How Can a Person Cope With Betrayal in a Marriage? What Are the Recommended Steps to Take and How Long Does It Typically Take to Heal From Betrayal in a Marriage?

In my years of speaking with couples and guiding people through their inner and outer struggles, I have often encountered the subject of betrayal in relationships. It is painful, raw, and confusing for everyone involved. In a conversation with my students on the topic of relationships, they addressed the story of a man in his fifties who, despite loving his wife deeply, fell in love with a younger woman. He found himself emotionally torn, unable to detach from the new connection, while simultaneously grieving the pain caused to his wife and children.

When I hear such stories, I do not rush to judgment. Instead, I look at the structure of human nature, how we are built as men and women, and how our relationships reflect deeper spiritual roots. A man and a woman are not just physically different. They are wired differently in how they experience love, connection, and sexuality. A man can love his wife genuinely while being attracted to another woman. For a woman, this split is almost impossible; her emotional and physical connections are unified. She connects wholly or not at all.

This difference often leads to deep misunderstanding. A woman feels a man’s physical infidelity as a complete betrayal. In her world, there is no separation between body and heart. For the man, however, what he does physically might not reflect what he feels emotionally. He might not even realize that he is betraying her, because he has not “left” her in his heart. This does not justify the act, but it helps explain the confusion and agony.

In such a crisis, I place much of the healing power in the hands of the woman, not because she is to blame, but because she holds a deeper and more stable emotional root. She is the home. Also, if she can hold on to this role, even while her world feels like it is falling apart, she can often lead the relationship back to safety. This requires immense inner strength, patience, and wisdom. It is not easy, and I do not pretend that it is. But it is possible.

When I say the woman should become like a mother to her husband, I mean it in the sense of spiritual containment. A man, despite all appearances, remains a child in many ways. He longs to feel cared for, enveloped and emotionally held. If the woman is wise, she can strengthen her bond with him by surrounding him with love, not through control, but through warmth, i.e., by anchoring him through shared memories, their children, his family, those little things that make home feel irreplaceable.

The new connection, with all its fantasy, usually lacks the weight of reality. It is a reflection of something missing inside the man, some echo of youth, or a dream left behind. If he is helped to see this, to recognize that what he sees in the other woman is not really her, but his own projection, his own nostalgia, then the illusion can begin to dissolve.

We live in a time when people live longer, face more temptations, and endure more confusion. Relationships that were once expected to last 30 years are now stretching into 60 or more. In this changing landscape, we must equip ourselves not with rigid moral judgments, but with understanding, education, and spiritual depth.

We need to prepare couples for the realities of life, not just how to fall in love, but how to fall and get up again together. We must teach our children, too, from a young age, not only about the biology of sex, but about emotional resilience, commitment, and what it means to build something lasting with another human being.

Yes, betrayal hurts. However, if we understand where it comes from, we can work with it. We can create systems of support that let no moments of weakness destroy an entire life. Love is not only about feeling. It is about responsibility and holding each other through the storms, because we trust in something greater than the moment. That, to me, is the true foundation of a lasting home.

Based on episode 28 of “New Life” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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