Unraveling the Complexities of Infidelity: The Case of Reuven and Yaeli

Understanding the Emotional and Psychological Dynamics of Marital Betrayal

Reuven and Yaeli (pseudonyms), both 47 years old with two children, sit in front of me, sad and confused. They met in their late twenties at university: Yaeli entered the relationship with a history of broken hearts, while Reuven, a late bloomer, described his transition as "going from his mother's apron to Yaeli's takeaway napkins." Their love blossomed, and they had a son and a daughter.

After the children grew up a bit, Yaeli returned to work and enrolled in further studies, hoping to rediscover herself. Reuven believed everything was fine until he discovered, through the wonders of technology, that everything was far from it. Yaeli had been having a torrid affair with an older, also married man (referred to here as "the maniac"), whom she met during her further studies.

In the therapy room, Reuven appears utterly lost, unable to understand where things went wrong. Reuven is attractive, much more so than the maniac, and successful in his work. He is an "alpha male," as they say. It wasn’t supposed to happen. True, he and Yaeli had argued more since she started her studies, and she had become a vegetarian and her political leanings had become more extreme, but he never thought that the schnitzels he insisted on making for the children would push her into another man’s arms. The only explanation Reuven could come up with was that Yaeli had gone mad. Desperate, he suggested she take a vacation or see a psychiatrist to get pills for the depression he diagnosed in her, instead of destroying their family "just to sleep with some maniac."

When Yaeli hears Reuven, she cries. These are not tears of heartache over the potential end of her marriage but tears of sorrow over the deterioration of their relationship. Tears of someone who is already emotionally elsewhere. The situation is acute. When I asked for their consent to publish this account, they agreed that even at that meeting, there was an understanding that a woman's affair often leads to the end of the marriage more than a man's affair does.

How did Yaeli get to this point? My explanation is based on the theory of Les Greenberg, the father of the emotion-centered therapy approach, and my observations. Firstly, she didn't get there alone. Statistics indicate that women initiate divorce more than men. While men still likely have more affairs than women, at least according to Esther Perel, the percentage of women having affairs outside their marriages is rising.

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When women reach their mid-twenties, they often enter a short but dark tunnel, with the only light at the end being marriage and children. This singular focus significantly enlarges the layer of secure attachment in the pyramid of needs they choose a partner for. At this stage, they look for someone stable, reliable, and warm who can build a home and be a good father.

The question is, what happens to their identity needs in the meantime? My hypothesis is that at this stage, some women satisfy their identity needs through their husband's identity needs, being attracted to men with developed identities who express them freely. This trait can appear alongside men's professional success, as their identity often converges on their careers, reinforcing the stability they exude. Many women experience themselves as part of their successful husband's "I," partially satisfying their identity needs.

And what about attraction? At this stage, there may be tension between choosing a partner who is very attractive and one who provides secure attachment. Many women choose partners who are attractive in basic ways (smell good, stay fit) but lack real erotic power over them.

This arrangement works for a while, but as in Yaeli and Reuven's case, it is destined for disaster after children are born. Now, unexpectedly, the woman who only wanted a secure relationship finds herself free from the need to base her relationship on secure attachment. She has beaten the biological clock, and her children fulfill some of her attachment needs. Meanwhile, her identity needs, which have withered over the years, become very hungry for nourishment. The man who once charmed her no longer seems as handsome or successful; what distinguished him from Reuven was his interest in her inner world and his curiosity about her perspective.

Many men remain unaware of problems because they gauge the relationship by the number of conflicts. When a partner finds solutions outside the home, complaints often decrease. The conflict index does not account for women who stop complaining because they have distanced themselves emotionally from their husbands.

While most women marry someone who meets their needs reasonably well in their first marriage, gaps between the needs that made a woman fall in love with her husband and her needs 15 years later can be impossible to bridge. These gaps can make her fall in love with a man who meets her identity needs, is freer with his sexuality, and has a low need for secure attachment, leaving space for her to bond with her children. This leads her, tragically for Reuven, to agree to destroy the family "just to sleep with some maniac."