The Grief of an Affair

By Jinashree Rajendrakumar August 16, 2021

Read part one of this two-part article: How Do Affairs Happen?

The revelation of a partner’s affair (sexual or emotional) comes as a shock to the hurt partner, even when doubts exist. The loss of trust in a relationship is no different from a physical loss. The closeness of the relationship and the hurt partner’s perception of preventability were identified as predictors of the grieving process’s intensity and duration in a study on human grief by Bugen. The predictors wouldn’t be different in the case of trust loss as well.

The process of grief includes five emotional stages to recovery from loss, as per the Kubler-Ross model. This process is not linear, and the hurt partner can find themselves at any stage throughout varying timelines. The stages of trust loss, applying the grief model to the aftermath of an affair, would be as follows:

How Do Affairs Happen?

By Jinashree RajendrakumarJuly 12, 2021

What went wrong?

It is hurtful and devastating when an affair shatters a relationship’s trusted stability. It leaves both partners to pick up the pieces before starting all over again, which is painful. One of the questions that plague partners recovering from an affair is “What went wrong?” Even when individuals and relationships are unique, is there a commonality across affairs?

Dr. John Gottman with Dr. Caryl Rusbult and Dr. Shirley Glass explained an affair as a cascade of steps that culminate in a transgression. It all starts with the bid for attention. If it sounds like a simplified excuse for an affair, it is not. When one can’t count on their partner to be available in their time of need, it leads to unfavorable comparisons, emotional distance, and eventual betrayal, if not the demise of love. Based on research, the steps that lead to betrayal (the Gottman-Rusbult-Glass Cascade) are as follows: