God. Okay. First, I just want to say, I’m really glad you asked that question, even if part of you didn’t want to. Because the fact that you’re asking “why” instead of just “how could she” tells me something important about you.
Here’s the thing I say to couples after an affair, and it’s one of the hardest things I ever have to ask — and it’s something we work through together in marriage counseling. I have to somehow, at some point, get both people to look at the system that was created between them. Not to excuse what happened. Not to let her off the hook. What she did was wrong. Full stop. I will not soften that.
But “why did she cheat” and “whose fault is it” are two completely different questions. And if you only ever answer the second one, you will be in pain for the rest of your life and you will never actually understand what happened.
Here’s what I know about how affairs happen in most cases. Two people start to lose their emotional connection. The relationship starts running on routine, obligation, appearances. They stop being able to actually reach each other. And someone, somewhere along the way, found a place where they felt seen, or desired, or alive again. That is not a justification. That is an explanation.
The question I would gently ask you, and I mean gently, I am not attacking you here, is this. When was the last time, before all of this, that you two actually felt emotionally safe with each other? When was the last time she told you something real and you were actually there for it? When was the last time you felt like enough for her?
Because here’s what I find almost every single time. By the time an affair happens, both people have been hurting for a long time. Both of you were probably running on empty. Both of you were probably throwing gasoline on the fire of your disconnection without even knowing it.
That does not make what she did okay. It does not. But you asked me why. And the honest answer is, affairs almost never happen in a vacuum. They happen in the gap between two people who stopped being able to reach each other and didn’t know how to say so.
Think of it like this: your relationship was a house, and somewhere along the way, the foundation started cracking. You both kept living in it, maybe even decorating the walls, but nobody talked about the cracks. The affair didn’t cause those cracks. But it sure as hell brought the whole thing down.
The real work now, whether you stay or go, is understanding what was happening in that gap. Because if you don’t understand it, you carry it with you.
You deserve that understanding. And right now, that little part of you that is devastated and confused and probably furious deserves to be witnessed, not just given answers. So I am here for that part of you, okay?
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
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