But this article is not about mores or values. It is about the understanding of the extramarital affair as a phenomenon of human growth and development that is always morally wrong, but nevertheless crucial in the becoming of many individuals. I believe that those who scoff at the president, or who scorn or condemn him, have yet to encounter their own dark selves and come to love what lies within. As a psychotherapist, I often see couples who are in the shockwave after the bomb blast of the discovery or revelation of an affair. Two of the most formidable emotions in human life, shame and betrayal, roam the landscape like prehistoric monsters.
People are suicidal, in homicidal rages, inert and unable to rise from their beds.
They flee, they terminate relationships, ruin families, quit jobs, become addicted to drugs. They take hostages at the workplace, kidnap the kids. Every affair is a killing ground, its discovery a nuclear blast. A line through time has been drawn, and there is absolutely no going back. It is my job as therapist to assist these two in finding out what it is they are being called to change about themselves in the aftermath of this potentially cleansing experience.