Every day, Lauren LaRusso helps people who are having an affair. As a psychotherapist, she specialises in infidelity, and many of her clients are in the midst of, or aftermath of, betraying their spouse. She sits down with them to grapple with lots of questions, the main one being; should they stay with the person they married, or leave them for their affair partner?
You might question why an unfaithful spouse deserves help, compassion or nuance. “It’s a kind of madness, being in an affair,” says LaRusso, “and they know that it’s morally wrong, because everybody does, but the joy and the pleasure is outweighing the reality of what would happen if it were discovered. I find that people, even the ones seeking help from me, don’t understand the real impact an affair has until it’s too late. Often they’re frozen, just not knowing what to do.”
LaRusso knows this all too well from her own life. The therapist, who lives in the US state of Connecticut, discovered her husband’s affair in 2018, while her toddler and in-laws were sleeping upstairs. After a lot of turbulence and pain, they divorced. Having faced some tough lessons, she has written a book called Beyond Infidelity, and also runs an online workshop called “The Blind-Spot Blueprint” for people in affairs who want to gain clarity over their situation, who feel they can’t quite trust their own judgement.
