Understandably, after an affair all we want to do is make the hurt go away so we can live again. We know that, if we do nothing, the pain will go on forever. But where do we start? I’d like to take you into a few moments of my couple consultations where two people decided, and had the power to, “bridge” the gulf of loneliness unearthed by an affair.Once all the preliminaries are over, I ask the couple to put the old relationship away and just be “here.” Then I jump in to teach a new mode of conversation. There is no pathology here, and we are liberated from the victim/perpetrator trap. Deprived of intellectual artillery, we are channeling insight into energy and trying to make sense of the couple’s energy, i.e., the push/pull, the up and down-surges, the tugging and towing. And it’s always the same:once we remove the content, compassion can flow easily.
I begin teaching. I say to the couple, “When we have betrayed our partners with an affair, it’s easy to say, ‘I am, or he is the bad person.’ Or that s/he has contributed more pollution to the relational space. But that’s not true because, when there is contamination in the relationship, we recognize that both partners contribute to it.” And I say this because we don’t want to compare pain. Pain is pain.
He is an Executive VP, a soldier at refuting emotion. She is a Teacher, committed to her faith in his guilt, and she is not surprised by his refusal to begin. I say, “Guilt is a burden for both partners.”
I can sense the fear. She does not expose the anger, or the fear of letting go. She does not expose the fear of disarming her intellect. I do not jump in and rescue couples. A fundamental concept of listening is waiting, contemplating and not reacting. I have no vested interest here. I’m just quietly tending to them, holding them in quiet acceptance.
I also find it unproductive to let couples hide. I am deeply compassionate, but I am also firm. I make room within myself for their pain … and they will be able to grow.
My intuition this particular morning led me to support the wife, helping her to receive the pain of her husband, the hidden pain that took him away from her all those years. The pain that made him secretive, that made him not communicate and the pain that made him not care. I help the wife to receive the pain that kept him running, never staying … and always leaving.
Now he is out on a limb, and she fears giving him the SAFE harbor that he needs to land emotionally. I notice that she declines to consider his fear. The fear that comes from the boy-child that is within him; his existential cry for help, and the cry for all the “unheard” protests. And that happens because she can only see the struggling, kicking man.
So I coach her to listen and reflect not as repetition, parroting or a memory test, but so as to allow the expression on her husband’s face to penetrate her; so she can see and flow with the emotion showing up on her husband’s face.
I do not rescue couples. I teach them not to be afraid. “Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” I teach the them not to fear pain, not to fear the emotions and to just let things run their course. I teach the couple to have patience and take it slow.
This fearful woman is her husband’s partner of eighteen years. She has the powers inside her, and if she finds them, she will become strong and whole within herself. This process is healing them both. Not just the one … the one and the other. I trust deeply, and I let them find their own way. Then … and only then, do I help the wife make the shift, and I tell her, “Say to your husband that you are angry. And beneath that anger, you are sad.” I coach her to “Make room … to make space inside of yourself … for him.” But she is unable to do it, unable to act, frozen by the movie that’s been playing in her mind. “All she sees, until she opens, is what she is already listening to, on the inside.” But I know that reality is ultimately more creative than our own movie. Reality is rich and multifaceted. I strongly encourage her. I say, “Listen to the history. Please, just listen. Open your heart and listen to his story.” I’m holding back my tears because I identify with the strong man who is deeply wounded from the inside. People see that I am strong from the outside and the pain is inside. I ask the wife who now has to assuage me, and her husband who is also crying and wrung-out by the agony. So I model what I am trying to teach, I listen to him just like he would like his wife to listen to him. I listen with a lot of compassion. Even though right now he has very little faith in his wife, and he is angry with me for giving him the impression that he will be heard.
First I SENSE it … then I KNOW that there is a place where the pain can be put to rest. But right now his wife is crushed by huge emotion. Of course, being his IMAGO-match, she was always so good at taking his departures, taking his non-communicativeness, and now he is facing the tsunami of his pain.
It’s clear to me that the husband is ready to open up and to let go. He is ready to come to terms and live his pain. I also realize that the difficulty is with the wife, so I turn to her and teach her to be generous; to love her man … to have compassion.
I am simply teaching her to grow. Unconsciously, she chose him. She chose him so that she would never have to do this, and before today, he had never intimidated her with his untamed, undisciplined, bewildering ways. And even now, as he threatens her, he simultaneously needs her. Like most of us, we are never more intimidating than when our need is quickening and sudden.
I teach her to breathe, to reflect, to do nothing except say the words. I teach her to get out of her own way, and let the words come and go. I teach her not to react. As she reflects, I tell her to “Make space for him within yourself.” She is struggling.
Then she reflects his words. As she does so, I quietly whisper … “so very, very brave.” She sees her man. He can sense the shift. The sudden appearance of a SAFE place brings out the very core of his agony, the tender underbelly and fear to share the most excruciating memories. I am with her. I am teaching her to take it in, to make space inside for the information. To roll with the punches and go with the flow. I am teaching her to listen and stand firm for her man. She is learning.
What has her husband gone through? When partners are recalling something horrific, I encourage them to maintain eye contact. I say, “feel your feelings but keep looking.” Keep looking so they realize that this time they have control over it, rather than it having control over them. Once the event can be put into words, it can be integrated and re-authored in their present history.
I sit back in my chair and bear witness and allow this man and woman to grow new hearts. Through her tears, she tells him, “I wasn’t there for you. I knew something was off and I didn’t say anything because I was angry and trying to stay in control … but I am here now.”
“Relationships become the healing balm for our loneliness, for our fear and our longing.”
The hard, external identities are melting and the process brings gifts. He’s lost this immobilized, frozen wife and his posturing Manly-man-self. She gets to reclaim the atrophied frozen part of herself that was dying to the movie in her mind. And I know this couple from within and love this couple!
I say, “YES to the couple …YES!” I am with them and they are with me. I am laughing. We are laughing. We laugh until our bellies ache. We are laughing our sorrows and pain away. We laugh our way into insight.
Wishing you love and light,
Paula M. Smith M.Div., MFT
Certified Imago Therapist
Marriage Coach
401-782-7899
imagopaula@gmail.com
