- What is adultery
- Different categories of adultery
- Should I confess my infidelity
Article: Diagnosis and anatomy of adultery
Questions and answers about adultery
This is an article in the series of answers about infidelity.
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Are you seeking couples therapy for infidelity?
Infidelity has many names and it is good to have a common language in the relationship. Read more below and have a good chat about adultery. Next, there are two general categories of adultery and four types of adultery. This can be of decisive importance for your relationship and future – if you want to avoid infidelity or have couples therapy for infidelity.
If you are in doubt and have questions about infidelity, it is probably because there is a good reason. So read more here, on the blog and on the website. It can be a good occasion to stop, take stock and reflect on the relationship and the future. The website also provides a free relationship test as a tool for reflection and dialogue. You can also book an initial consultation, as a party check, where you can get professional support for the dialogue, an overview of the case and more tools.
But immediately click here on infidelity or call 61661900 for couples therapy if the damage has been done. Remember it’s never too late. Neither to prevent infidelity nor to save the relationship and the family after infidelity.
Adultery has many names
What is the definition of adultery?
It is very individual what constitutes adultery and where the boundaries of adultery lie. What is adultery and what is not adultery? What is the gray area for adultery? Where is the line for infidelity, respectively for you and your partner? What words do you and your partner use for infidelity? What is a synonym for adultery?
- Envy, uncertainty, insecurity, jealousy, mistrust…
- An intimate conversation, a close colleague, an intimate friendship…
- Sharing personal, relational and emotional details…
- Old flames, ex-boyfriends, former sex partners…
- Flirting, prowling, touching, cheek dancing, flirting, kissing, petting, onnani, oral, sexual intercourse…
- Infidelity, sidestepping, affair, lying, deception, promiscuity, fornication, adultery…
- Christmas lunch bang, photocopier bang, one-night stand…
- A lover on-the-side, extramarital sex, adultery …
- Long-term intimate friendships, relationship-like infidelity…
- Revolving door relationships, open relationships, partner exchange, polyamory…
- Swinger club, strip club, intimate bar, topless service…
- Online dating, cheating dating sites and swinger guides…
- Adultery per SMS, sexting, chat, email, internet, social media…
- Internetpornography, internetjalousi, facebookjalousi …
- Drug rape, blackouts, abuse, addiction, sex addiction…
When do you cheat?
As a couples therapist specializing in infidelity and sexuality, I see in couple therapy many couples who have unfortunately committed adultery because they do not know each other’s boundaries well enough. They have never really been told about their desires, fantasies, preferences, practices and boundaries. They have never defined their relationship and what constitutes fidelity and infidelity. That is clear. For many, it is more or less premature, embarrassing or inappropriate to talk about adultery. Many are still so influenced by the culture that they think it is taken for granted. However, this is rarely the case.
What is adultery to you?
For some, it is, for example, ok to flirt and to dance closely. For others, it may well be even more physical, as long as there are no emotions involved. Conversely, the limit for some is emotional. Others don’t think it’s ok to watch porn, have hot correspondence over the internet or keep in touch with an old girlfriend on Facebook. For some, the fantasy or intention of adultery is enough.
Limits and definition of adultery
The boundaries for adultery are often very different and are both cultural, religious, relational, emotional, sexual and physical. If you haven’t talked about each other’s boundaries for infidelity, it’s also hard to know them. In this way, one can inadvertently (not that it should be an excuse) come to exceed the psychological contract for what is monogamy and what is infidelity.
The goal of couples therapy is to create security, openness, dialogue, insight and acceptance. In couples therapy, it is thus about turning the unconscious psychological contract for what is monogamy and what is infidelity into a stated, conscious and agreed upon contract. This also applies if infidelity has already occurred, because this dialogue and process helps to create clarification, credibility, trust and security. These are some of the prerequisites to partly stop the accident, to rebuild trust and the new relationship together, and to prevent infidelity.
Anatomy of adultery
The two categories of adultery©
There are two broad categories of adultery.
One form of infidelity is the one that resembles a relationship – the relationship-like infidelity. That is, where you have someone else (partner/sex partner/a lover on-the-side) next to your partner and for a long time or several periods.
The second type of infidelity is the sidestep – the single and episodic infidelity (a one-night stand). It’s the kind of infidelity we also call the sideways jump during Christmas lunch or the banging of the copier.
Besides the fact that Denmark has been voted one of the most unfaithful nations in Europe, the same survey from YouGov (go.tv2.dk 20130621) shows that the Danes are the people with the most one-night stands (51%).
A special subcategory of one-night-stands that I encounter in my practice are those that occur under the strong influence of alcohol, medication and/or drugs that are either taken voluntarily or under duress (drug rapes). However, it does not necessarily have to be a drug rape. Some may reach a point where they are surprised by loss of control and blackouts or that blackouts occur because alcohol, medication and drugs are mixed.
This creates particularly complicated relationships, as both parties now find it difficult to know what is actually reality and what is a lie, who should be angry at and who should be forgiven. Sometimes it is best to leave the doubt in the unknown and other times the couples therapist can use different methods to help reconstruct the course and situation. The most important thing is that the couple find the answers that are sufficient for them, so that it can quickly move on to the development phase.
It is often the relationship-like form of infidelity that is the worst. Typically because this infidelity is long-lasting and involves a close relationship, an intimate familiarity and repeated sexual contact. It is both difficult to explain and understand.
Many can better handle the short-term infidelity by creating meaning based on thoughts such as “Well, it was only about the physiological needs, we hadn’t had sex for a long time and there was also alcohol involved.”. The episodic infidelity also hurts and it can make it worse if, for example, it is repeated with a partner who is close to the wronged person – for example a colleague, friend or family member. It can be particularly challenging if the unfaithful person has been unfaithful with someone from the daily social environment, where there is still unsupervised exposure – e.g. work and club life.
The four types of adultery©
Infidelity is the opposite of faithfulness – that is, being unfaithful to one’s regular partner. In practice, most probably define infidelity as a secret and close emotional and/or sexual relationship with someone other than the partner. According to Danish law, adultery is grounds for divorce and formally extramarital intercourse constitutes adultery.
Whether it is infidelity for you, however, depends on your experienced reality and yourself, incl. your values, beliefs, attitudes and boundaries. The most important thing is what you yourself feel and think. It can be very difficult to find out and there are many concepts and definitions for infidelity, at the same time that psychological defense mechanisms such as repression, rationalization, emotional isolation and projection easily arise in the case of infidelity. But a couples therapist can help you navigate this.
Overall, we talk about physical infidelity (bodily) and emotional infidelity (intimate). Some further divide infidelity in relation to whether the infidelity is real (happened) or whether the infidelity is intentional (desire/intention). It thus gives four categories©: Real physical adultery or Real emotional adultery and Intentional physical adultery or Intentional emotional adultery.
With the spread of the internet, another dimension has actually emerged, where adultery can now take place in reality (IRL = In Real Life) or on-line (on the internet/phone). Most people will thus describe intimate conversations, emails, messages and sexting (exchange of intimate photos over the mobile phone/internet) as infidelity. But many do not just feel offended, offended and let down by their partner watching porn alone, but also perceive it as infidelity and experience the same feelings. It can also lead to the same patterns of jealousy, control and lies as the other forms of infidelity.
A little caricatured, for men it is often about the physical needs. Some, especially men, find it easier to separate sex from emotions. It is thus often for the man (the party who can do it), who has an easier time throwing himself into physical infidelity and recovering from his own or his partner’s infidelity. Since others (often women) experience a greater connection between sex and emotions, it can paradoxically be harder for the woman to recover from the man’s sidestep – even if for him it was ‘only’ about something physical. Conversely, since women often experience a greater connection between emotions and sex, side jumps for women are more often about the relationship, emotions and falling in love.
It might have been easier for the man if for the woman it was only about sex. Conversely, it can be a big challenge for the woman, as she has just formed a special emotional relationship with the lover or perhaps even fallen in love. Here, it is particularly important to see and think long-term, as well as to have patience and trust in the process, as otherwise it will be the immediate infatuation that will dominate the decisions. We can all be attracted and fall in love, but it’s about feeling and not acting on the first impulses. Once that has happened, you are in love. But it’s one thing to be in love, another to love. According to Kierkegaard, falling in love is only a preliminary stage to love and falling in love rarely lasts more than 3-6 months, so if both parties want to forgive and work on it, there is a possibility of reconciliation and reunion.
Adultery technically
The definition of adultery can also be temporal, national, cultural and religious. Older and perhaps more biblical expressions can be fornication and fornication (luxuria in Latin or lechery/lust as in the seven deadly sins). Where fornication meant adultery and fornication often have a pre-marital and broader meaning incl. eg prostitution, debauchery, promiscuity and immorality. In English, most of my international clients use the word infidelity as a general term for infidelity and adultery as a term for adultery. Technically, it doesn’t really matter what you call it. It is more important that you agree on what is the right word and that you agree on its meaning, so that you come to a common understanding, recognition and responsibility. Words and definitions of infidelity are thus an important tool that both helps with clarification and boundary setting as well as making infidelity more manageable and preventable.
Four ways to detect infidelity
The way in which the infidelity is discovered also defines the infidelity and has a great influence on how strongly the relationship is subsequently affected and how demanding the process becomes. There are generally four categories of ways in which infidelity is detected:
1. Caught in the act by self-examination (10%).
2. Disclosed by an outside third party (40%).
3. Admitted on demand (20%).
4. Admitted without prompting (30%).
Psychologists from the University of Pennsylvania in the USA have found via studies (Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 18(2), 291-308) about infidelity that the devastating effect is least in cases where the partner himself and unprompted admits his infidelity. The destruction is somewhat greater when the partner only admitted the infidelity after questioning and it is greatest when the unfaithful is caught red-handed in his infidelity or when the partner is informed of the infidelity through a third person. Many times the person with whom the partner is unfaithful ends up revealing it to the wronged person due to, for example, pettiness and unfulfilled promises from the unfaithful person to divorce.
Other times, however, the third person does not know at all that the unfaithful person is in another relationship at the same time. The effect of the infidelity also relates to the extent to which the deceived is able to forgive the unfaithful. Correspondingly, it turns out that there is the greatest chance of forgiveness with unsolicited admissions and the least when the unfaithful is caught in the act or when the disclosure comes from an outsider. Likewise, relationship-like infidelity is often harder to forgive than one-night stands.
Should I confess my infidelity?
Whether you have to reveal your own or someone else’s infidelity is your choice. There are both advantages and disadvantages to that – in the short and long term and for you and the other parties. The attitudes are different. Some believe that it is better to live in ignorance, others to tell the truth. Those who are considering revealing someone else may benefit from considering whose project it is and what the motive is. If you want help, Parterapi-parterapeut.dk can support you in your personal decision-making process. You can also read more about the issue in the article in Eurowoman that I contributed to in 2015.
Through the study on infidelity, one can statistically deduce, however, that it pays to tell about your infidelity yourself and unsolicited, and that there is a high probability (altogether approx. 50%) of being discovered by being caught in the act or exposed by a third party. From my practice as a couples therapist, I also have experience that it is often the person with whom the partner is unfaithful who reveals the infidelity himself and that person often tells it directly to the cheated on.
In many cases, the partner has been unfaithful with, even in a relationship. Infidelity therefore hits hard, as infidelity thus affects two family systems at the same time. Without couple therapy, it often ends with two families being split up by divorce. When it comes down to it, the two who cheated on each other typically also end up divorcing. Often the two people who are unfaithful are also employed at the same place. It therefore also affects the working relationship and the collegial situation.
This makes it even more difficult for the cheated on (colleagues ditto) to know that their partner still has daily contact with the person they cheated on. It often ends with one of the unfaithful having to change jobs or resign. Therefore, infidelity can also have career and financial consequences. As a couples therapist with a professional background such as coach, I therefore also help the couple through these challenges.
Q&A about adultery
Articles with practical answers about adultery
In the article series with answers about adultery, you can read more about:
- What is adultery?
- Why does adultery occur?
- What are the signs of adultery?
- What are the consequences of adultery?
- How is grief handled by e.g. infidelity?
- How to forgive adultery?
- What do the statistics say about adultery?
- What do catchphrases and quotes say about adultery?
- First aid guide for infidelity.
By Parterapi-parterapeut.dk
In every crisis and change there is a learning and an opportunity. Parterapi-parterapeut.dk in Copenhagen and online, helps worldwide clients, couples, families, teams and managers to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
At Parterapi-parterapeut.dk you meet Kasper Larsen, mba. He is from 1966 and EAP/EAGT examined psychotherapist and certified couples therapist and sexologist. Kasper has over 30 years of experience and ongoing continuing education at Master’s level under the approval of the American Psychological Association.
He specializes in infidelity and, as something special, he has over 15 years of specialist experience in online therapy by telephone and thus runs a global online business in coaching and psychotherapy. He is fluent in Danish and English as well as German, French, Norwegian and Swedish.
Kasper Larsen has been self-employed since 2002. Before that, he was a top management consultant in the largest consulting houses. As a therapist, he has, among other things, work in social psychiatry and with professional alcohol treatment. For private individuals, Parterapi-parterapeut.dk offers, among other things, psychotherapy, imagotherapy, family therapy, couples therapy, sexology, access bars body processes and alcohol treatment. Supervision, coaching and courses are also offered for businesses.
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Blog with free tools, ebooks and articles about infidelity…
What are the signs of infidelity?
How does infidelity occur and is there even a formula for infidelity?
What are the six primary causes of infidelity?
The diagnosis and anatomy of infidelity
The two main and three underlying factors of infidelity?
Should I say that I have committed adultery?
What are the consequences of adultery?
How to heal the pain after infidelity?
How to move forward together with couples therapy after infidelity
Free guide to getting over infidelity
Avoid infidelity and end the old relationship before a new one
Trust, confidence, mistrust and infidelity
Relationships, finances, lies and infidelity
Emotions and ditital infidelity
Addiction and digital infidelity
Kasper Larsen, mba
Examining psychotherapist with certification in couple therapy and specialty in adultery.
Certified coach specializing in mindset, paradigm shift, quantum leaps and turnarounds.
© Kasper Larsen, 2021. All rights reserved.