REASONS FOR SPOUSAL CHANGE

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Otto Kernberg wrote that one of the forms that aggression associated with oedipal conflicts can take is the unconscious tacit agreement of both partners about the search for a real third, which is a condensed ideal of one and a rival of the other. According to the psychoanalyst, adultery is more often the unconscious consent of a couple tempted to realize their deepest aspirations. Homosexual and heterosexual dynamics wedge into the picture, since the unconscious rival is also a sexually desirable object in a negative oedipal conflict: often there is an unconscious identification of the victim of betrayal with a cheating partner in sexual fantasies about a partner's relationship with a hated competitor.

Sometimes it happens that in the process of personal growth and gaining greater psychological maturity, a partner who has gone more far in his development refuses to take on infantile projections. And then there is a high probability of betrayal with a subsequent break in relations.

The next reason for betrayal can be the perception of a partner as an incestuous object, drawing itself from the splitting of the changing partner (we are talking about a distorting perception - it is not a woman who positions herself as a “mother,” a man, from his distorted split perception, can perceive her as an incestous object). In this case, the split person makes the partner in his picture of the world a parental figure, who is taboo on incest. The partner turns into a taboo object, in relation to which sexual interest decreases, which provokes the search for a partner who is not burdened by the prohibition of incest.

The next reason for cheating can be the perception of a partner as a carrier of the Super Ego. Cheating, then, is a rebellion against the Super Ego. Partner is the personification of morality; lover / mistress - the personification of vice.

Another reason for cheating is that one of the partners has a split libido. The belief lives in the unconscious: "What can be done with a mistress, it is impossible to imagine with a spouse." This is the male sexual complex "Madonna and the Harlot" and its female version of "The Knight and the Libertine", well-covered in the literature. Frequent cases: with his wife - normative sexual activity; on the side - perversions.

An unhealthy relationship between spouses is a common cause of infidelity. Cheating in this case helps to distance yourself from real problems. Cheating is an attempt to escape from a basic relationship burdened with conflict, responsibility and difference of desires.

Another variant of treason is the result of a "buried" conflict: "I will make you draw attention to yourself." In these cases, the presence of conflict is carefully hidden, and the relationship of the couple resembles the smooth surface of a body of water. Differences in views and needs are crowded out and sink to the bottom. Sooner or later, the dissatisfied partner decides to cheat and does not at all bother to hide it. Thus, the existence of problems and conflicts surface.

You can often find cheating associated with avoiding intimacy. In this case, the relationship on the side serves as a protection against the pain caused by the inability to be in a relationship of psychological intimacy.

The empty nest crisis is also a good springboard from which partners can, both unilaterally and bilaterally, jump into the maelstrom of passions on the side. In such cases, the marriage is based more on faith in him than on emotional attachment. Leaving the children takes the partners by surprise - it turns out that they have not loved each other for a long time, there is no point in keeping a family for the sake of raising children - they no longer need caring parents.“I pulled / pulled this strap too long - now I can live for myself,” they say in such cases.

The next type of betrayal can be called "one foot on the doorstep." The cheating partner may have long thought about ending the relationship. Indecision to end the relationship makes you look for a good reason so that the marriage ends with another - simply kicked out the cheating one.

Homosexual infidelity is one of the most shocking and difficult to integrate mentally with a cheated partner. Some people, even in childhood and adolescence, are aware of their attraction to their sex, but do not allow orientation to be manifested due to their own and social rejection of homosexuality. They decide to start a family and can keep their true desires for many years. But at a certain moment, which may be associated with a change in relations with a partner, an increase in conflicts, release from the burden of parental responsibility, a personal crisis, a person decides to live in accordance with his own nature.

The reason for constant betrayal with different partners is the personality traits that are presented in the complex of Don Juan and his feminine version of the femme fatale. Usually these are people whom nothing can fill for a long time, they feel empty internally. These people describe the risk of cheating in terms of drug addiction.

In some cases, cheating means the end of the relationship, in other cases, despite the fact that both partners are very suffering and the ideal picture is destroyed, partners are capable of mutual forgiveness and preservation of relationships that have passed the test of cheating.

The described variants of the reasons for betrayal by no means exhaust all the diversity of their sources and the complex, confusing psychodynamics of relationships in a couple, which pushes one of them to transgress the boundaries of what is permissible. In some cases, the boundary called fidelity collapses suddenly - obligations, duty, respect, ethics, religion are too weak in the face of the onslaught of sexual desire. I had to talk to people who cheated on their partner and sincerely regretted what happened. Some of them were really taken aback by their own antics. They looked confused, frightened, desperately trying to shape what had happened into at least some kind of narrative, allowing them to search for a solution to how to live with it further. Sometimes the reason is found quickly, and no matter how unpleasant it is, a person has the opportunity to interact with the truth, which can be accepted and digested. There are complex and confusing stories of sudden sexual intemperance that fail to form into a more or less acceptable concept and lead to a satisfying understanding of the reasons for cheating. The problem is that you have to find the needle in the ever-growing haystacks. “It turns out that it’s not the owner of my house, life didn’t prepare me for this, there is some kind of territory that I didn’t know existed,” these people say. As a rule, these people only imagined some kind of forbidden sexual activity and did not proceed to acting out in reality. But in the event of a meeting with a sexually sophisticated other, they were fascinated by the bubbling sexuality and his permissiveness. The other seems to know about the unrecognized and repressed fantasy and gives permission to act - do it, you can, you are allowed, do not be afraid. Usually, people who are completely bewildered by their sudden capture and eccentricity of sexual escapades fall on the hook of a skillful manipulator who can turn to their perverse basis.

When a couple is going through difficult times caused by cheating, trying to understand its reasons, does not exclude the possibility of continuing the relationship, or rushes chaotically between leave / stay, the best thing that she can do is go to a therapist, this is the case when the third is not superfluous. Firstly, in the therapist's office, situations do not develop into a fight, in any case, this has not happened in my practice and I am not aware of such cases. Secondly, an expert with the skills of working with couples, knowledge of family psychology, sexology, conflictology helps to get out of the affective charge and look at what happened more objectively, honestly and, based on this, make more balanced decisions.