Live webchat with long-term relationships expert Andrew G. Marshall, 11 October 1-2pm

hillyandbilly

Dear Andrew

I read your article in today's Daily Mail. I am going through difficulties with my husband and without the support of my friends would have lost my mind. Are you really saying they are making things worse and not better?

Obviously there is nothing wrong with talking to your friends. But what concerns me is how much some people talk to their friends. I know people who will spend up to 2 hours with a friend. i've known people who could spend over 5 hours a week with the same person. It's almost as if we've outsourced our self esteem and our abilities to deal with our feelings to this other person, and that concerns me for 2 reasons:

Ultimately all the reassurance from our friends just makes us need more reassurance to be told "You're fabulous", "you're fine", and all that talking stops us from actually doing anything. However my greater concern is that if you're expecting your friends to smooth out your problems, you're probably asking your partner to do the same and no wonder he feels overwhelmed, angry, and has taken to the hills.

The secret of a happy life is to find the middle way, so of course it would be silly never to speak to your friends. What my article is about are the people who go to the opposite extreme. My worry is that you need to find a balance between talking to your friends and talking to your husband.

praxis

Should you tell your (adult) children if you're having problems, or if one of you has had an affair? Or is it best to keep it private - particularly if you expect them to take your side? if you do decide to tell them, any tips on how best to do it?

My advice is to tell your children as little as possible, whether they are 5, 15 or 25 about your marital problems. I often have couples recovering from infidelity where the wife has forgiven but the daughter still hasn't and that's creating family problems. You think you need support and I'm sure you do, I'm just not sure it's fair to drag your children into it. if it is unavoidable, please don't tell them more than the top line, because although you have the magic of kissing and making up in the bedroom, your children are stuck with lots of horrible images.

louella

My husband and I have always believed that if either of us had an affair it would spell the end of our marriage. Yet we know people who (seem to) have made it work perfectly well after one or other has done this. How is it that some couples can do this when most seem to split up in these circumstances? How on earth can the injured party ever truly trust again? I think I would be permanently on edge and waiting for the next time - which would be the kiss of death to the marriage even if an affair wasn't

Affairs happen for a reason, to explain more I've put it into an equation.

Problem + Poor Communication + Temptation = Affair

We tend to concentrate on just the temptation, but let's face it there's millions of attractive men and women in the world, and although we like to look at pictures, we don't act on them because we feel good and happy in our relationship. However if there's a long-term problem, for example, people on this thread have talked about not having sex for 7 years, and you have poor communication, and therefore can't talk about it, it is much easier for the temptation to get to you and to cross over the line.

So in a nutshell, how you recover from an affair, which I explain in more detail in How Can I Ever Trust You Again, is that you begin to solve the underlying problem, and improve the communication and then you don't need to worry about the temptation.

The good new is that although couples dealing with infidelity are the least happy when they arrive in my therapy room, they leave the happiest. That's because they're prepared to look deeper and work harder to make certain it never happens again.

firenze

Couples can survive infidelity, eh? What if fidelity is one of the founding beliefs of the relationship? What if it's non-negotiable? Isn't that a betrayal of trust?

And yes, I do speak personally.

Yes, of course it's a betrayal of trust! And if for you it's non-negotiable, that's fine. But I find that many people on discovering infidelity make their mind up about the future of their relationship too quickly. Let's face it, you are in shock and that's not the best time to make life-changing decisions.

At this point you probably can't hear what has been said, or you're only getting half the story. If you throw him out, you lose all the chances to ask further questions. The same with saying I forgive you, because you've removed all incentive to be honest.

there needs to be a lot of what I call intense questioning so that you understand what happened and why and so you can understand your contribution to the infidelity equation, because although you're not responsible for your partner's cheating, you are one half of the poor communication that stopped him saying "I've got a problem" rather than going off and finding an individual solution to a couple problem.

I understand why you're hurting, that's natural and part of the healing process. I hope it gets better soon.

bakergran

Do you have any advice for relationships that started as infidelity? Obviously it's not an ideal situation because the trust can never be the same as you know they left someone else for you, but once you're in it, are there any ways to improve that trust bond between you?

I have to admit this is a huge huge huge problem. And it's one of the reasons I'm so against infidelity. We imagine once the other person's out of the way, we'll walk off into the sunset. My concern is that if a relationship has poor foundations it is hard to build upon.

Having said that, it;s never too late to put down some good foundations. First of all, I think you need to grieve for your old partners, because the excitement of infidelity and the trauma of discovery means that your relationship is jump started as you go from clandestine meals to everyday reality (with angry step children thrown in).

If you want more advice on grieving you'll find it in Heal and Move On. The other half of putting down good foundations is learning how to communicate properly rather than leaping into bed and forgetting all your problems. I explain how to be assertive in Resolve Your Differences.

Finally I think you need to understand more about the bubble of infidelity so I would also look at How Can I Ever Trust You Again. I'm sorry I've given you a University course length reading list and that I sound so negative, but you're starting from a really difficult place. Be honest with each other and it's amazing what you can achieve.

barbarab

How do you stop a long-term relationship from going stale? When time and money are both short it's so easy to lose the 'romance' and get consumed with day-to-day life. What should we be doing to keep the spark alive (nothing too saucy please - my husband has a herniated disc)

Romantic gestures shouldn't cost much. It's about hugs, smiles, buying a Mars bar because I thought of you, cooking a favourite meal, talking to each other in the same room rather than shouting up and down the stairs, running a bath and putting tea tree candles round it, sharing a warm bath and a bowl of cold ice cream. What I'm talking about are good habits which by their very nature have to be small and repeatable rather than trips on the Orient Express, which are by their very nature hard to repeat.

Micki

I am fascinated by the title of your sex book - Make Love Like A Prairie Vole. Have you really spent time watching voles at it? And if so what do they have that we don't in terms of success in the sack?

I promise I've never watched prairie voles have sex, but there are many scientists in America who have. We know more about the brain chemistry of voles than any other creature, and from that, an understanding of what promotes desire. Basically the big difference between humans and voles is just how much time voles spend together, they are always cuddling and kissing. if you read the rest of the posts, you will realise that we spend far too much time worrying about our genitals and not enough time worrying about stroking, petting, and whispering sweet nothings into each others' ears.