Many See Infidelity as Ultimate Betrayal of Trust, but Some Overcome It

When Fiona had an affair after 10 years of marriage, she never imagined the ramifications of her actions.

“It all seemed harmless at first,” says the 40-year-old Corona del Mar writer, who asked that her name be changed, as did others in the story. “My husband and I had been arguing a lot and weren’t as intimate as I wanted to be. The new person was really interested in me and didn’t hassle me like my husband.”

When Fiona’s husband confronted her one night, she told him the truth. The couple agreed to work out their problems, but he couldn’t contain his anger.

“Even though we needed to go our separate ways, what I regret most is my betrayal of his trust. I had been so angry at him for not being what I wanted him to be that I didn’t even consider what he would go through. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way,” she says.

Many married people and singles in committed relationships see infidelity as the ultimate betrayal, says marriage, family, child counselor Janet Whitney, who is with Coastline Counseling in Newport Beach.

She has seen the aftershocks of a partner having sex outside of marriage.

“When someone has an affair, it takes the specialness away from the marriage relationship and cheapens everything,” she says. “For people who desire an honest relationship, it is difficult for them to get over the betrayal, and the relationship eventually fails.

“Others stay together, but the betrayed person will close off part of himself or herself and continue to function in the relationship on a more limited basis. Only those individuals who acknowledge they have a problem and get help can overcome what happened, yet a scar always remains,” Whitney says.

Many feel the biggest casualty of infidelity is trust. “The person who was cheated on constantly questions the other person’s honesty. Questions such as ‘Did she ever love me?’ and ‘Is he really going where he says he’s going?’ are very common, natural reactions,” Whitney says. “Individuals who had the affairs also start not trusting themselves. Many people will wonder how they could have hurt someone they loved.”

National surveys indicate that between 30% and 60% of married men and women have had an affair. “Infidelity has balanced out between men and women,” Whitney says.

While it is common for anyone in a marriage or committed relationship to have fleeting thoughts about committing adultery, many people don’t act on their fantasies, she says.

Individuals who start affairs do so for a number of reasons:

* They come from a family where infidelity is common and accepted.

* They suffer from a lack of chemistry or compatibility with their partners.

* They have trouble with commitment.

Whatever the reason, the upheaval a discovered affair causes often leads to the demise of the marriage.

Just ask Estella.

When the 40-year-old graphic designer, who lives in Tustin, met her husband-to-be, he seemed like a warm father and potentially loving husband.

After three months together, Estella was madly in love and quickly agreed to marriage. One month into the marriage, though, she began finding notes on top of his dresser about meeting women for drinks.

“When I found the notes, I confronted him, and he admitted to cheating on me, saying that he was bored and didn’t feel like we were getting along,” she says. “I had thought of him like Humphrey Bogart. He had some rough edges, but there was a lot of attraction there, so we tried to work things out. But after eight months we separated because he continued to cheat on me.”

For Estella the experience took time to get over. “The first thing I did was ask myself what I’d done wrong,” she says. “Then after awhile, I realized he was a jerk. But then I began to ask myself why I picked someone like that. I ended up going through therapy over the fact that I couldn’t trust my instincts.”

Although it happened 11 years ago, Estella feels she is still affected.

“I think I’ll always be more cautious and less trusting,” she says.

With infidelity, women tend to blame themselves more often than men, says Whitney.

When Raymond’s live-in girlfriend and mother of his young son announced it was over because she was having an affair with his best friend, the 34-year-old Santa Ana teacher never considered it could be his fault.

“Things weren’t running completely smoothly, but nothing I’d done warranted that kind of drastic action,” he says.

Not only did Raymond’s girlfriend have an affair, but she thought he would stay home and watch their son while she went out. “I have no idea why she thought I would stay there while she cheated on me, but after she left, I packed up our stuff and left with my son.”

When his girlfriend returned, she called the police and Raymond returned with their son. They made arrangements for joint custody. When her new relationship didn’t work out, she asked Raymond to come back.

“I had no intentions of working things out,” he says. “As far as I was concerned, she ended it when she starting sleeping with my friend. I could never trust her again. Infidelity is completely unacceptable.”

Whitney says, “It used to be 20 years ago that men played around and women didn’t say that much, but people aren’t ignoring it anymore. There has been a shift in attitudes toward a focus on home and honesty in relationships, and less people are tolerant of adultery nowadays.”

For some, however, affairs don’t carry much significance.

Fred, a 45-year-old Costa Mesa graphic designer, has been married twice and had affairs during both marriages. He says he feels no guilt.

His first affair occurred when he was 20. He had been married for a year and wasn’t spending much time with his wife because they were both busy developing their careers. His wife eventually found out about his affair, but Fred says she didn’t seem to care because, he thinks, she was having one of her own.

After three years, the marriage ended when she moved out of state. According to Fred, they are still friends.

Fred married a second time, at 27. They were married 10 years, and he says that he cheated on her many times because she had less of a sex drive than he did. He says he doesn’t think she cared about his flings.

“Sometimes the women I was sleeping with would visit my wife and tell her I was going to leave her, but that was a lie, because I loved my wife,” he says. “When I got home later, all she’d say was that someone had visited. I don’t think she condoned my affairs, but they didn’t really bother her because she’d been raised with a father who did similar things to her mother and she grew up to accept it.”

The marriage ended when Fred began commuting from Huntington Beach to San Jose and his ex-wife met someone else and asked for a divorce.

Afterward, Fred lived with another woman whom he also worked with and says he never found it necessary to cheat on her. “We were very compatible. She also had a 12-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son at the time, whom I became very close to. The family atmosphere really influenced me.”

Fred is now living with a woman and having an affair with someone else, whom he considers his soul mate.

“I feel like I’ve finally found the right person,” he says. “When we’re both able to get out of our present relationships and get together, I don’t think I’ll find it necessary to have affairs.”

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Experts say that when infidelity occurs, partners sense something on some level and often choose to ignore the signals. Sometimes, however, there are no signs.

Laura’s story reads like a psychological thriller. The 37-year-old Fullerton woman who works in the retail industry was working in the restaurant industry when she met a handsome, charming man who seemed like perfect husband material.

“At work he was really popular and a hard worker,” she says. “He was also Jewish, like me, which was even more special, since my previous boyfriend wasn’t.”

Her new boyfriend met her family and immediately got along well with her parents and brother. After six months of dating, they were engaged and were married six months later.

“He seemed to love my family; we never fought, and my co-workers were all jealous. He’d do things like come to pick up my car during the day and get it washed,” she says.

About two years after the wedding, Laura’s husband told her he couldn’t be married anymore and left.

Laura was devastated by his departure, but this feeling was soon replaced with shock as she made calls to his co-workers and found that he’d been having an affair with a waitress with whom he shared a cocaine habit. He’d also been stealing money from work to buy drugs.

“If I had known how many problems he had, I would never have married him. But he was never himself with me,” she says. “He pulled out before he revealed his real personality and went to live with his girlfriend.”

Although she was glad to get out of the marriage, Laura says she is bitter over the experience, especially because she lost time. By now she had planned to be happily married and to have young children.

Laura says she is cynical when friends talk about making wedding plans.

“I don’t have a lot of trust in marriage, which is sad,” she says. “Before my ex-husband, I had only the highest regard for marriage. I thought that if you did everything right, things would work out all right, but I was wrong.”