Last week on a popular Irish podcast, I listened to the podcast guest comment several times that a “relationship can be better” after an affair, suggesting that any problems that were there in the first place can then be dealt with after the affair, thus potentially helping make the relationship ‘stronger’ and ‘better’. A commonly heard and equally infuriating misconception.
The conversation was light, broad and turned to humour regularly on this taboo topic, suggesting it was difficult to even define an ‘affair’ – a concept I disagree with wholeheartedly. What this episode failed, or rather evaded, to do was touch upon the harsh reality of infidelity, with varying degrees of relationship breakdown at different stages of life. For clarity and context, the guest host did not recommend or prescribe an affair, but they did diminish the impact of one.
It stopped me in my tracks, and I thought… who exactly is the relationship better for?
How can such a broad and sweeping statement be made on such a complex issue?
How long is the relationship stronger and better for before it’s unravelling?
Why are women still being subjected to double standards and low expectations in modern-day relationships?
Are we still minimising infidelity and betrayal in modern Ireland, perpetuating generations of male sexual entitlement?
It is a fact that humans are wonderful and complex beings and that monogamy, long term relationship and marriage has its rewards and challenges. Not everyone is motivated or cut out for monogamy, nor is that the concept being addressed in this article.
What I do want to address is the dismissiveness and minimising of infidelity on women’s wellbeing, agency, safety and self-worth. I want to highlight the transgenerational trauma that it causes women. The normalising of gender disparity. That infidelity can be another silent characteristic of ongoing domestic abuse, emotional abuse and neglect and significant marriage discord. That instead of telling women their marriage can be stronger and better after infidelity, telling them that, in fact, they have every reason to choose to leave, prioritise themselves and raise their expectations, not lower them.
Can we please stop telling women that their relationship can be stronger and better after infidelity?
Quite frankly, it is insulting and demeaning – dare I suggest a form of gaslighting. Imagine telling women who commit their lives to their partner and children, build their families, and even give up their careers and financial security that their relationships may be better because their loved one was unfaithful, having given everything they have to a committed relationship.
And are these statements perpetuating and favouring male sexual exploits and bravado even after the global #MeToo movement?
Are we going to continue to reduce and delegate women’s expectations, rights and entitlement to a safe, trusting, committed partner?
Ireland is making great strides in women’s rights and social justice. With emphasis on sexual consent, reducing sexual harassment, protecting women against domestic abuse, stalking, rising femicide rates, CoCo’s law and the latest Jennie’s law. We need to be more sensitive to how infidelity and betrayal are discussed and normalised in this way.
The reality is that sadly for many women, mothers and grandmothers, affairs and infidelity pose many risks – including health risks. There are invariably various degrees of manipulation, avoidance, coercion, gaslighting, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, deception, and dishonesty associated with many forms of infidelity. Did I mention that often women have to endure marriages after infidelity because of financial insecurity?
‘We do women a profound disservice when we imply that betrayal such as an affair is somehow the catalyst for a better marriage after. Too often, that narrative asks women to find meaning in trauma and suffering that they did not choose.’
It is a myth that marriages can be stronger after infidelity and affairs
The fact is that infidelity remains one of the leading causes of relationship breakdown, separation, and divorce.
Nothing that is broken becomes stronger because it was broken. Not a bone, not a material, not a marriage – it is basic science. In fact, attachment science tells us that betrayal, infidelity and emotional neglect from a caregiver, parent or partner can cause deep psychological distress and trauma, which takes a long time to heal and recover from.
Trust may be rebuilt, but not without challenges; relationships may evolve, romance can be rekindled, but neither is strengthened by betrayal or infidelity. Like anything broken or shattered, it may be painstakingly repaired, but it will always carry the fracture.
Who benefits from being told that a marriage can be better or stronger after infidelity?
Show me the research and statistics, please!
As a psychotherapist, it concerns me that there is a repeated generalisation and narrative that seems to be broadly socially accepted, particularly on modern podcasts and social media and even at times in dating and relationship advice columns. It is the repeated claim that marriages and long-term relationships can come back stronger after infidelity or an affair and that relationships can be better after betrayal.
“..this message fundamentally misunderstands the psychological impact of betrayal trauma and, perhaps more concerningly, it perpetuates a cultural narrative that women should absorb profound injury for the sake of preserving the relationship – and family unit.”
Personally, I think these (dare I say misogynistic) narratives are completely untrue, and from working over long periods of time with typically women, mothers and wives impacted by infidelity, I have yet to hear a client express that their relationship is ‘stronger’ or ‘better’ after the attachment trauma.
Different – yes. Stronger – impossible.
On the contrary, women tell me over and over again that their relationship will never be the same, that they see their partner differently now, as if a filter has been removed. That they will never again grant their loved one the implicit intimate trust they developed over time before the infidelity.
I have yet to read any research or data that validates that a relationship can be stronger or better after infidelity or an affair. Also, it is worth noting that if you do a deep dive on divorce statistics in Ireland, infidelity and philandering, as it was more commonly known, is not a legal reason for separation and divorce, and therefore no statistics or research on the topic.
Relationships and marriages are different after infidelity – but not better or stronger.
We need to stop minimising women’s experiences of infidelity by gaslighting them further.
Relationships can survive betrayal and have survived for centuries, typically at the woman’s cost. Healing is possible, of course – but at a cost to women’s mental, emotional and psychological health.
Couples can seek therapy – but typically the emphasis is on the couple and not the instigator of infidelity.
This message fundamentally misunderstands the psychological impact of betrayal trauma and, perhaps more concerningly, it perpetuates a cultural narrative that women should absorb profound injury for the sake of preserving the relationship – and family unit.
Many women have grown up in homes with unfaithful fathers, wandering eyes, recurrences of betrayal and marital trauma, frequent indiscretions, separation and divorce. Experiencing infidelity for these women is far more complex – it can be retraumatising.
For generations, women have been expected to carry the emotional burden of family life. They have been expected to bend, forgive, to understand, to accommodate, to heal and, ultimately, to protect the family unit, even when they were not the ones who caused its unravelling.
When infidelity occurs, as often it does, it is remarkable how quickly the conversation shifts away from the actions of the person who betrayed the relationship and towards the question of how the couple can rebuild.
The emphasis becomes the marriage.
The emphasis becomes forgiveness.
The emphasis becomes keeping the family unit together.
The emphasis becomes communication.
Far less attention is given to the devastating attachment injury suffered by the betrayed partner and the long-term psychological consequences that frequently follow.
In this same podcast, the same emphasis was placed on ‘communication’ after an affair, like that was the problem in the first place. Self-awareness, honesty, integrity, fidelity, openness, authenticity and respect are what need to be developed in the aftermath of an affair – by the affair partner. Communication is not the problem – monogamy and sexual entitlement are.
Infidelity and attachment
As someone who works with betrayal trauma, I do not see infidelity as a mistake that simply requires better communication. I see an attachment injury that fundamentally alters how one partner experiences safety, trust and emotional security. It changes the nervous system. It changes the assumptions on which the relationship was built. It changes the meaning of the past, the experience of the present and often the expectations of the future.
This is why I struggle with the suggestion that the relationship somehow becomes stronger because of the betrayal.
Could the relationship become different? Obviously and absolutely.
Could there be greater honesty, clearer boundaries and increased accountability? Yes, by the partner who had the affair.
Could both people develop emotionally in ways they had not before? Possibly, and necessary by the affair partner.
None of those changes means that trust itself has become stronger because it was broken.
What concerns me most is the wider cultural context in which this message exists.
We continue to live in societies shaped by generations of patriarchal attitudes in which men’s emotional and sexual entitlement has too often been normalised and glorified and minimised. Many women have lived with the hard consequences of affairs, hidden relationships, emotional absence, financial irresponsibility and, more recently, the growing prevalence of pornography as the third partner in the relationship. These experiences have fractured families, damaged children and left many women carrying trauma that extends far beyond a single relationship.
Affairs cause trauma. This is not simply individual trauma. It is family trauma. It is also transgenerational trauma.
When daughters grow up watching their mothers tolerate betrayal because they have limited financial independence, because divorce carries stigma, because they are trying to protect their children, or because they have been taught that keeping the family together is their responsibility, those messages do not disappear. They become embedded in family systems. They influence expectations of love, loyalty, gender roles and self-worth for generations to come.
Against that backdrop, telling women that their marriage may come back stronger after infidelity risks becoming another way of asking them to minimise the enormity of what has happened. It subtly reinforces the expectation that their role is to carry the emotional labour of recovery while the relationship itself remains the central priority.
I believe we need a different conversation.
Rather than asking whether the marriage can survive, we should first ask whether the betrayed partner feels safe. Rather than focusing on rebuilding the relationship, we should be asking what accountability looks like for the person who caused the harm. Rather than celebrating resilience within the couple, we should acknowledge the profound grief, humiliation, loss of identity and attachment trauma that betrayal creates.
In my professional opinion, relationships that survive infidelity do not become stronger because of the betrayal. They may become different through extraordinary effort, sustained accountability and years of rebuilding, but the betrayal itself remains a wound in the history of the relationship.
We should stop romanticising that wound. Hope is important. Relationships can survive – but at what cost, and whose cost?
We do women a profound disservice when we imply that betrayal such as an affair is somehow the catalyst for a better marriage. Too often, that narrative asks women to find meaning in trauma and suffering that they did not choose. It minimises the seriousness of intimate partner betrayal. It ignores the wider social context in which women have been expected, for generations, to sacrifice their values, ethics, agency and self-worth to preserve families built on unequal expectations.
Affairs cause trauma. This is not simply individual trauma. It is family trauma. It is also transgenerational trauma.
As a society, we should stop asking women to carry that burden. We should stop softening the reality of betrayal. And we should stop telling them that the relationship came back stronger, when what many of them are living with is a lifetime spent learning how to survive the consequences of someone else’s choices.
Infidelity Is Not a Relationship Reset
As a society, we have become remarkably comfortable talking about recovery after infidelity. We speak about rebuilding trust, rediscovering intimacy and creating stronger marriages. Far less attention is paid to the woman whose world has collapsed, the children whose sense of safety has been shaken, or the generations of family trauma that are reignited when betrayal enters a home once again.
In my opinion, this conversation is fundamentally unbalanced. Until we place greater emphasis on accountability, emotional development and the wider cultural context in which infidelity occurs, we will continue asking women to recover from wounds they did not create. The emphasis needs to shift from the ‘women seeking healing’ and the ‘couple improving communication’ to the affair partner doing the personal development and self-awareness work with the support of others.
RECENT ARTICLES
- Taking the First Steps to Starting Your Sexual Recovery Journey
- Welcome to The Wholesome Path Blog – Positive Health and Alcohol Freedom for Women
- Why So Many Midlife Women Are Choosing to Cut Down and Cut Out Alcohol
- Love Will Get You Through: Navigating Your Newborn’s Disability Diagnosis
- Can We Stop Telling Women That Relationships Can Be ‘Stronger and Better’ After Infidelity? Frankly, It’s Insulting
