Michael sat on the edge of his office chair, elbows on his knees, hands locked like he was bracing for a punch. He didn’t seem like a man acting on impulse. He seemed like someone who had been carrying something for far too long.
“I know how this looks,” he said, eyes fixed on the floor. “Married guy. Two kids. Leaving his wife for someone else. The cliché writes itself.”
He was right. From the outside, it did look like that. But I’ve learned never to trust the surface story.
Michael wasn’t some heartless adulterer chasing a younger thrill. He was a man who’d spent the last seven years feeling like a ghost in his own home. He told me about the silence that crept in after the second baby, the way every conversation with his wife turned transactional—school drop-offs, bills, groceries, schedules. No touch. No warmth. No laughter. Just logistics.
“I think I became furniture.
Then came the affair. Not planned. Not sordid. Just a slow-burning connection with someone who saw him, asked how he was, touched his arm when he spoke. A reminder that he was still alive.
“I’m not proud of it,” he said. “I don’t even know if I love this other woman. I just know I can’t go back to disappearing.”
He came to me not for permission, but for clarity. And here’s the truth:
I’m not here to judge.
I don’t sit with men like Michael to hand out moral verdicts. I ask different questions—the kind that help them name what they were really longing for, and what it cost them to go without it for so long.
When someone has an affair, someone else often ends up in pain. Deep pain. Even if the marriage was already unraveling, infidelity can feel like the final break—the moment that severs not just trust, but identity.
The partner left behind is often blindsided. They question everything: Was any of it real? Why wasn’t I enough? How long has this been going on? The affair becomes a wrecking ball that shatters not just the relationship, but the betrayed partner’s sense of reality and self-worth.
And that pain deserves to be acknowledged. Fully. Without caveats.
You can understand why someone made a choice and still hold space for the hurt that choice caused. That’s not contradiction—it’s compassion.
The mistake we often make is choosing a side. Society wants a villain and a victim. But real life, especially in relationships, it’s rarely that clean and simple. And when we flatten stories into binaries, we lose the opportunity to learn from them.
Affairs are almost never just about sex.
That might surprise people. Especially those who’ve been betrayed. But in my work, I’ve found that for many men, cheating isn’t driven by lust—it’s driven by emotional starvation.
These men often come to me ashamed, not smug. They’re not bragging about their conquests. They’re wondering how they became the kind of man who could lie to the person they once promised to love.
And when we dig beneath the surface, here’s what I find again and again:
- They feel invisible.
- They’ve stopped being touched—physically, emotionally, or both.
- They’re spoken to only in to-do lists.
- Their needs are ignored or mocked.
- They live in the same house as their partner but feel utterly alone.
Sometimes, they’ve asked for connection—quietly, then more directly. They’ve tried to “be patient,” to “be a good man.” But nothing changes. And over time, they start to believe their only options are to endure or escape.
And then someone comes along who sees them.
Who listens when they talk. Who laughs at their jokes. Who makes them feel like more than a paycheck, chauffeur, or burden.
It may not make the betrayal right—but it does make it understandable.
Most of my clients ask themselves the same thing: “If I was that unhappy, why didn’t I just leave?”
And on the surface, it seems like the obvious solution. But inside the lives of the men I coach, the answer is rarely that simple.
Some are terrified of losing their children. They’ve seen other men walk out of marriages and end up as weekend dads—or worse, estranged entirely. To them, staying in a broken relationship feels like the price of being present.
Others feel financially trapped. Divorce means dividing everything they’ve built, often leaving them starting over while still shouldering responsibilities they once shared. It doesn’t feel like freedom—it feels like ruin.
Then there’s shame. So many men were raised to believe that enduring is what makes them good partners. That wanting more—more affection, more attention, more emotional safety—is weak or selfish. So, they stay. They tell themselves they’re doing the right thing. Until one day, the dam breaks.
Some never meant to leave at all. The affair wasn’t a plan—it was a response. A moment of escape that turned into something else. And once that line was crossed, going back felt impossible.
The truth is these men weren’t trying to hurt anyone. They were trying to survive something they didn’t know how to name.
And survival mode makes people do things that don’t align with who they really are.
The men I work with often sit in that tension:
“I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“I was in pain, too.”
“But I know I crossed a line I can’t uncross.”
And that’s where the real work begins.
Because owning what happened isn’t the same as beating yourself up for it. It means getting honest—first with yourself, then with the people you’ve hurt. It means looking at what was missing in your marriage, but also what was missing in you that kept you from speaking up, reaching out, or walking away before stepping outside your vows.
It means making amends where you can, even if forgiveness isn’t guaranteed.
It means choosing integrity going forward, even if the marriage can’t be saved.
It means choosing to heal—from the rupture in the relationship, and from the parts of yourself that got lost along the way.
I think about Michael often.
Not because of the affair—but because of what he did after.
He didn’t justify it. He didn’t spiral into self-loathing, either.
He sat with it. He asked the hard questions.
Through our work together, he found the clarity to face himself—and allowed himself to be honest, deeply honest, in a way he hadn’t been in years.
And from that place, he made his own decisions about what came next.
That’s what real courage looks like.
Because let’s be honest: it’s easy to blame, to hide, to shut down. It’s harder to look in the mirror and stay there long enough to understand what you see.
If you’ve had an affair—or are torn between staying and starting over—you don’t need more shame. You need clarity. You need someone who can help you explore the truth—gently, honestly, and without judgment. You need a space where you can unpack what happened—not to avoid reality, but to make sense of it—with support for whatever comes next.
That’s the work I do.
Not to dwell on the past—but to help you get clear on where you are, and where you want to go from here.
Not to defend betrayal—but to support the man who’s ready to move forward with honesty and intention—even if the marriage is over.
Because until you face yourself fully, you’ll keep repeating old patterns. But when you meet yourself with honesty and support—that’s when everything starts to change.
So, if you’re here—hurting, confused, ashamed, or just waking up to the truth—don’t look away.
This might be the moment everything changes.
If any part of this resonated, you don’t have to figure it out alone.
I offer a space where men can untangle the mess without judgment—and start making sense of what comes next.
Hayley Lisa
The Divorce Coach for Men