Love has not much to do with infidelity or extramarital affairs. Infidelity and affairs have much to do with powerful personal needs over which the cheating spouse seemingly has little awareness or control.

So, a common theme for the cheating spouse is: “I won’t make any decision.” S/he tries to maintain a broken, fragmented world of secrecy and deception.

His/her sense of personal control and power may be so limited he waits for others to make decisions for him/her.

And so his/her spouse waits for him/her to decide or act decisively when s/he has little capacity to decide.

Here’s a case study:

The question: List 3 or 4 meanings that your partner’s affair has for you. That is to say, what impact is the infidelity having upon YOU? For example, how has is changed what you think about? how you spend your time? how you think of yourself? etc? Tell a story or give examples of how your life is now different.

Before my husband starting having the affair our marriage was already on rocky ground. He even let me know during one of our marriage counseling sessions that he was looking for someone else. Not soon after that he found someone else. I thought he would soon leave and that would be the end of that. But that was 7 months ago and he is still having the affair and has not left yet. He stays home some nights and with her some nights. This is all I think about. Is he coming home tonight or will he go over there. I feel like he has no respect for my feeling what so ever. I’m not sure how much more of this i can take, but every time I try to leave and go live somewhere else he makes all sorts of threats to me. I just don’t understand why he keeps coming home, why doesn’t he move in with her. Does that mean he still loves me or just doesn’t care enough about her to give me up?