"Victims" of Infidelity?

It is hard to imagine four more successful, intelligent, and tough - or to use the press description, 'steely' - women than Hillary Clinton, Jenny Sanford, Elizabeth Edwards, and Silda Spitzer. In addition to their accomplishments, these four women have another point in common: their husbands have all been involved in highly publicized extramarital affairs.

In each case, the press has depicted these women as stunned, unknowing, innocent victims betrayed by their duplicitous spouses. They have been described as in a state of shocked disbelief, as the aggrieved, disappointed, betrayed, and severely injured party. Their husbands, on the other hand, have been depicted by the press as sleazy, vile, and dishonest. These men, we are told, have committed a crime against their wives and the media has rushed to express outrage at their dastardly and selfish behavior. They have broken their vows and are not to be trusted.

In the news articles and op-ed pieces about extramarital affairs, there is always a perpetrator and a victim. These are stories about Good and Evil, the righteous and the sinner. It is a convenient fiction and makes for a good story that grabs the audience's attention. It appeals to the most basic and immature parts of us all.

Despite its seductive simplicity however, this story is also fundamentally false. The reality of marriage is not one in which one partner is the innocent victim and the other the abuser. In the 40 years of my practice as a marriage, family, and child therapist, and as described in the professional literature, the reality of marriage is that in most cases, whatever one partner is experiencing the other partner is also experiencing in some form. If one partner is suffering from loneliness, abandonment, anger, sadness, or lack of sexual gratification, the other partner is almost always having a similar emotional experience.

It is likely that both wives and husbands in these marriages betrayed their vows to love, honor, and cherish, and to provide each other real sexual satisfaction, long before the extramarital affairs occurred. Only the mentally incapacitated and those who wish or need to delude themselves fail to sense when a marriage is no longer satisfying the needs of both partners. When they are unable to face such feelings, evidence of infidelity may come as a "shock," but once they examine what has happened they frequently find that, at least on some level, they had known it all along.

When a marriage isn't working anymore, both spouses need to take steps to repair the marriage, leave it, or agree as reasonable adults that the important needs, (including sexual ones), not met within the marriage will be satisfied elsewhere. If marriage partners do not address their difficulties openly, and actively work to either repair the marriage or to accept its limitations, allowing their partners, if necessary, to meet important needs outside the marriage, they have functionally abandoned the marriage, whether they recognize it or not.

Staying in a marriage in which both partners do not love, honor, and cherish each other undermines the self-worth of both partners. Living with such a spouse insidiously infiltrates and undermines our sense of who we are. There are few experiences which are more damaging to our self-confidence than remaining with a spouse who is no longer beloved, or who no longer loves us. Both partners lose ground in terms of self-esteem and self-respect. Not facing our feelings in an effort to save a marriage, is a far from innocent deception.

By portraying infidelity that results from a marriage that is not meeting the needs of one or both partners in terms of victim and perpetrator, the media are unwittingly contributing to a mind-set, which causes many marriages to fail. If we allow ourselves to think of marriage in terms of victims and abusers, good and bad partners, the righteous and the wronged, it impossible to see our partner as our ally in solving the problems of marriage. We are no longer seeing our spouses as companions in confronting the difficulties of life together, but as adversaries. We see the other person as the problem. This produces more conflict and faultfinding, whether open or underground, causing us to forget that marriage is a dynamic relationship in which it always takes two to succeed. Both partners are the responsible parties, and perpetrators. No one is an innocent victim or bystander in a marriage.

In order to actually find solutions to the problems in marriage, one must truly keep the vows to love, honor and cherish one's spouse. We need to see our spouse as a profoundly valued partner whose help we need. We must seek to attack not each other, but the problems in the marriage. It requires the thought, creativity, intelligence, sensitivity, and most of all, good will, of both people working together as a team to solve these challenges.

Unless and until we all grow up and understand that marriage is a team effort, not an individual challenge, we will never get it right.

Comments

[Ergon]

It would seem that every celebrity and politician's affair in America has the same, tired, meme: The husband as the sleaze ball, wife as suffering victim.
It doesn't matter that there are no reliable statistics as to male vs female infidelity rates
http://news-for-two.cloudworth.com/infidelity-cheating-unfaithfulness-adultery-betrayed.php
or that men are more likely to cheat in their 20's and women in their 30's as they enter into sexual maturity or biological clocks start ticking and they look for a more suitable mate. It doesn't matter, because women get all tribal: when it happens to a woman, it's the man's fault, when it happens to a man, it's the man's fault.
This might be a reflection of an overly feminized America, it might be a culture of victim hood but you don't see men whining all over Oprah when it happens to them.
But as parents raising three teenaged daughters my wife and I are bringing them up to see that a marriage requires mutual commitment and hard work to keep it going, and G-d forbid it should not work out, but if it did, then we know they'll learn from it and move on, instead of being perpetual victims.

[pipetoe]

But sometimes cheaters are programmed as cheaters...
They need secrets in their lives; and they need a spouse as well.
It doesn't matter who they are married to they will cheat.

[devdil]

This what the ultraconservative Dr. Laura also says...men cheat because their wives make them do it, and that they shouldnt be considered as victims. . Dr. Laura lays the blame squarely on Silda spitzer when the Spitzer scandal broke out.

Actually Dr. Ruth's argument doesnt eliminate victimhood..it just shifts it from the wronged spouse to the cheating spouse. The cheater cheats becuase he is actually a misunderstood, lonely victim of a loveless marriage etc. etc.

[2Bfair]

Did we read the same Dr. Bettelheim article? "If we allow ourselves to think of marriage in terms of victims and abusers, good and bad partners, the righteous and the wronged, it impossible to see our partner as our ally in solving the problems of marriage."

[been2there]

Well, no. She pointed out that marriage is reciprocal, and that even spouses who were not aware of cheating knew that things were not right. She also pointed out that saving a marriage requires a problem-solving mindset, not a blaming mindset. She is correct; it is true that men are biologically primed to be mory polygamist than women, but humans are not bound by instince, only influenced. The boundaries of any marriage are set by the people in that marriage--those who critize the spouse who stays are just as wrong as those who critize the spouse who leaves.

[Malkin71]

This is possibly the best article I have ever read.

Brilliantly stated.

[Ruth Bettelheim - Huffpost Blogger]

We can never know the inside of someone else’s marriage. It is difficult enough to understand our own. Two books that may clarify what often goes wrong in marriages and what can be done to improve them are John Gottman’s book 7 Principles For Making Marriage Work, and Passionate Marriage By David Schnarch.

If people are unfaithful to a spouse or are not monogamous, there are usually many reasons. It is never simple. People are not simple. They are enormously complex. Sexual behavior between any two people is driven by multiple needs, emotions, ideas, desires, beliefs, and issues within each individual. It is what we call ‘over-determined’ behavior, meaning that it always has multiple causes, many of which are as hidden from the person engaging in the behavior as they are from others.

Both partners have the freedom and responsibility to end a relationship in which they cannot accept their partner or their partner’s behavior. If we decide to stay in the relationship, rather than end it, we have made a decision, as responsible adults and are not ‘victims’.

[selma]

"In the 40 years of my practice as a marriage, family, and child therapist, and as described in the professional literature, the reality of marriage is that in most cases, whatever one partner is experiencing the other partner is also experiencing in some form. If one partner is suffering from loneliness, abandonment, anger, sadness, or lack of sexual gratification, the other partner is almost always having a similar emotional experience."

And yet, one person decides to betray, and inflict great emotional damage on the family, esp the children who seem to have completely escaped your focus. You forget that Hillary, Jenny and the rest of them COULD have also cheated, yet they didnt knowing the emotional consequences of what could happen. In that sense, they ARE the victims, spouses who were never given a chance before being handed all the humiliation in public.

Nor do you mention any of the three recent surveys doen last year that show that people in even "happy" marriages cheat. And as a therapist of 40 years, I wonder how you can totally gloss over Shirley Glass's infidelity research where she has discovered that even people not seeking out affairs land up cheating. Whatever you may like to potray, cheating is a huge function of opportunity and I am surprised that your are ignorant of some of the most basic research on infidelity.

[2Bfair]

Selma, when you say, "You forget that Hillary, Jenny and the rest of them COULD have also cheated, yet they didnt knowing the emotional consequences of what could happen," you are assuming behaviors and motives. It is your opinion, not a known fact. So how could someone "forget" it?

Do you know for certain none of the wives has ever cheated? Do you know for certain that the wives did not give their spouses explicit or tacit permission to cheat? Did the wives only assume the role of victim only after knoweldge of affairs became public?

[condor101]

Thank you Dr. Bettelheim, for an articulate article on this important subject.
Yes, it is wrong to criminalize the 'cheating' behaviour of either husband or wife. There is no such thing as a Victim in these situations.
Unfortunately, our society is very close to actually classifying "cheating' as a crime. It's a crazy country we live in. I just read a news brief that a wife is suing her husbands' mistress! Obvisously to harrass the mistress and her relationship with the ex-husband.
When will this nonsense stop?

It's no wonder that more and more men today are choosing NOT to get married. Not only is there a 70% divorce rate and the Man almost always loses substantial income and wealth in a divorce, but if there is infidelity, the Man is criminalized as an abuser and the wife is portrayed as a victim.

(continued below)

[condor101]

A lot of Men are understanding that it's far better to Not have that marriage certificate hanging on their neck as a legal noose, waiting to be tightened on teir neck and wallet at any moment. If a couple are living together and are boyfriend/­girlfriend­, lovers and if there is a problem in the future, they can just break up and depart from one another. In this circumstance, a woman can't lay claim to the Man's wealth and/or portray herself as a victim because the guy found a new girlfriend.

Marriage is a Lottery for women and a losing bet for men.
Guys, live with your girlfriend and don't let them place that legal noose around your neck......and wallet.
Good Luck!

[TheBlackCat]

I agree marriage isn't for everyone, and that society places way too high a value on it.

But a word of warning...I volunteered at a senior center in high school. And of the old confirmed bachellor men, I heard very very few who said that they were happy that they had remained that way. The vast majority lamented about how lonely they were, and how they'd give anything to trade their years of philandering for a family now.

Yes some people aren't suited for marriage, and shouldn't feel obligated. And many men are pressured by women into marriages they don't really want.

But I think a lot of people just marry too young, or too early, and don't have an opportunity to sow their wild oats before settling down. I think for many that is the better option, to not get married TOO EARLY as opposed to not getting married at all.

[TheBlackCat]

And by the way, regarding yoru wallet comment...it's 2009, not 1959.

I earn the same as my husband, and my mother earned much more than my father. The majority of my women friends are highly educated and earn about the same or more than their boyfriends or spouses.

[singermuse]

Yeah, sure, why buy the cow%2

[oafishcad]

Women are never responsible for their own actions, it's always a man's fault when a woman strays. A man is always responsible for his own actions, no matter how abused he is by his wife. That's how it works.

[Arleeda]

Thanks to Dr. Bettelheim for these comments. As a woman who had an extramarital affair (with a married man), I know that my first husband was not meeting my emotional or physical needs at all, and it was impossible to talk to him about it. It was only with the other man that I realized emotional and sexual fulfillment was possible for me. I probably let my husband find out about the affair on purpose, and he divorced me and filed a custody suit for our two children. Surprisingly, we ended up with joint custody. Later, I remarried (not to the guy I had the affair with) and have had 30 years of a happy, faithful marriage. My ex never remarried nor, as far as I know, even had any romantic relationships after our divorce. Today he lives alone with his dogs. Probably I should have gotten out of the marriage before I entered into another relationship, but I was so afraid I couldn't make it on my own. It took the affair to give me the strength to embark upon a new and better life.

[Malkin71]

You just summed up the typical female affair.

At least, until the current Sex in the City generation came along...some evidence suggests they cheat just because they can...

[2Bfair]

Thank you, Dr. Bettelheim,

You share an articulate, compassionate, and expert perspective on a very real, difficult and much debated issue.

[TheAntiNixon]

I agree with some of the other posters. Often it is just a spouse cheating on a great partner in a healthy marraige. I know men and women who actively cheat on their spouses. They will never be content in a relationship no matter who it is with, and often the thrill of being secretive and deceiving is an addiction, as well as wondering impulses. As a person who always looked forward to being married, who is wired that way, I have no urge to cheat. These wondering partners do, and I think they are wired to cheat.

[gardengranny]

I think you meant *wandering* impulses, not wondering, and *wandering* partners, not wondering.

Though the cheated-upon-spouse may *wonder* what possessed the cheater to do such an egregious thing. :-)

[jloisa]

Brilliant article. Lots of insight and food for thought. Good discussion piece.

[andygaus]

Innocent victims may be the minority, but it is absurd to say flatly that there are "no innocent victims" in a marriage, any more than there are "no innocent victims" in a rape. Some men, in particular, despite all attempts by their wives to satisfy them, would still be looking for satisfaction elsewhere, because for them, "elsewhere" --the feeling of not being confined by the marriage--is a basic emotional need.

[TheBlackCat]

I agree completely.

Yes innocent victims probably are in the minority. Most people I know who have cheated were in loveless or sexless relationships. If you're a married woman and you refuse your husband sex, he's probably going to find it elsewhere.

But there will always be men who cheat on a wife for no other reason than he has the opportunity to do so with a younger, and/or prettier woman. There will always be people who cheat on their spouses that they love for no other reason than the thrill of something different.

Another problem are cases in which a spouse is away a lot for a job. In these cases someone may cheat out of loneliness and temptation, reagardless of if their marriages are doing well. This is understandable, but not a case of one spouse's behavior pushing the other one to cheat.

It may be rare, but there ARE cases of a good guy and a bad guy. A friend of mine was married with a child. Her husband was a loving, loyal, caring, sexually satisfying man. He was an amazing father and husband. She was a selfish b*tch, and she cheated on him for no other reason (by her own admission) than she was bored with being a wife and mother and wanted some excitement. This is a clear case of a cheater and an innocent victim.

[classicalgeek]

I have to agree. A friend of mine was engaged, and was on staff for an in-town convention for three days (she came home every evening about 9 p.m.). Her fiance took that opportunity to start an affair with her friend of more than twenty years. The woman knew something was up (although that kind of betrayal never occurred to her) and tried to fix it but to no avail.

[martina1965]

Marriage and rape are two different things, don't you think? Two people agree to get married and state their desire in front of a third person, usually after some consideration, when in rape nobody asks if victim agrees to be raped. I always thought that the difference was kind of obvious. If you agree to marry a person who would not be satisfied "despite all attempts", you are responsible for that, no matter if you call yourself a victim or not.

[LoudmouthLime]

If most people, not just the marrieds, thought like this therapist, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately many of those who can't live with themselves find it even more challenging to live honestly and compassionately with others. Keeping it real is usually the last thing cheaters and cheatees muster.

[Polly]

While I can most certainly agree that we need to see and face the problems in a marriage I have seen too many good women who have worked hard over many years, raising children, working to contribute financially in marriages where in the end the men just are looking for a new and younger woman. In the case of Bill Clinton I think we see a man who used women for his own pleasure, I really don't think that his wife was responisble for his affairs. [ or didn't give him what he needed]

Each person in a marriage is responisble for their own actions, and I don't think the other partner is not giving enough or is failing in some way to make a person cheat. Sometimes women do become so involved with the job of raising children that she forgets about the sexy girl she once was, but adult men should be able to express their desire to their wife and not just go out on the prowl. In the case of Standford, it is clear he has fallen in love and his wife should probably let him go to keep her own self esteem, I can't think of anything harder to face than knowing the man you are married to is truely in love with someone else. The children will know and will resent their father for not loving their mom.

[Samalabear]

At least with the Clinton marriage I think that Hillary did know what was going on. I don't think she ever felt she was a victim either. I also believe that there is caring between Bill and Hillary, that most just simply can't understand, and for some reason Hillary has been attacked on this. Bill Maher once addressed the Clintons' marriage in this manner and I think he hit the nail on the head. And somehow, whatever issues they have, they have certainly managed to raise an incredible daughter in Chelsea.

The Sanford marriage, from what I've read and seen, the quotes from the various parties, is a nightmare and both parties are to blame. I don't think there was ever a shred of respect of either party for the other. I feel bad for the kids in this marriage. What goes on behind those closed doors must be really ugly.

[Malkin71]

Gennifer Flowers, who had an 8 year affair with Bill, claims that Hillary knew, but well...the rest was slander, so....I won't repeat it.