Infidelity is the most taboo issue in a partnership. But there are some things we have to do to be “unfaithful” to our partners.
1. Early in the relationship: Keeping it real and revealing your heart
The initial stages of love are obviously decisive. Should we conceal certain aspects of our past lives? According to Jacques-Antoine Malarewicz, a psychoanalyst, “No, you shouldn’t. In the passionate phase of a relationship, it is a good time to confess your past, show your sincerity and give your trust to the other person. By confessing your past relationships, you are actually saying to the other person, ‘You are the best person I know, even though I have had some emotional experiences’. However, it’s best not to describe too many details of your sex life to the other person, or it will quickly lead to jealousy.”
In fact, it’s important to keep it as real as possible, revealing your deepest feelings and how you like to live your life. SylvieTenenbaum says clearly, “Sometimes people will have to tell lies in order not to damage the other person’s expectations of them.” The early stages of a relationship are still a good opportunity to discuss happiness and the lack of affection felt in the past. Sylvie Trumbo explains, “For example, a man who was always criticized by his mother as a child is likely to become an irritable person as an adult. If his partner knows this history, it’s easier to accept this character trait in him because it’s justifiable.”
2. Infidelity: know how to confess, learn to hide
Infidelity is always the most serious problem between partners. “When it comes to infidelity, coming clean is not always a wise choice.” Jacques-Antoine Malarewicz explains, “If cheating simply means that the partnership is not as good as it could be, and it certainly does not lead to the breakup of the relationship, confessing one’s infidelity to the other person may be a good thing – it allows both partners to face up to the crisis they face and move beyond it together. Conversely, it is better to conceal it from those who are very jealous and extremely impulsive, because the other person will not think twice about breaking up the partnership.”
Sometimes, some people, driven by purely unconscious pleasure, appear to be unfaithful because they want their partner to know about it. Yves Prigent advises, “When you want to come clean so badly, it’s best to talk to someone else and be clear about why you want to talk about it before you tell your partner.”
3. Topics: avoiding the “minefield”
Some topics are best left untouched. Sylvie Trumbo emphasizes, “Never criticize the other person’s family and friends. Even if the other person does so himself/herself, he/she cannot tolerate you talking about these subjects. Also, one should not fix the other person in a bad image, such as accusing the other person of ‘No matter what, you’re always like this! It does no good to put a bad label on the other person.”
But words aren’t the only thing that can be uncomfortable; certain silences can be said to be deliberately unsettling to the other person. For example, someone goes out for three hours, only to come back and tell their partner that they just went to buy a newspaper. In response, Yves Prijean explains, “This linguistic gap is a deliberate silence that is intended to have a mental impact on the other person.”
4. Conversation: choosing a good time
Some partners have to ask other people to settle their differences. It would be a disaster,” asserts Jacques-Antoine Malarewicz. Making disagreements between partners public is likely to make one partner feel humiliated. If this is done, how can one expect the other to still speak freely in the future? Likewise, a conversation in the car after attending a party is likely to be a disaster because it is likely to devolve into mutual accusations.” In order for the conversation to be beneficial to both parties, it’s best to choose a time when both parties are calmer.
5. Words: Developing the “code of love”
Words can allow both partners to build a friendship beyond love. Revealing your heart is a gift to others, and asking how the other person is doing is a way to care for them. Words can develop a special “code” between partners that makes them more compatible. Yves Prijean concludes: “Do not despise and mince words, but show your love to each other. And, do so often enough to take the relationship to a new level. It is these simple words that make a love relationship stronger. The words ‘I love you’ are always magic.”
Does “saying everything” mean intimacy?
The answer from psychotherapists and psychoanalysts –
■ MartheMarandola: That’s definitely not true. Having to tell anyone anything, or having to know anything about anyone else, is like a kind of spiritual censorship or dictatorship. Moreover, this is impossible to do because we cannot live in complete truth and we don’t even know those dark corners of our hearts. There are many things besides words that can bring us into intimate relationships.
■Sylvie Trumbo: It’s a total fantasy to say everything because we don’t know everything about ourselves. In addition to telling each other what’s going on in our daily lives, it’s important to say how we feel. If the other person can respond by saying, “I feel the same way you do,” there is no doubt that mutual understanding can be deepened.
■ Yves Prijean: It is important to distinguish between the details and the truth. If one is obsessed with details, one becomes totalitarian and can overwhelm the other side and instead lose sight of the facts themselves. What exactly is the truth? To give an example, it is having the courage to speak one’s disagreement to avoid ruining a couple’s relationship through misunderstanding.
■ Geneviève Lefebvre-Decaudin: Intimacy takes time to deepen. Intimacy is the most successful human relationship, but it has nothing to do with the integration of the two parties, it depends mainly on the clarity of the relationship and the respect for each other’s otherness. Maintaining one’s “secret garden” not only does not hinder intimacy, but on the contrary, it is an inalienable right of each person that allows each of us to receive sustenance for our inner being, without any relation to others. It is completely different from the “ghost in the closet,” where if there is a secret and I know it involves someone, but they don’t know about it, it creates an insurmountable barrier between us, making it impossible for me to form a truly intimate relationship with them.
“Confessing my past sexual experiences made our relationship bleak”
Zoè, 27
At the beginning of my relationship with my boyfriend, I confessed my past emotional experiences to him . It was supposed to be just a language game between us. I told him that I had been in relationships with two men at the same time over a period of several months. Sometimes, I even just left one man and immediately jumped in a cab to go to another man. Apparently, both men were in the dark. I don’t love either of these men, I just like to go back and forth between them.
This experience was a passing phase for me, leaving no mark on my life, and I didn’t expect it to make my boyfriend very uncomfortable. He often brought it up to me uneasily because he always felt that he, alone, must not be able to make me feel satisfied and happy having had this experience. This was completely wrong, but my explanations never let him off the hook. I regret so much that I told him about this past, causing him to constantly ruminate uneasily and sometimes absurdly gloomy about our love relationship.