Navigating affairs in couples therapy is complex and emotionally charged, often leaving both clients and therapists feeling disoriented. This talk offers couples therapists a compassionate, relational framework for understanding affairs not as acts of intentional harm, but as meaningful expressions of unmet developmental and relational needs. Drawing on Erik Erikson’s stages of development—attachment, exploration, identity, and competence—affairs are understood as falling into the four corresponding types. From this perspective, affairs represent unconscious attempts to repair or complete unmet childhood tasks and restore a sense of vitality and wholeness. While deeply disruptive, they are not designed to injure a partner, but are self-focused efforts to meet unmet needs.
The presentation then expands into a relational paradigm, viewing relationships as dynamic systems shaped by the energy in the space between partners. Affairs are framed as transformational events that introduce new information and a call for change, with one partner often carrying the voice of transformation and the other embodying stability. Healing involves cooperation rather than polarization, integration rather than projection, and shared responsibility for growth. The talk concludes with guidance for therapists, emphasising the importance of taking the emotional lead, creating safety and stability, pacing the process, managing reactivity, and supporting differentiation, boundary-setting, and the gradual restoration of trust.
Learning objectives:
By the end of this talk, participants will be able to:
Identify and differentiate the four types of affairs using a developmental framework and understand their underlying unmet needs.
Apply a relational paradigm to conceptualise affairs as transformational processes within a dynamic relationship system.
Utilise therapist-led strategies to create safety, reduce reactivity, and support differentiation, repair, and trust restoration in couples navigating affairs.
Structure as a Pathway to Connection: The Imago Dialogue as Relational Practice