What defines betrayal? Why today, with divorce so normalized, do people continue to cheat on their partners instead of being honest and ending it cordially? Who bears the burden of such a blow to self-esteem? Why does it appear even in happy marriages? Why do open couples, where it is consensual by both members, continue to discover secrets that involve relationships with others?
In this article I will address infidelity and the reason for its high prevalence, relying on studies on this topic by a renowned Belgian psychotherapist (Esther Perel) who has dedicated her professional career to researching this topic across different cultures.
If there is a single behavior capable of destroying the trust and identity of a couple in an instant, it is infidelity And we understand this as the breaking of the trust agreement between people. Each couple is free to define the terms of said agreement. There are those who put the barrier in getting emotionally involved with someone other than themselves; For others it may be leading a parallel life through social networks although there is never an erotic-sexual approach; For others it may be finding out that their partner goes to dating clubs, masturbating, flirting with office colleagues…etc. The common and always present element is usually the secret that surrounds said activity.
To continue, it would be convenient to understand how the concept of monogamy has changed over the years. What in its origins was an agreement based on having a couple that would last a lifetime to be certain about who the children belonged to for inheritance reasons, today is interpreted as an exclusive couple for the duration of the marriage. matrimonial tie.
We have socially gone from monogamy understood as “one partner for my entire life” to a less limiting vision of “one partner at a time,” with the majority of people having several relationships or more in the course of their lives And just as the concept of monogamy has changed, the vision and expectation we have about love has also changed.
A few decades ago there was not such a broad and deep component of love or with so much weight in relationships; most of them were, above all, pre-marital agreements between families due to socioeconomic interests. The vision of marriage as an economic institution has given way to a broader and more integrative vision of the concept of love and its impact on the bond.
Love now implicitly carries the emotional charge associated with identity, the act of sharing interests, the sense of belonging, the support and sensitivity to the needs of the other, admiration for the partner, stability, intimacy, eroticism.. We are not linked as a formality or mere social convenience, but as an act of will.
Why are there infidelities in happy couples?
When marriage was nothing more than an arranged agreement, infidelity could wreak financial havoc. Today, when the couple is carefully chosen as part of our future project at the level of identity, love, belonging, commitment and complicity; Infidelity threatens our integrity and can strongly hurt our self-esteem, emotional stability and trust not only towards others but also in ourselves
When we choose someone as a life partner, we want them to be the best father or mother, a good confidant, a good lover, fun, with principles and values that coincide with me and I admire…, in short, we choose the person who fits emotionally, spiritually and intellectually.
When that person responds reciprocally, I in turn become the chosen one. Everything I have idealized about my partner is projected onto me. I am special, at least as much as he/she In this way, infidelity destroys love, and with it, the ideal that it projected onto my identity.
“I thought we were fine, I thought I knew you, that I knew myself. That he knew who we were as a couple. He was wrong, can I believe in you again? Can I trust someone else again? How can I trust again? If I don’t even understand how it happened, what was wrong? I have made a mistake, so how can I even trust myself?”
This, as we see, can lead to a loss of self-concept, an existential crisis. The premise from which the general reasoning is based is: “If my partner has been unfaithful to me, something was wrong in the relationship and/or something was wrong in me. If she has everything she needs with me, why has she betrayed and deceived me after so long?”
The reality is that millions of people are unfaithful throughout the world. Having the possibility of ending a relationship in time and getting divorced, people continue to commit betrayals and transgressions against those they have chosen to share their lives with. If people satisfied with their relationships transgress against the trust built, if even though the establishment of an open relationship is mutually agreed upon, people continue cheating on their partners… Where is the explanation? At the risk of losing their families, of acting against their own values, there are people who do not avoid committing adultery.
In the course of an adventure, these people find connection, novelty, freedom, vitality, adrenaline, euphoria, something that gives them the feeling of being alive again The thrill of imagining a clandestine kiss is such that there are people who secretly become trapped in the game of seduction at the expense of risking losing their belonging to the family unit that they have been building for years.
When someone’s existence is lacking in purpose, when someone has been living for years by inertia disconnected from themselves, losing dynamism, acting in a complacent manner without attending to their own desires, losing their sense of autonomy, of exercising the freedom to decide how live each day in a way that makes your life meaningful; they face that they do not want to look straight.
Is this all I had left to live? Am I going to live like this every day until I cease to exist? Am I going to spend 30 more years just working, eating and resting? Am I not going to feel again what I once felt? It is not so much the search for another, what attracts these people is the search and longing for another “I”. These people report that in the middle of an adventure “they feel like they have come back to life.”
It is possible that adventures hide behind that need to feel alive more than behind a mere instinct to have sex. They want to feel seen again, special, chosen, heard, cared for… the adrenaline that awakens the desire for the forbidden and the need to discover and explore the human being mitigates the apathy with which they have been living for years. They feel trapped in a dull life, they live it like a straitjacket and on occasion they feel a strong urge to escape.
Conclusions
Now, infidelity can be the end point of a relationship that was already dead, which can give the affected person the possibility of a new life once their wounds heal. These can heal, and if the breakup has been experienced as traumatic, I advise putting yourself in the hands of a professional with a high ethical burden in their work to carry out this reconstruction process
Infidelity can also be an invitation or wake-up call to change a couple’s life and grow in this process. We don’t want a crisis, but once we find ourselves in one, turning it into an opportunity to emerge stronger and not settle for mere survival can be the smartest thing to do.
Once infidelity has been exposed, taking action and changing the situation is the only thing that will set us in motion for a better life. Understanding does not mean justifying at all, but it is necessary to mobilize and leave doubts and feelings of guilt behind It is necessary to put that energy into healing.
Rekindle your desire for life, recover your eroticism, drain your wounds and generate learning and courage for the development of a renewed “I”. Guilt, obsession, pain, sleepless nights, curiosity about the morbid details of the adventure, remorse, distrust… are not places to stay and live. You have the right to choose the legacy that infidelity will leave in you.
