If you’re on the journey of healing from infidelity, understanding why some people abandon the affair recovery process can be helpful. There are uniquely sensitive issues that arise after an intimate betrayal, and anticipating them or gaining more insight about them can allow you to make a more deeply informed decision about whether it’s best for you to leave or stay with the partner who betrayed you.
Many betrayed partners are grappling with two questions throughout the infidelity recovery process:
Can my marriage/relationship be saved?
Am I able to stay knowing that betrayal is now part of my relationship/marital history?
Throughout my work with infidelity trauma, I’ve been asked directly by the betrayed partner whether they should stay or leave. They are seeking guidance for a question that is intensely personal, a question that ultimately only they can answer (and it’s understandable why in the throes of pain and emotional chaos, it might feel like a relief to hand off that decision to someone else).
There are complicated reasons why someone might choose to remain in the relationship or ultimately, to end it. Understanding these reasons can help guide you in assessing what will be best for you.
Many betrayed spouses/partners have struggled with one or more of the issues discussed below, issues that are frequently experienced in the emotional upheaval caused by infidelity. Some people are able to work through these issues (even after feeling stuck for some time) and eventually rebuild, while others discover that they cannot release themselves from the painful grip of the infidelity fallout.
Exploring these issues in your own infidelity healing journey can help you unpack the complex issues that often arise after betrayal, allowing you to better understand your own reactions, what may be keeping you stuck, and what you need to move toward healing.
5 Barriers to Infidelity Healing
1) The pain remains unbearable
The initial shock and distress caused by betrayal trauma is considerable. There is the acute devastation that overwhelms your self-capacities, leaving you distraught and flooded with a mix of extreme emotions and reactions. No one can continually exist in such an elevated state of torment. But even when this level of pain starts to abate (through time and attempts to heal), many betrayed partners continue to experience a level of distress, whether intermittent or ongoing.
It is often suggested that the betrayed partner not make any final decision about their relationship/marriage during the acute phase of the infidelity healing process (unless, of course, there is physical abuse or ongoing emotional/psychological abuse; safety is always paramount). The pain is so enormous at this point that it narrows and constricts the mind’s focus and can prevent someone from being open to the possibility that, in time, healing can be the reality.
However, when significant pain remains, when the presence of the unfaithful partner is mainly experienced as a reminder of the betrayal (regardless of the attempts to repair), then the betrayed spouse/partner may decide it is best to end the relationship. In infidelity counseling, I’ve seen this unfold for two reasons:
The unfaithful partner acts in a way that prevents emotional safety from taking hold;
and/or
Despite the unfaithful partner’s ongoing attempts to help the betrayed partner heal, the emotional damage is too severe for the betrayal wound to be repaired.
The role of time is an important factor in determining whether to stay or leave the relationship. It may be helpful to remember that pain skews the perception of time — it tends to make time feel like it is at a standstill or, at best, a grueling crawl. Days of post-betrayal suffering can feel like weeks, weeks like months. The question inherent to the issue of time is whether “enough time” has passed to determine whether rebuilding is possible.
It’s common for someone blindsided by the discovery of infidelity and reeling in the emotional chaos that ensues to feel certain that “it will always feel this way,” and that they will forever deeply mistrust their partner. What’s also common is that with the passage of time (time that includes sincere attempts at repair by the wayward partner), there is new breathing room and an expanded perspective about what the future might hold.
2) I no longer recognize myself
Betrayal trauma has the potential to change a person — for the short term, and for some, the long term. Many people report immediate changes as they struggle to find their footing in this unwanted reality they’ve been thrown into. The once secure person finds themselves overrun by fear, anxiously checking their partner’s whereabouts, searching through text messages and browser histories, mercilessly comparing themselves to the affair partner. Others become consumed by uncharacteristic anger, erupting into screaming, rage, and verbal attacks that feel completely foreign to them.
Over time, the unfaithful partner’s presence may become associated with this unwanted version of yourself. You no longer see the confident, trusting, emotionally grounded person you once knew. Instead, you see someone suspicious, emotionally volatile, preoccupied, and consumed by thoughts of the infidelity.
The “former” you (the person who formed the foundation of your identity) can feel as though they’ve disappeared.
“Who have I become?”
“I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
“I hate what this has turned me into.”
These aren’t simply expressions of emotional pain. They’re signs that the betrayal has begun to alter one’s sense of self.
For some betrayed partners, the relationship itself becomes inseparable from this unwanted identity. Every interaction with their partner reminds them of who they’ve become since discovering the affair. Staying no longer feels like remaining in a marriage; it feels like remaining trapped inside a version of themselves they desperately want to leave behind.
This is an important question to explore. Is the desire to end the relationship primarily about leaving your partner/spouse? Or is it also an attempt to escape the person you have become since the betrayal?
For some, these motivations become so tightly braided that they are difficult to separate. Leaving the relationship represents not only the hope of ending the pain, but the possibility of recovering parts of yourself that now feel lost.
3) The betrayal creates a moral injury
In a previous article I’ve written about how infidelity trauma has the capacity to create a moral injury for both the betrayed and wayward partners. The PTSD symptoms related to betrayal trauma (excessive rumination and intrusive thoughts about the trauma, emotional flooding, intense physiological reactions related to the traumatic event) occur when your sense of safety is threatened (here we are talking about psychological safety). A profound threat to the relational safety you’ve grown to rely on has been shattered, and you are in a constant threat response.
Moral injury adds another level to this. Trauma centers around whether you will ever feel safe again. Moral injury centers around whether you can ever again see your partner as the kind of person with whom trust, respect, and shared meaning are possible.
Although developed in the context of military trauma (Litz, et el., 2009; Shay, 2014), the idea of a moral injury suggests that some interpersonal betrayals violate a person’s deepest moral assumptions about trust, loyalty, and human relationships. The survivors of betrayal trauma are left grappling with the profound questions about character, meaning, and whether the relationship can ever feel morally intact again. This is an existential crisis.
Many betrayed partners eventually find themselves asking the question: “What does it say about me if I stay?” Remaining in the relationship can feel like a betrayal of oneself. A profound internal conflict arises: “Does staying condone accepting the unacceptable? Can I still respect myself if I remain?”
When reconciliation begins to feel like abandoning one’s own moral compass, leaving is more about preserving one’s sense of personal integrity.
4) The betrayal reawakens childhood trauma
For some people, the affair isn’t just about what’s going on today. A history of childhood trauma in both the betrayed and the wayward partners can result in the reawakening of old wounds that have felt inactive or out of your daily awareness before the infidelity. (I have written extensively on how trauma in childhood can cause an adult to act out and be more affair-prone.)
We cannot overstate the incredible pain that results when the person you perhaps trusted more than any other betrays you by cheating. Pain of this sort sets the mind reeling; leaves you feeling lost and unable to find your way back to a safe place within yourself; forces you to question the foundation you’ve built your relationship upon, and therefore, your own judgment and ability to trust. And within that frantic chaos, those unhealed wounds from childhood cry out for attention.
When children can’t trust their caregivers to protect them, they need to learn how to survive in any way possible. The shattering of trust that accompanies infidelity often awakens something that feels “unfinished” in the psyche of victims of childhood abuse. Although the circumstances were naturally quite different, the betrayal wound has a violation of trust at its core, and the echoes of unhealed childhood trauma may reach a deafening decibel, causing you to feel trapped by the past and the present, with no means of escape into the future.
All children inherently have significant physical, mental, and emotional needs. And although we think of children as resilient, the child’s psyche is actually quite fragile when the enormity of those needs are considered, as well as the helplessness and dependency inherent in all children. That’s not to say that humans don’t have the capacity for resiliency and adaptability—we do. But often, when we must survive a traumatic or unhealthy childhood, those ways of circumstantial adaptation include denied needs, covered-over wounds, and later relational dynamics that are steered by old survival patterns.
You may have had emotionally unavailable or narcissistic parents, or grew up in a family where chronic lying, deception and gaslighting were the norm. You may have been the victim of neglect in your childhood—physical and/or emotional—or perhaps you were entirely abandoned (willingly or unwillingly, for example, in death) by the adults who were supposed to protect you. Your family of origin may have included adults who were feeding addictions—alcohol, drugs, gambling, for instance—instead of nurturing you. Or you may have found yourself devastated by broken promises, over and over and over again, to the point where believing anything you were told by your caregivers felt like a cruel joke you were perpetuating on yourself.
You may have suffered wounds that don’t fit into the obvious category of physical or sexual abuse that many think of when they think of childhood trauma. But core childhood wounds don’t need to be “extreme” to leave their mark (regardless of whether or not someone with an adequate childhood would understand them).
In this way, the affair becomes another chapter in an older story, and it causes two emotional realities to simultaneously occur. To say this can feel overwhelming is a massive understatement. And it’s easy to see why some betrayed partners may view ending the relationship in the early stages of recovery as a way to find relief from at least one of these realities.
However, the attachment trauma begun in childhood will remain unresolved, regardless of whether or not the marriage/relationship continues. It can feel tempting to cut off the relationship, even if the unfaithful partner is committed to repair and even if deep down a part of you wants to try to rebuild. Although it didn’t cause it, it’s true that the current betrayal amplifies that old trauma. And you may not feel you have the bandwidth to do the challenging work of addressing the historic wounds as well as the present-day wounds.
Healing requires recovering from both losses, which requires a great deal of compassion, understanding, patience and commitment from the wayward partner especially.
5) Hope gradually dies
Hope is crucial in any endeavor that demands strength and perseverance, not least of all, infidelity recovery. I have written about the importance of hope in rebuilding after an affair. When tiny tendrils of hope go unnoticed, or when they’re dismissed, it can become impossible to see rebuilding as an achievable goal.
Hope is inherently forward-looking, and when there is no sense of hope, it can feel like there can be no relationship in the future. Many recovery journeys are halted because hope feels absent, even months after the affair was discovered.
There are instances where dismissing hope serves a protective function for the betrayed partner, even when the wayward partner appears genuine in their work toward rebuilding: hope may appear as the most fragile of flames, but the betrayed individual doesn’t dare reach for it since they are afraid of what believing in the future might do to them. When uncertainty is the most tangible feeling, we can see why holding onto hope (with no way to know for sure if the unfaithful partner will continue to show up) can feel too dangerous for the wounded partner.
And in cases where the unfaithful partner may start off intending to do sincere repair work, but does not remain consistent, hope may feel like a planet from another galaxy to the betrayed partner.
For instance, if the wayward partner:
—minimizes the enormity of their own actions or the betrayed partner’s pain;
—grows impatient with “how long this is taking; haven’t we gone over this already?”;
—becomes defensive and uses that defensiveness as a shield against further recovery work;
—refuses therapy (couples counseling and/or individual counseling);
—withholds information about their whereabouts or who they were with;
—continues lying, deceiving or distracting;
—cannot tolerate accountability for past behavior or for reassurances that that behavior won’t be repeated in the future;
—remains (or reverts to being) emotionally unavailable.
When the affair is discovered, the betrayed partner is evaluating the affair. When some time has passed, the betrayed partner is evaluating the recovery. This distinction is crucial.
And if evidence reveals that the wayward partner is not acting in good faith to help the betrayed partner heal and to work together to heal the relationship, then it makes sense that hope for a shared future in the mind of the betrayed partner shifts to hope for a healthy future beyond the union.
In those cases, the relationship fails to survive because true healing never truly began.
~~~
Even though it can feel sobering to consider the pitfalls on the road to infidelity recovery, it can also be empowering if you are embarking on that path. I regularly work with individuals and couples who are committed to healing, and understanding why some relationships don’t ultimately make it to the rebuilding stage can be quite useful in anticipating those unique stumbling blocks.
~~~
Rich Nicastro, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals and couples as they navigate betrayal trauma and other emotional challenges. He offers teletherapy to clients throughout the United States. To work with Dr. Nicastro and join his waiting list, please email him at Rich@RichardNicastro.com.
Article References
Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706.
Shay, J. (2014). Moral injury. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 31(2), 182–191.
