Are you ready to talk about affairs?
Already I guess some of you will feel a stirring of a myriad of many emotions. Maybe, you have experienced infidelity, or perhaps you have been the person engaged in infidelity? Even the word ‘affair’ carries a onerous heavy weight. It seems to land on us with disapproval, knowing looks & whispers, maybe even shame — especially it seems when it’s about a woman. Ironically we’re supposed to know better, aren’t we? We’re meant to be the faithful ones, the emotional gatekeepers, or in some cases, the glue in the family unit. But what if we stood back, and pressed pause on all that noise, and simply asked — not “How could she?” but “What is this really about?” Maybe we would be wiser, and more understanding of ourselves, and our fellow women who have engaged in affairs.
I am definitely not here to promote, or justify infidelity, or dismiss its impact. I have both sat with women devastated by their partner’s betrayal, and with those who’ve engaged in infidelity themselves. These women have talked about being in emotional pain and questioning their own self worth. In fact what I’ve come to understand, both as a therapist and a woman, is that affairs often signal something deeper than deceit & desire. They can be a mirror — sometimes an unwanted one, or sometimes an overdue one — but reflecting a part of ourselves we’ve forgotten, denied, or buried.
When a woman finds herself in, or drawn to, an affair, it rarely begins with a plan.
It begins with a feeling. Maybe it’s loneliness. Maybe it’s a hunger to be seen. Maybe it’s the first time in years someone has looked at her with admiration, rather than with expectation. Or maybe it’s not about the other person at all — but maybe it’s about reclaiming a lost piece of herself. The confident one. The sensual one. The one who used to laugh, who felt alive.
As Esther Perel explores in her book ‘Mating in Captivity’, affairs aren’t always about rejecting a partner — sometimes, they’re about reconnecting with the self. She writes about how desire and domesticity often struggle to coexist, and how many people in long-term relationships lose the parts of themselves that feel vital, spontaneous, or seen. She reflects that an affair, isn’t always a search for someone else — but it can be a search for something that we have lost within.
In my experience we don’t talk enough about this. About how women sometimes lose themselves — in motherhood, in the role of caretaking, or in a long-term relationships that has shifted from intimacy to just doing the logistics of life. We don’t talk about how some of us quietly starve inside marriages or partnerships that are stable but emotionally distant. And we almost never ask: What does this suppressed longing say about what I need?
And it’s worth saying: not all affairs are physical. Some begin — and end — in the emotional realm. A late-night message. A growing sense of connection. The sense that someone finally sees you. These, too, can shift the ground beneath our feet, and they can be just as confusing, consuming, and revealing as anything that happens behind closed doors.
If you’ve had an affair — or if you’re even contemplating one — it doesn’t make you unworthy. It makes you human. Maybe you are hurting. It tells you something’s stirring beneath the surface. That something needs attention, and needs tending.
You don’t need to act on it to explore it. You don’t need to run from it either. But you do deserve to understand it — without the weight of shame crushing your capacity to reflect honestly.
Because the affair itself isn’t always the wound. Often, it’s the symptom. And if we can look at it with compassion — not just for others, but for ourselves — it might just lead us not to judge ourselves or others, but to explore the truth. Maybe it will help us to look honestly at ourselves, and our relationships, and find a better way of communicating our needs. Or in some cases, it may drive us to making changes in our relationships that are more monumental.
Not every story ends us necessarily in a better place. But every story deserves to be heard without judgement. Especially our own.
