How can parental history influence adultery? Is it possible to stay in a harmonious relationship and not hold a grudge against a partner? How does this situation help us better understand ourselves and each other? Says clinical psychologist Anton Antonov.
Who is at risk
Regardless of which partner was unfaithful, it is important to consider what brought both of them into this situation. And the answer lies in the psyche — it is she who affects everything that happens to us. Including the choice of people with whom we surround ourselves. Someone in a relationship never faces infidelity. Others, on the contrary, even changing partners, live a similar scenario all the time.
We sometimes, unwittingly, can adopt the behavioral strategies of our ancestors. This is the first and main reason why we get stuck in such stories. If a mother or one of the grandmothers is faced with the infidelity of a loved one, then your chances of playing out the same scenario increase. And if in past generations no one even thought about betrayal, the probability is minimal. The same is true for a partner: if someone in his family cheated, he can adopt it.
People are evolutionarily arranged in such a way that each generation collects knowledge about dangers and genetically passes them on to their future race. How does it work? For example, someone in the family is faced with treason. His body, perceiving this as a threat, experienced stress. And this fear can also be transmitted to us — but in the form of a strategy suitable for the survival of the species. What is meant?
If this scenario has already helped the past generation to survive (dad cheated on mom, but despite this, they lived together for many years), then our brain perceives it as safe for procreation. It may sound paradoxical, but at the “animal” level it is perceived that way.
A woman, without knowing it herself, can enter into relationships with men who «go to the left» over and over again. In turn, a man can look for such women who will allow him to do this. The same mechanisms influence why some women marry partners with unhealthy addictions to alcohol or other bad habits.
Find a Model
The experience and repetition of strategies occurs unconsciously. At the same time, each person in such a relationship finds something of his own. For example, for him they can be a way to assert themselves, and for her — to feel like a victim. This role often has a secondary benefit.
It is impossible to analyze the fact of infidelity, speaking only about one of the partners. After all, as you know, cotton is always two palms. Different schemes and motives adopted from past generations can overlap.
If a girl was taught in her childhood that the main thing is to get married, she will do it, realizing her goal. At first, the relationship may seem perfect. But then she, perhaps unconsciously, will behave in such a way as to “encourage” a man to cheat on her, realizing the script laid down in her.
For example, a woman may fear that she will be exchanged for another because her father once left the family. She will “work out” this fear in a relationship, probably by provoking her partner to do just that. And sometimes the fear of betrayal limits us so much that a person begins to avoid relationships altogether. But sometimes what happens is exactly what we fear.
Life brings us to a certain experience so that we can strategize and break out of this scenario.
Discuss and grow
If the betrayal has already happened, accept what happened as a fact. Talk openly with your partner. First of all, you need to understand why he did this. If this happened impulsively and unconsciously, try to figure out together what prompted him. If he cheated consciously, specify what he lacks in your relationship.
When people strive for development in relationships, and also have a stable psyche and well-developed negative scenarios from the past, then there is no reason for cheating. On the contrary, they are aimed at maintaining harmony with a loved one.
Therefore, a crisis situation should be considered as an opportunity to realize something important about ourselves and grow personally thanks to this new knowledge. Then the motives that induce marital betrayal will disappear on their own.
Man by nature seeks love and happiness. But no one is immune from change. Faced with this experience, we can live it more easily and consciously if we understand the psychological motives (ours and our partner) that brought both of us into this situation, and go to a deeper level in the relationship.