local ranch hand at a party.
“It was a startling revelation to me that my wife craved the attention of other men… but it had been happening for years, and like many hurt partners, I blamed myself. She always made it seem that her behavioral was a reasonable response to my … fill in the blank, Daniel.. No matter what the “problem” was, I just got used to being the source of the “problem”… but I never understood that… because she craved so much attention… I was trapped in a story that I was making her lonely and it was all my fault.”
Charlie shrugged as if he was holding up the world. “I could never satisfy her…so I would always remain the problem…My contribution was that I became so resentful so early… but I never challenged her …I just withdrew.”
Just before the incident at the elevator, Charlie received a phone call that would change his life.
“So Daniel, We just moved from Pescadero to SoMa. I was exploring my new neighborhood, and out of the blue, this woman…a complete stranger calls me.
Her name is Susan…Susan is the wife of Max, a guy Arlene sat next to when she attended Oakes college in 1984” (2 years after her marriage to Dave).
So this complete stranger Susan called me in 2019 to inform me that her husband Max and my wife Arlene were still “having an affair.”
I found it hard to believe at the time… I mean, who was this woman?
“Arlene had admitted to me when we were first living together that she flirted with Max back in 1984. She implied that her new husband Dave was more gay than straight, and had lost interest in her. She even told her then husband Dave that she was attracted to Max, and had flirted with him. She seemed so matter of fact, and, most disturbing to me at the time, she expressed zero remorse.”
Charlie paused, and then lifted his head. He cleared his throat and spoke again.
“I made a mental note.“ I remember thinking, really? You’re only 2 years married, with an infant son at home, and poor Dave has to hear about this? “Daniel,” Charlie spoke quietly. “I remember actually feeling bad for the guy. Sometimes Arlene would read me emails from Max, who was obviously hitting on her. She adored the attention, but I thought she was being open and transparent.. I mean that’s what she said she was being… But I now realize these many years later, Arlene never read any of her emails to Max… She described Max as an unrepentant philanderer, and on that basis, I laughed it off with Arlene, but I wondered …”
Charlie sighed heavily. His eyes grew moist. “Oh well… perhaps if Sue had called Dave in 1984 instead of calling me in 2019 things might have turned out differently”
Was it all Dave’s Fault?….or Charlie’s? What about Arlene’s role?
While it is true that marriage does not necessarily have to end in divorce because you had an affair, you will not help the situation by blaming and shaming your partner for leaving you “emotionally abandoned.”
If your stance is that your partner is responsible for your behavior, your experience of couples therapy will be an expensive misadventure that will yield nothing of lasting value.
Even though fessing up and admitting the affair to your partner will cause a lot of grief, heartache, and anger, the odds are that your marriage will probably survive if you both want it bad enough.
Couples counseling for infidelity can help. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. If you’re motivated, It can help.
But if you can’t take a hard look at your own insecurities, if you fail to notice how you brighten under the attention of attractive strangers, you will inevitably cobble together a secret life that will defy an easy explanation to your shattered partner… and eventually… they will discover your true nature, and recoil from it.
Are too many attractive strangers in our work environments?
Remember this. The world is teeming with attractive strangers. as Bob Dylan once put it…
Miss Delilah is his, a Philistine is what she is
She'll do wondrous works with your fate
Feed you coconut bread, spice buns in bed
If you don't mind sleepin' with your head face down in a grave… Bob Dylan Foot of Pride 1983.
While about 64% of couples struggling with infidelity manage to stay to together and heal to some degree, that still means more than a third of these couples ultimately divorce. Americans in particular are highly aspirational in their intimate relationships, and in recent social science research still cite infidelity as a serious potential deal breaker.
While coming clean and being honest are powerful, so is walking away…
Most hurt partners don’t walk away it's just not that common.
When most spouses get caught cheating, their first instinct is to control the flow of information and construct the narrative.
This is a terrible move that stacks one betrayal on top of another.
For example, once a hurt partner becomes aware that their partner is involved with someone else, they can’t help ruminating about the sheer volume of lying and distorting that was required to hide the nature of the involvement.
Keeping the affair a secret is the foundational lie. But when lies compound upon lies it’s usually because the involved partner:
Minimizes and distorts the nature of the relationship.
avoids discussing details, unless confronted with incontrovertible concrete evidence.
downplays the meaning and significance of the affair.
lies about when the affair started, or how, or if it ever ended.
An involved partner will often try to contain the situation by lying, deleting, and distorting.
The Involved Partner may engage in complete denial as an opening move.
They often erase or hide any ongoing text, phone, or email contact.
Deleting texts, emails, and messages en masse upon discovery is an all-too-common panic-based move.
Dribbling out information only when confronted with hard evidence, or on a need-to-know basis (called “titrating”) can also be common.
Some therapists argue that this behavior is emotionally abusive, but get over yourself. It is more painfully human than abusive. It’s shocking to see how long important information can be withheld by most people.
Remember Charlie? When Arlene was divorcing Dave to marry Charlie, she confessed to Dave about having an affair with a handsome Italian priest during their marriage. Arlene had no problem sitting on that information for nearly 20 years.
Other involved partners may totally shutdown and stonewall.
Others engage in Gaslighting. Shutdowns, stonewalling, and gaslighting are highly indicative of a possible personality disorder.
Minimizing the affair emotionally, “we’re just good friends, and she doesn’t have that many..she’s going through a challenging time” is also common.
Minimizing the affair sexually – “why are you taking this so seriously? You are so neurotic! So insecure! Grow up! It’s a freaking joke! “We’re just co-workers. We just sext each other as a way to blow off steam” never works. However, few spouses consider sexual banter between co-workers amusing anymore.
Partial transparency is nothing more than a series of lies of omission. A “limited hangout” won’t do.
Admitting to the least of your sins is not repairing your infidelity. The only transparency that matters is heartfelt and wide open.
Some involved partners proclaim total amnesia about when the affair began, how it evolved, and when it ended (or if it even really ended at all?).
On the other hand, the surgical lying that is usually necessary to hide an affair often is confounded by the flood of neuro-chemicals associated with limerence. In other words, They may tell their spouse, "I don’t remember, that particular detail" and mean it sincerely.
Containing who you disclose to is wise.
Perhaps your marriage was once solid…but now it’s just shifting sand.
Hurt partners, especially women, may reach out to friends, family, and even their own children, before seeking out a couples therapist.
This neglect has a lasting impact. If the marriage does survive the affair, very often, it does so with damaged friendships and family relationships when the news is imprudently broadcasted far and wide.
Who you tell about your affair, or your partner’s affair is a deeply serious undertaking .
Seeking solace from a family member who has been a consistent critic to your partner often creates a ripple effect, as most of us like complain “how could he/she do this to me?" to people who we have reason to believe love and care about us.
Keep your issues tightly locked down until you can speak to a qualified couples therapist like me.
Affairs are confusing to both partners.
It’s important to avoid judgemental labels whenever possible. Being saddled with the label of the "unfaithful spouse" or the "betrayed spouse" often inhibits the affair recovery process.
I prefer using the terms "Hurt" and "Involved" partners" rather than talking about "people who cheat," and I encourage other infidelity therapists to also avoid judgemental language..
In treating infidelity, a couples counselor's primary role is to help the couple survive infidelity, not to stigmatize spouses, or “find the bad guy.”
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The first thing many hurt partners ask us is, "How could you do this to me?”
Involved partners feel a desperate need to “understand” how they so profoundly hurt their partner, but not be grasp what was operating within themselves that would result is behaviors so incredibly destructive to their marriages.
Equally explosive is the reality that many of the involved partners may only give up their affair partners when presented with an ultimatum.
They may still crave the feelings of self-expansion; the sense of feeling powerful and desirable.
Illicit affairs offer excitement, and even danger.
There are best practices for emerging from an affair with your marriage and your career intact.
Contact me and tell me about your situation, perhaps I can help you both turn it around.
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Hurt partners often ask, "How could he/she do this to me?" It's a question that is seldom answered to the hurt partner's satisfaction. Rumination and obsession are common. Rumination is not an emotional process; it is a repetitive habit of mind.
Many Hurt Partners say, "they are trying to understand."
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