Healing wounds and restoring marriages after infidelity

JOE KORT 0:00
Michelle,

JOE KORT 0:05
welcome to Smart sex, smart love. We’re talking about sex goes beyond the taboo, and talking about love goes beyond the honeymoon. My guest today is Michelle Weiner Davis, a renowned licensed clinical social worker, marriage and family therapist and the founder of divorce busting center in Boulder, Colorado. She coined the term divorce busting at an American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy conference in 1989 and she continues to be a champion for the sanctity of marriage and saving relationships. Michelle is a best selling author of eight books, including divorce busting and the sex starved marriage. Her most recent book, Healing from infidelity is a divorce busting guide on rebuilding your marriage after an affair. She made many national media appearances on divorce prevention and as a sought after speaker whose TED Talk, TEDx talk on the sex starved marriage has had more than 9.5 million views her website, www.divorcebusting.com offers valuable information for people in troubled marriages. Michelle has received several prestigious professional awards, including Outstanding Contribution to marriage and family therapy Award from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Today, Michelle will talk with me about sex starved marriages and infidelity. Welcome Michelle. Hi. Good to be here. It’s great to have you here. I’ve known Michelle of many, many years at a conference we used to attend called psychotherapy networker, which still exists. And this came out because this her on my podcast, because on Facebook, I posted a video, but I did, and I said that I didn’t believe that staying in a marriage was right for children, that is, and that there’s been research that showed me the first two years can be troublesome, but that things work out. And then, Michelle, I think you said, but you you’re more of an advocate to stay in the marriage.

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 1:57
Well, what I would say is that, you know, I specialize in working with couples who teeter on the brink of divorce, and I would say that almost all of them, not all. Some people, don’t have kids, but the ones who do will almost always say, if it weren’t for the kids, we wouldn’t be here. How a therapist responds to that statement, I think can make all the difference in what transpires. So for example, I could say, well, that’s not enough reason. How, for what other in what other ways do you love your spouse, and why else would you want to work on this marriage? And when people come to therapy, they’re not necessarily sure they they want to. And by asking that question, in a sense, it it seals the deal, because they will repeat their narrative that they that they don’t want to work on the marriage, or they’re pretty sure they don’t want to work on the marriage. But if, over the course of our working together, I say, you know, obviously you love your kids a lot. And I wonder, first of all, where in your family, in your growing up, you learned about the importance of family of kids and parental relationships. So we get to talk about the importance of the parent child relationship. Also, by the way, part of what I do in my intake, where I’m gathering demographic information is I ask, you know, how many kids do you have? What are their names? What are their ages? And then I say, tell me about them. I bring their presence into the room. I don’t think over the long haul, people will only stay for the sake of the kids. But if that’s the catalyst for people sitting in my room, I tell them, I give them kudos for really caring about their kids’ emotional well being. And I guess I should backtrack a little bit, because you didn’t know this. I don’t know if you know this about why I feel so passionate about it. Yeah, so, so I grew up what in what I would call the East Coast version of the Walton family. I know I’m dating myself by using that reference, but you know, I had two parents who adored me, two brothers who I pretty much loved all the time. We had a very, very close knit, extended family, because my parents were immigrants, and all of their family members were near us, and so we were family all the time. Never saw my parents fight. I will never be in a therapist’s office lying on a couch complaining about my childhood, because really, in so many ways, I thought it was incredible, unconditional love oozed from the environment. And then one day, I was a senior in high school, and I was I was 16 years old, and my mom called us all in for an impromptu family meeting, which was not the norm in my family. So as my father and my two brothers and me, we. She proceeded to tell us that she’d been unhappy for 23 years in her marriage, and that she tried to work out her differences with my father, and which, by the way, keep in mind, they never fought. So we had no idea there were differences. And she said, there comes a time in everyone’s life where you have to throw in the towel and those words even just saying them. Now to you, Joe, it was traumatic. It truly, truly was traumatic. And plus, keep in mind the timing in my life where I was being launched into the real world, going off to college, and my parents’ marriage was falling apart. My nest was falling apart. And beyond that, something in my little 16 year old brain couldn’t really realize at the time, the family life as I knew it never, ever, ever, was the same, because my mother was the hub of the family wheel, and when she decided to get a divorce, she resigned from the position, and it just truly never was the same. So it had this huge impact on me in a really, really big way. It’s almost like the carpet, the rug was pulled from beneath me. Did I figure out how to go on with my life? Yes. Do I consider myself damaged goods? No, had my mother many times said to me, and I was very close to my mother, even after her decision to divorce, had my mother said to me many, many times, listen, Michelle, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a best selling book. She did say that. What I said to her, is I, I’m sure I would have figured something else to get passionate about, but that, as it may so, so I really strongly believe that, if that is, that one of the reasons that people think that they’re willing to work or would consider working on a marriage, bring it on, And I compliment them for their caring about it. Clearly, I have a zest for life. I don’t think we only have one go around. I don’t think two people should be miserable. That is not good for kids, but I don’t believe that people have to be miserable because so much of the time. And I know you and I probably agree with this, but when people think that that they have fallen out of love, or that they’re incompatible, or that it’s just not fixable, part of what’s missing. There are skills you know, that it’s a skill deficit, and I feel armed with those tools, and I readily share them and so much of the time, and this is what makes me a psychotic optimist so much of the time. If I don’t really focus on, should you or shouldn’t you stay for the sake of the kids, but, but can you make your marriage a place you want to be for the sake of the kids? We’re off and running and and very often, not only does their marriage stay intact, but their kids have an intact home, which, of course, for me, given my background, is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

JOE KORT 8:08
I never knew all that that is so interesting, and I love the way you say it. So that’s how you got into helping couples. Do you know, stay together, saving marriages?

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 8:18
Yeah, I knew I wanted to do family therapy and so much of the I worked at a social service agency in the beginning of my career, working with social Youth Service Bureau, working with adolescents and their families and so much of the time. What I discovered when I would when parents were telling me they’re getting a divorce, I would do what most people do break, teach them how to break the news to the kids and how to get into support groups and how to identify when the kids struggling. But so often in that work, what I heard from people after the divorce was that if I only knew then what I know now about what it takes to make my life work. Now, perhaps I could have put more energy into making my marriage work and keeping our family together. So that, combined with my own emotional stuff, made me really determined to probably spend the rest of my life helping couples avoid divorce, if possible.

JOE KORT 9:19
Yeah, what you have, you’ve dedicated book after book and articles, but tell us how you got into and what is a sex starved marriage. Can you describe

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 9:27
it? Sure. So when people hear that phrase a sex starved marriage, I think the image that they get is that there is either zero sex or a certain number of times per week that people should be having sex, and if they’re not, as a sex starved marriage. But you know, unlike vitamins, which there may be a daily minimum requirement, there is no such thing, because people are so different. But what happens in what I call a sex starved marriage, one spouse, often the man, but not always the man. So hear me on that one. Uh, is desperately longing for more physical closeness, more touch, more sex, more physical affection. And the other spouse thinks, what is the big deal? Would you just get a life? This is so not a big deal, but to the person who, in a way, their love language, their way of feeling connected, their way of feeling safe in the relationship is through touch. It’s a huge deal because it really is about feeling wanted, about feeling loved, about feeling connected. You know, a lot of times the person with lower desire thinks about sex in terms of, well, it’s just a biological urge. It’s like scratching an itch, but it is so not that it is from I’ve had the opportunity to really listen to the people who talk to me about what it’s like when their spouse isn’t interested in being physically close, and There’s such a deep sense of rejection and hurt. And by the way, what happens in these relationships is when especially, I would say, well, actually, men and women, when you’re the higher desired spouse and you’re hurt, you may go to your spouse or your partner and speak in a vulnerable way about how you’re missing them, how you’d like to be more connected physically, and if those expressions of wanting more connection are not actually met with positive behavior, very quickly, the vulnerability turns to anger, snarkiness, shutting down emotionally, going into a Man Cave, spending more time with one’s girlfriends and anger and irritability. Guess what? Newsflash, it’s not an aphrodisiac. The angrier, the higher sex person is, the less the other person’s going to want to be with them physically, and the less they want to be with them physically, the angrier they get. It truly is job security for people like you and me, because they are in opposite, opposite directions. And the other thing, what’s really, I don’t think that enough people, or even for that matter, enough therapists, talk about is the person, generally speaking, again, always exceptions, the person with higher desire, I’m sorry, the person with lower desire controls the sexual relationship.

JOE KORT 12:27
They never like to hear that too, because they feel like they’re it sounds like you’re saying it’s intentional. It isn’t, but it is the default, right? Absolutely, I

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 12:34
always say it’s not because they’re mean spirited. It’s not because they’re trying to hurt the other person. But in essence, oftentimes, if they don’t want to be physically close, it’s not going to happen. And then to add on to that, not only are they sort of calling the shots regarding in the bedroom, but they expect their spouse to just accept that. You know, if I’m not in the mood, I’m not in the mood, so go take a shower, and not only that, but be monogamous, which is really when you think about that, you know, and I know Esther Perel has done a really good job of showing that when somebody cheats and, you know, has an affair, clearly there is a betrayal, but There’s also a betrayal when one person who’s less interested in sex or physical touch has no compassion, empathy or interest in what’s such a strong need in the other person, that is betrayal as

JOE KORT 13:33
well. Okay, wait, I want to just pause there, because I’m so glad you said this. That never goes well when I say that to a couple if I and I don’t know, is it because I’m a male? Is it because you’re female that you can say it because, generally, it’s not always, because there are men that stop wanting to have sex too, but it’s in general, in my room, it’s the woman. And when I bring up, it is a betrayal. They do not like to hear that.

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 13:57
And you know what, Joe, I don’t even I don’t say that, but what the way I work, the way that I get into that? I mean, I’m saying this to you and to the people who are listening, because it’s true. But when I’m working with people, the way I try to develop more compassion isn’t necessarily by confrontation to the person who has lower desire. I turn to the person who has higher desire, and I say, tell me what that’s like for you when you are reaching out, when you want to be close, and she’s just absolutely not interested. In fact, I’ll tell you a little story, and this was actually my TEDx talk. And this is, this is a true story, working with a couple for quite a while. He’s a really laid back guy. Never complains about anything. I think they’re going along swimmingly. And then one day, as you know, they wait to the five minute, the last five minutes of the session, to tell me what’s really going on. He says, yes, there is something I would like to talk about. I said, Great. What’s that? He said. He takes a deep breath, and he says, Really there are, there’s only a two hour window of opportunity. On like Friday night from 10 to 12 that I know she might be interested in sex, and if she isn’t, I know I shouldn’t even bother trying until next week, because it’s not going to happen. And he said it, you could tell he was distressed, but I looked at her, and she had a smile of recognition on her face, and so I said to him, I know, I know she’s smiling, and she goes, Yeah, that’s me. I That is what I do. But I noticed that you’re not Could you talk a little bit about what’s going on with you as you describe this? And I know it was really hard for him, but what he said was, he turned to her, and he said, you know when we’re in bed together and I reach out to you, and you’re not into it. And then you, you reject me, and then you, all of a sudden, you go to sleep, and I hear you breathing. And there I am in bed alone, staring up at the ceiling, and all I can tell you is that it is the loneliest feeling in the world lying next to you in bed. And to this woman’s credit, she she took it in, she started to tear up, and she grabbed his hand, and you know what she said to him, every time you touch me, I do this internal search, like, Am I in the mood? Am I not in the mood? I never really think about what’s going on with you, that you’re reaching out to me. Never Wow, and I promise I’m going to do better. And he started to cry. And Joe, honestly, I started such a touching moment. And the beautiful thing that happened is she really, really did do what she said she was going to do, and here’s what she learned in the process. And I actually learned this too in my own work with couples. It took some years to figure it out, but I’m going to say things to you that I know you already know, but maybe people who are listening don’t. So the human sexual response cycle had been thought of having four stages. You know, the first comes desire, meaning you could be doing just about anything, and you all of a sudden have this random lusty thought, and you get really horny, and you go to find your partner. The second stage is you start touching and you feel aroused. The third stage is, if your body’s working properly, you have an orgasm, and the fourth stage is resolution, where your body goes back to its normal resting state. But here’s what she figured out, and here’s thankfully, what research figure. Researchers figured out a long time ago for millions of people, and most of them are women, but not all stages one and two are actually reversed, meaning they have to be aroused before your brain goes, ooh, this is fun. I want to do this. I like this. And so many of these people have really, really satisfying sexual experiences. I always ask them, Do you have an orgasm? And they go, yeah. And then, not only that, but I saw how happy my spouse was and so much nicer to me, and we got along so much better for the rest of the week. And so it’s been a misconception when women in my practice say, you know, I think I need to go to the doctor because I have no sexual desire. I have low sexual desire. Maybe that’s true. There could be physiological things happening, but maybe they’re misconstruing what desire is about. For them, they do not have spontaneous desire, but they do have responsive desire, and that is desire no less viable than spontaneous desire. So she this woman discovered that, and it became a whole new thing for

JOE KORT 18:43
her. I love that for them, and it is such a powerful story. What? How do you help the couples bridge that gap when there is that desire discrepancy? That’s one way you do other things.

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 18:53
Part of part of what I mean, it’s sort of multifaceted, right? So part of it is encouraging the low desire spouse, again, often, but not always, the woman to be after she hears the heartache that has been causing her partner, to not feel connected to her, to to allow herself to be receptive to her partner’s advances. More often, even starting from a neutral starting point, even if it wasn’t on her brain to see if this is a satisfying experience for her as well, and also the relationship benefits as a result. So, so that’s one piece of it. The other piece of it is that, you know, so often, the stereotypical dynamic which we all learned about in graduate school is that, you know, women need to feel close and connected emotionally before they’re interested in sex, and men need to feel close and connected physically before they’re interested in investing their energy talking or. Spending time together, or even sometimes being invested in being in the home and doing the things that need to be done. That’s where people have a standoff. So in identifying what is, what is this woman’s love language? What does this guy have to do, which doesn’t include buying new sexy lingerie or turning on something like pornography, or reading a sexy romance novel, something completely different from for a lot of women, it’s completely different. You know, just, just help me three times a week make dinner. You know, just help me put the kids to bed. Just ask me with interest, how was How was your day? And let me talk about my feelings without telling me what to do. You know, it’s different for everybody, but being able to identify that in a lot of ways that is that’s the aphrodisiac for her. And once he sees it with that frame. He’s, I think he’s much more willing to engage in those behaviors. The other thing that I that has really influenced my work, in a very big way, is The Five Love Languages. You know, I teach my couples about the five love languages. I have my own exercise that I do and for and, you know, I’m happy to share it with you sometime, but it’s too detailed. But what comes from that exercise is, for so many people, it’s the first time that they connect the dots that he’s not doing that because I’m not doing this. She’s not doing that because I’m not doing this, we have them grade themselves on how well they think they’ve been showing love in their partner’s love language in the last however long it might be. And it’s the first time people give themselves bad grades, because up until that moment, it’s always their partner’s fault. That’s the reason I haven’t been doing real giving or showing love, but they recognize the reciprocity, and to me, that’s when the magic begins.

JOE KORT 22:12
That’s so nice. Let’s talk about the infidelity. Because I know people are going to want to hear and you and I, I’m sure you’ve heard it too. People say and they’ll say it all the time. When I do social media, they never work. You can’t get back together. You’ll never trust again. You can’t bridge the gap, but you don’t see it as a deal breaker. I’m sure, if you’re all about divorce pristine. So can you share your wisdom about how can couples come back from infidelity?

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 22:36
Stop reading the internet first. It’s like, you know, it’s because I’m a systemic thinker. I know that a lot of my message, I’m having to deal with the other stuff that they’re getting. I had a couple yesterday, Joe, they literally read 25 books before they got to me on infidelity. I didn’t even know there were that many. But no, they they did their homework, but also, and most of them were either sort of unbiased about staying in your marriage or pro marriage. They ended up with me because that’s what they wanted to do, I mean, in terms of pro marriage. But she started sharing with me some of the stuff that she was reading on the internet and even in some books about once, just like you said, once a cheater, always a cheater, you know, cut your losses. Get out of there, you know. And I think it has to start first of all, I think it’s really helpful for people to get help, and especially if they’ve been ruminating and not in not getting past certain impasses. It’s really important to get help. I’m also really biased about getting help from someone who believes staying in the marriage is possible. I recently had, I’m going to be working with somebody next week who’s been to a number of therapists who have all she said all the therapists told me to get out of this marriage. That’s a

JOE KORT 24:04
big thing. Do you know that’s a big thing? Because they’re having their own bias, and maybe they’ve been cheated on. If you’ve ever gone and you’ve probably done workshops, I’ve been in them, when the presenter says, How many of you have been touched or experienced infidelity? Three quarters of the room,

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 24:18
I know, yeah, we’d have a completely divorced world if we went with that, right? Um, so I think, I guess part of what I’m saying right now, and I can hear we’re kindred spirits about this, it has to start with the belief that it’s possible, I agree, and and it actually it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So that’s part of it. The other part of it is for most couples, especially if it’s like a first time affair. I mean, it’s the first affair in their marriage. They are their lives are turned so upside down, they don’t know which end is up. And I know you know this, but it is so traumatizing to. The betrayed spouse so often. They can’t eat, they can’t sleep, they can’t function, they can’t go to work, they can’t take care of the kids. They think they’re going crazy. They think they’re going to die. They hope they’re going to die. It’s really intense. And one of the I would say, failures of a lot of people, therapists who aren’t trained or haven’t had a lot of experience, this isn’t just you need more than garden variety therapy skills, because you don’t just ask people how they feel about things. These are people who need guidance. They need coaching. They need specifics. And I don’t know about you, Joe, but when I was in graduate school, was all about helping people discover the answers. When sometimes people have answers within and sometimes they need to say, Don’t do that. Do this instead. This isn’t working for you. I’m curious. Do you do that? Do I do people tell

JOE KORT 26:01
Yeah, I’m not asking them always to dig inside themselves at all. I have lots of resources,

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 26:05
yes, and actually, during the times when I’ve done training for therapists, and therapists have come up to me during breaks so often, what I’ve heard is, you know, I hear you talking, and I want you to know that I just lost a client last week, and I contacted them to find out what was missing, and they said, You never told us what to do. We just came in week after week after week talking about the same stuff, right? So, so I I’m very programmatic, you know, in my work with couples, in in my book healing from infidelity, and now I’m excited because I just did an audio book. People have been saying, you’ve got to make an audio book. So now I have there are steps that all both the betrayed and the unfaithful spouse must take to get to the other side, and I’m very clear with them, first of all, normalizing any feelings that happen within the betrayed spouse so that they don’t it’s bad enough they’re going through this hard time and then to lay judgment another layer of this whole thing so that they know they’re not going crazy. They know they’re going to come out the other side. And by the way, this is I’m telling you this because this happened yesterday. I was it was pretty overwhelming for me. I sometimes think the most important thing therapists can do with all of our fancy skills is just to remind people they’re going to get through this and they’re going to come out the other side. And of course, they need tools to get there, normalizing the intense emotions, normalizing the radical ups and downs that are inevitable, really, really teaching the unfaithful spouse how to sometimes, unfaithful spouses, I mean, they want, they really want their spouse to feel better. They just don’t know how. Yes, really don’t know how and some and that often pisses off the betrayed spouse, because they think they should know what to do. No, they why would they know what to do? So so really offering concrete suggestions to the unfaithful spouse, for example, I’m very big on extreme transparency, doing whatever the betrayed spouse needs you to do, including you know passwords and closing social media accounts, making sure your spouse knows where you are at all times. And my New York upbringing comes in handy, because if someone says to me, well, then I feel like I’m in jail. You know what I say to them? You know, no one wants to be in jail for the rest of their lives. We’re not talking about this is how you should live the rest of your life. You’re going through a transitional period. There’s a crisis here, and when there’s a crisis, you have to behave in different ways. And you can, you can decide not to do it, but I’m going to tell you, if you don’t, and you’re not answering the questions fully and honestly, you will not get to the other side. So you

JOE KORT 29:10
exactly, I love that you’re saying this. I say exactly you do that too. I love it. Yes, it’s validating to hear you say this. I will say, though, the one thing I see a lot of almost every day, because I deal a lot with infidelity too, is that the person who is involved, who did have the affair, says, can’t you just get over this? I’m done just why do we have to keep resurrecting it? And I have to say to them, that’s you’re going to have to keep resurrecting it until they’re no longer needing to resurrect it. Absolutely, you know.

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 29:35
And I’m hard on them too. I really get that you’re ready to move on. I really get that there’s a pretty big chance that you feel so much better now that you are not being duplicitous and telling lies, and you’ve stepped into the light. Well, guess what? Your spouse is in the darkest period of his or her life, and you’re on two separate journeys. And if you need to be patient, and not just now, not just six months from now, but even maybe 10 years from now, your spouse might something might trigger your spouse and have a question or get sad, and you need to find exercise that empathy muscle, and you know, and show your spouse that you’re there for the long haul. So as you can hear, you know, me talking to you. I’m directing traffic, and I’m very clear with people. If you do these things, you will get to the other side. I had my couple yesterday. She found out that her husband had had, I don’t know, maybe six or seven affairs during the brief two year period that they were together before they got married. She found out three days after they got married, as they were driving to a vacation together, that all this had happened three days after she got married, and by the end of the two days, they were figuring out how they could renew their vows. So it’s it’s possible, it’s more than possible.

JOE KORT 31:10
I love that you’re so hopeful I could talk with you another half hour, maybe we’ll bring you back. What else would you like to hear before we end that you didn’t say that you wanted to make sure you heard people hear about

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 31:19
your work? Well, I mean, what comes to mind right away is that I, you know you, and I’ve talked about this, and I think you should do more of it, but I no longer even know how to do hourly sessions, you know, because I have found a longer format of working with people, especially not just in fidelity, but almost any difficult kind of problem, you know, there’s no there’s no bell ringing, there’s no kid tugging at their sleeve, there are no distractions. You really can peel away the layers and have comfortable time to do that. So I encourage people to think about the the format can really make a difference in terms of the outcomes, right? Intensives, I do two day intensives. When people want to work with me, I see them for two they fly in. I see them for two days. And it’s it, you know, it’s a wonderful, wonderful experience. And the and the only other thing is, you know, this whole issue of of hope, um, no matter what the problem is, no matter what it is, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing that how you feel in the moment is how you will feel forever. And the thing I’ve learned about feelings is they’re transient, and that the thing I’ve learned about helping people is, if you go to a therapist who doesn’t believe change is possible, you need to go to a different

JOE KORT 32:51
I love that. I can’t believe how. I mean, we barely never sat and talked so much like this. I mean, I’ve read your stuff, but we really think a lot of like, I love everything you’re saying.

MICHELE WEINER-DAVIS 33:02
That’s great. Well, I felt connected to you on a you know, we never got specific. But I I love watching your little snippets on Tiktok and getting to know you that way too. So how can people find you? Probably the best way would be. Well, the marriageintensive.com is one way. As you said, divorcebusting.com is another way. And my I’m always happy to answer people’s email, which is michelle@divorcebusting.com

JOE KORT 33:31
so that’s how they can find me. Awesome, awesome, great. I’m so glad to have had you. Thank you so much for being on the show. Let’s connect again. Thank you for sure. So if you’re listening, you can hear more of my podcast at Smart sex, smartlove.com it’s also all over on Spotify, on Apple. You can also follow me on Twitter, on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook. You can also and everywhere I’m at Dr. Joe court, D, R, J, o, e, K, O, R T, and you can also go to my website. Jokecourt.com, thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai