10. Extramarital Affairs in Midlife:
The Splintered Mirror
Presenters: |
Valory J. Mitchell, PhD |
Diane L. Wilson, PhD |
|
Chair: |
Richard F. Avery, LCSW, BCD |
Self Psychology Page | 21th Conference
Program
Based on commonalities in the experiences of our clients, this paper sketches the "psychological ecology" in which an affair can secure a hold, thrive, and either wither or crowd out the marriage. We consider the subjective experience of the affair from the perspective of each of the three central participants: the spouse, the lover, and the pivot person.
We posit that mid-life affairs occur within a period in the lifespan developmental trajectory when neglected aspects of the self "come knocking at the door". The marriage is in a phase of its life cycle when each partner is aware of their own disappointments and, perhaps most poignantly, of being a disappointment to the spouse. While this more accurate and whole picture of self and spouse allow for a more truthful intimacy, it may raise particularly painful issues for individuals whose self structure is weak in areas of self-esteem regulation. In this regard, we place vulnerability to an affair in the distal context of depression in the selfobject matrix of childhood.
In this first phase of the affair, being a lover is likely to include intense mirroring and idealizing selfobject transferences. In contrast, we conceptualize the spouse’s experience as a traumatic loss-- loss of the spouse (now pivot person) as a source of mirroring, idealizing and twinship functions, and loss of the marriage itself as a selfobject.
The second psychological phase of an affair begins as the pivot person experiences loss, and plummets from the compartmentalized euphoria of phase one into a subjective recognition of pain and loss on every front.
In the third phase -- replacement, or reunion and repair -- the pivot person attempts to internalize and integrate an enlarged and enhanced self, either by "putting down roots" with the lover and giving up the marriage, or by fully returning to the marriage. If the partner reunites emotionally with the spouse, the work of integration involves both partners’ repairing the splintered (or compartmentalized) mirroring functions of attunement, appreciation and delight.
Case examples illustrate key points. Finally, we discuss the ways this formulation can become useful in psychotherapy.