Dear Jeff and Lori,

My wife and I have been together for 16 years and the last few have been difficult. A year ago I had an emotional affair with a coworker that consisted of flirting in person and by text but went no further. It ended when she moved away and the distance gave me better perspective to know I was crossing a line. My wife found out shortly after and still has not forgiven me. For 8 months I’ve been on the receiving end of periods of silent treatment punctuated with anger and blame. Every once in a while she’ll acknowledge that leading up to my transgressions we were in a difficult place but insists that my betrayal was so far from warranted that she can’t understand how I could do this to her. We’re stuck, can you please give us some ideas of how to move forward.

Signed, Sentenced For Life

Dear SFL,

Jeff and Lori: There are two things to consider as you navigate the path ahead. One is your wife’s path for processing her feelings and the other is figuring out why you made the choice to blur the lines of your marriage.

Jeff: Since you were the one who chose to cross the line, let’s start with your “why.” What has been difficult about your relationship? Why were those challenges not addressed? Why did you choose to engage inappropriately with your coworker? What were you feeling that led you to disregard the vows of your marriage? Any person who has transgressed the boundaries of their relationship would probably answer these questions in different ways, but there would certainly be common themes throughout. Often infidelity–whether it’s emotional or sexual–is a result of a felt experience missing in a person’s life. It is a particular way in which we want to be seen by another that leads us to go looking for that reflection in places other than our current relationships. It’s not just that our partner isn’t “meeting our needs,” it’s more that we have trouble accessing parts of ourselves that feel as though they’ve gone dormant in our present situation. The drive to re-awaken these parts often becomes stronger than the fear of getting caught or of hurting our partner in the process.

Your task is to identify what aspects of your felt experience are missing. What parts of yourself were more accessible when you were flirting with your coworker? What do you ultimately want from a partner? Do you want more appreciation, respect or validation? Do you want to feel smarter, sexier or more dependable? These are things you still may be able to manifest in your marriage but you have to identify them first and then figure out what’s getting in the way of you experiencing them.

Lori: Your wife’s feelings of hurt, anger and betrayal are valid…to a point. These are all felt experiences that I would expect a spouse to have upon learning about infidelity. However, remaining stuck in those feelings without movement indicates there may be other dynamics at play. If I were to meet with you wife, these are the following are questions I would be curious about exploring with her:

• Is she committed to the marriage because she loves you? You mentioned the relationship had been struggling for years prior. Perhaps her unwillingness to move forward and forgive is rooted in her greater ambivalence about the marriage.

• Are there unresolved feelings or experiences of betrayal from earlier in her life or even earlier in the relationship? It’s not uncommon for conflicts in marriage to serve as floodgates for releasing the pain and energy of unhealed wounds. In other words, a significant  portion of her current anger and hurt may be tied to and fueled by incidents from the past. Understanding all that is connected to her current felt experience moves reactions from the unconscious to the conscious, creating opportunity to actually explore and resolve these layers.

• Is her anger serving the role of giving her power? Oftentimes when partners feel blindsided there is an immense amount of vulnerability: “How can I trust or feel safe when I have no idea how this could have happened?”. Ideally relationship repair and the rebuilding of trust happens through deepening understanding and awareness. Without that sense of understanding, she may be using power over you as her way of feeling more safe and secure in the relationship. As long as you are constantly reminded of your shame and guilt, you will feel small in comparison to her righteousness and your constant penance will prevent you from straying again. I’m not by any means implying she is doing this with conscious intent to hurt or manipulate you, but it may be occurring at an unconscious level.

Lori and Jeff: Living in this state of conflict is unsustainable and whether you can see it yet or not, your relationship is quickly approaching a crossroads. If neither of you is ready to file for divorce today, you need to access support both as a couple and as individuals before your track runs out. Commit to learning what drove the infidelity and what is keeping your wife stuck, both of which will likely require going back in time, well before the transgressions occurred. As a couple, your work will need to focus on building the communication that has clearly been absent and enhancing trust and emotional safety for each other.