What really drives people to have affairs?
Author of Affairs: True Stories of Love, Lies, Hope and Desire, Juliet Rosenfeld would say that affairs go way beyond what is immediately obvious in a relationship and that in some cases the probability of someone having an affair pre-dates even the relationship itself. Drawing from years of clinical work, Juliet explores affairs not simply as acts of betrayal, but as windows into the unconscious — into our histories, our unmet needs, our attachments, our fantasies, and the parts of ourselves we often struggle to understand.
In this episode we are asking a deeper question: what is actually happening psychologically when affairs occur? We talk about why and how affairs force us to confront some of the most difficult truths about intimacy, love, dependency, desire, and the stories we carry about being chosen, rejected, wanted, or left behind. For some people, infidelity represents the ultimate betrayal. For others, it raises uncomfortable questions about love, longing, togetherness, loneliness; and what happens to us inside long-term relationships over time.
Behind closed therapy room doors affairs show up in numerous ways, from couples trying to rebuild trust after betrayal, to those paralysed by guilt after crossing a line they never imagined themselves crossing; in the partners left questioning everything they thought they knew about their relationship and themselves; and adults who witnessed infidelity as children and are still trying to make sense of it.
This episode examines the emotional complexity and complicated reality that sits beneath one of the most taboo subjects in intimate relationships.
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