Why people have affairs with Dr. Victoria Holroyd

Episode Summary of “Why people have affairs with Dr. Victoria Holroyd”

Welcome back to The Communicate & Connect Podcast with your host, Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky. In today’s insightful episode, we delve into the intricate and often painful topic of why people have affairs. Joining us is Dr. Victoria Holroyd, a renowned relationship counselor with two decades of experience and the founder of the Relationship Center of Hampton Roads.

Throughout our conversation, Dr. Holroyd unpacks the multifaceted reasons behind infidelity, starting with the concept of attachment wounds—deep-seated emotional scars that stem from past relationships and childhood experiences. We’ll explore how these wounds can shape an individual’s perception of relationships, often rendering them as dangerous and prompting avoidance behavior.

We delve into the notion of affairs as coping mechanisms, where individuals seek out intense, short-lived encounters to regain a sense of control and empowerment. Dr. Holroyd discusses the various types of affairs, such as “protest affairs” motivated by feelings of hurt or abandonment and “romantic fantasy affairs” seeking an escape from stress.

Moreover, we’ll examine how power dynamics and a subconscious need for control play significant roles in driving infidelity, especially among certain populations like military personnel returning from deployments. Dr. Holroyd touches on the compulsive nature of some affairs, likening them to addiction, and emphasizes the importance of understanding one’s attachment history for effective resolution.

The episode also highlights the significance of emotional connection and how its absence can lead to loneliness and unmet needs, further paving the way for infidelity. The conversation extends to therapeutic insights, where Dr. Holroyd shares how couples can navigate the tumultuous aftermath of an affair with the right conditions—dedicated therapy, cessation of the affair, and a genuine commitment to healing.

We’ll also discuss the transformative power of emotionally focused therapy, highlighting the importance of expressive communication in rebuilding trust and connection. Dr. Holroyd uses compelling metaphors like the “calcium envelope” to describe the healing process, providing hope and strength for couples on this journey.

With practical advice, therapeutic techniques, and a deep understanding of the emotional underpinnings of affairs, Dr. Holroyd offers a beacon of hope for those looking to heal and rebuild. So, whether you are a military family facing unique challenges or anyone seeking to fortify your relationship, this episode promises a wealth of insights and actionable steps.

Join us as we navigate the complex landscape of infidelity, its root causes, and the path to recovery, all while emphasizing the enduring power of emotional connection and hope in forging stronger, more resilient relationships.

Don’t forget to check out our free 10-week relationship email course! Let’s get started!

Guest Speaker Bio – Dr. Victoria Holroyd

Dr. Victoria Holroyd is a distinguished professional in the field of relationship counseling, bringing years of experience and dedication to her practice. Her journey began with specialized training as a parenting coordinator in New York State, where she played a crucial role in aiding couples entangled in the complexities of high-conflict divorces. Her work in this demanding area, often overlapping with the bar association, allowed her to develop a profound understanding of the intricate dynamics involved in such fraught relationships.

However, Dr. Holroyd’s aspirations transcended mediating conflicts. Upon moving to Virginia, she sought to channel her expertise into more constructive avenues. Fueled by a desire to enact positive change, she transitioned into relationship counseling with a focus on healing and restoration. Dr. Holroyd’s practice now centers on helping couples navigate the challenges of their marriages or partnerships, aiming to repair and strengthen bonds that may have faltered. Her compassionate approach, combined with a robust foundation in conflict resolution, enables her to offer invaluable support to those seeking to rebuild their relationships. Dr. Holroyd’s career is a testament to her unwavering commitment to fostering healthier, more resilient connections between individuals.

You can check her website at The Relationship Center of Hampton Roads.

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Episode Transcript for “Why people have affairs with Dr. Victoria Holroyd”

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:01]:
This podcast is sponsored by Communicate and Connect Counseling, where we have a team of therapists who provide individual couples and family therapy services, all tailored to meet the needs of military and veteran families. To learn more about our services, visit www.connecticateandconnect.com.

Welcome to the Communicate and Connect podcast for Military Relations Relationships with your host, Elizabeth Polinsky, a military marriage counselor. If this is your first time listening to the Communicate and Connect podcast, please take a second to go, rate, review and subscribe to make sure you get all our future episodes. We also really want to know what it is you love about our podcast. And if for some reason you’re not loving it, we want to know that too, because we’re committed to providing the best quality content to help you improve your relationships.

This is episode seven on why people have affairs. So I am really excited today.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:18]:
I have Dr. Victoria Holroyd here who is my supervisor for my PhD program and she is just really awesome, both personally and professionally. Has a lot of experience in working with couples and affair repair and I’m really excited to have her on this podcast episode talking about why people have affairs. So Dr. Holroyd, would you like to just introduce yourself?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:01:44]:
Hi Liz, I am so excited and what a thoughtful thing of you to say about me. I really appreciate it. What about me? I have been. I’ve been doing this job for a long time and I’ve been doing individual counseling with divorce and high conflict divorce. I was trained as a parenting coordinator in New York State and I worked in the bar association with couples who were in the high conflict divorce process.

When I moved to Virginia, I wanted to be on the other end. I wanted to do something positive and help repair relationships. So that’s how I fell into relationship counseling and specifically helping couples repair their marriages or their partnerships.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:02:29]:
So I founded the Relationship center of Hampton Roads. We have two offices now, one in East Beach, Norfolk, and one in Williamsburg. And we’re growing and we focus on relationships, all types of relationships. Individuals struggling in relationships, couples on the brink of divorce, infidelity, affair repair, anything to do with relationships. As our kind of tagline says, the quality of our relationships determine the quality of our life.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:59]:
Yeah, and I absolutely agree. And I think the research would agree with that statement as well. So maybe speaking about research, in terms of talking about affairs, we I think we probably have to talk about how affairs and love are connected. And so I was hoping you might just start us off with what is the science of love?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:03:20]:
Oh, wow. It’s very, very exciting. In the fact that it’s been researched most significantly in the past 10 years. So it seems almost kind of corny to say we’re on the leading edge or the cutting edge of science when it comes to love and relationships. But it is very, very true. There’s a General Theory of Love that is a book written by three psychiatrists, Louis Amini and Lannan. And that book, I believe, was published about 2014. I could be wrong about that.

Love begins with infants: brain, patterns, connection.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:03:52]:
So what they wanted to do is they wanted to understand what love, how it begins. And it begins with like infants and how infants look at patterns and faces for connection. And so it’s a neural resonance within the brain where the infant can. The very structure of the brain establishes lifelong emotional patterns that make us, in effect, in large part who we are.

So parents shape their child’s development self in a way that you can take in love, feel safe and feel secure. So that’s kind of where it begins. It really does begin with your caretakers, with those who love you early on. And if you learn how to reach out for affection and receive affection, if you learn how to talk about vulnerabilities and you learn how to ask for forgiveness, you can do that in your adult relationships as well.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:49]:
Yeah, so that makes me think like, so some people learn how to do this and some people don’t learn how to do this based off of their early childhood experiences with their caregivers. Am I getting that right?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:05:01]:
Pretty much right. The Beatles, this just popped in my head. The Beatles may have sounded kind of naive when they said all you need is love, but that’s not too far off the mark because that research and the brain function proves that love is a human necessity. Sue Johnson said, and she is the founder of emotionally focused therapy. Sue Johnson said that we need connection to other human beings the way we need oxygen. And the absence of human connection damages individuals and it causes emotional deprivation.

So you, I’m sure familiar with some of the stories about orphans who are raised or children, you know, in war torn areas who don’t have caretakers, and that emotional deprivation leads to lifelong emotional crippling and even death.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:50]:
Yeah, this is really interesting. I. We’re supposed to talk about affairs today, but I would love to talk about, like, if I didn’t learn this in my childhood, like if based off of whatever life experiences I had, I didn’t learn how to connect with somebody, how would I go about doing that? So I might, I might ask you if you might want to be on this podcast again some other time to talk about that.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:06:13]:
But you know what, it is fascinating. So it would be a great conversation because those close emotional connections actually change the neural patterns in the brain and those who engage in them. So it affects your sense of, you know, emotional health for the rest of your life. Yeah, it’s really fascinating.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:31]:
Yeah.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:06:31]:
The cutting edge of research and love.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:34]:
So love. So if I’m understanding this correctly, based off of this theory, love is all about emotional connection and being able to emotionally connect to, I guess, your caregiver when you’re a child, but as an adult, it would be your partner.

Childhood attachment styles shape adult relationships.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:06:50]:
Exactly. We play out the same emotional patterns and connections that we did in childhood with our adult relationships. It’s kind of exciting because love really makes us who we are and who we become. So if we had good love growing up, then we’re able to love and receive love from friends and family. You reach out to neighbors or just connect with people on the street. So it really is love makes us who we are. If we don’t receive that, we’re shut down, we’re more fearful, we’re more avoidant. And in psychology, they refer to it as attachment styles.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:30]:
Yeah. So it directly impacts your personality, like the type of person you are, as well as mental health. Sort of like if you’re more anxious or feel more confident.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:07:40]:
Exactly. The exciting part of all this research is that anyone who may not have had that type of love, if they receive it in a secure relationship, a loving relationship, they can open up. So those neural patterns in the brain can shift. Because, you know, we talk about, you know, the brain, the neural pruning, if you will. So if you did not receive good love as a kid or from your parents, there is hope if you can attach to a secure, loving person in your adulthood.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:14]:
Yeah. Which I think is really exciting. I think that’s one of the things why I was drawn to couples therapy. Because you can’t. There’s only so much I can do with a child. I feel like when they are in their environment with their family. But with couples, like if both people are really motivated, then they really can shift that pattern and have that really great secure relationship. And that would then also improve their mental health and improve their self confidence.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:45]:
It just seems like such a powerful thing.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:08:48]:
Exactly. That’s ability to empathize and look inside someone else, recognize your own emotions and the emotions in others and respond accordingly. We call it good limbic attunement or attunement.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:00]:
Yeah. So I’m thinking that maybe not everybody is going to know what limbic means.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:09:05]:
Oh, I Just opened a can of worms here. Oh boy. So if we talk about the brain. So let me kind of get my thought together here. So that the brain kind of has three different biological fundamentals. So it’s the triune brain, the reptilian brain with its basic functions. And then there’s a limbic brain with its emotional function where the amygdala is. And then there’s a neocortical with the facility to reason.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:09:35]:
So the brain is made up of these three kind of basic fundamental parts. So the triune. So that’s reptilian, the limbic and the neocortal. Neocortical. And our ancestor animals adapted the environment with an evolutionary, you know, kind of just primitive. I’m getting into this. Not too articulate, Liz. But with.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:09:58]:
That’s okay with the reptilian part. And the structures of the brain evolved in order for us as adults to be able to connect and have relationships because that’s what keeps us alive. If that even makes any sense. I’m not.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:13]:
Yes, I think it does. I think it does. It’s like a more emotional part of the brain.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:10:18]:
It does. So the road to love, if you will, is evolve different brain structures in the brain in early relationships as a child. So for example, infants have an instinctual attraction to faces and they’re pre programmed to understand facial expressions. And then their brain structures encourage survival by fostering that relationship or a bond between a parent and child. So that. So the baby is protected by their parent and taught by the parent. So that’s what we mean along the line. When there’s a lack of nurturing, that love will damage that human brain forever.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:10:53]:
And when I refer to the limbic system, the limbic system is that emotional seat of the brain. And when we talk about limbic resonancy, that means that our emotional connection is. We’re able to look and connect with the emotions of another. So it’s kind of a synergetic energy flow between two individuals.

Affairs result from loneliness and emotional disconnection.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:15]:
Yeah. So an emotional resonance.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:11:17]:
Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:18]:
I’m not just cognitively, I don’t just logically understand what my partner is saying. I am emotionally understanding.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:11:27]:
Exactly, exactly.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:29]:
Thinking about affairs. So can if love relationships are really based off of emotional connection and emotionally understanding my partner, I’m thinking like why do affairs happen?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:11:43]:
Why do affairs happen? I think if any of us could really answer that question, we’d be in such high demand. One of the research articles that I read a long time ago, so I really can’t tell you who wrote it or when it was, but they spoke to the fact that the majority of affairs are born out of loneliness.

So whether you’re in a relationship, you’re married, not whether you’re in a relationship, but whether you’re married or you’re dating or in a long term partnership, when you start to feel alone within that relationship, that’s when you begin to disconnect, which goes to that theory of love. You know, you’re not feeling seen or heard or valued by your partner. That’s when that disconnection happens.

That disconnection creates a sense of, I want to say unsafety. Not in a physical way, but it’s unsafe to connect to my partner in that it’s unsafe to tell you how I think or what I feel because I might be judged or shut down or criticized. So when we feel alone in a relationship, that typically is when a person looks towards another for that validation for that connection, that emotional connection.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:12:58]:
Yeah. So when. So one of the prime reasons why people have affairs is because they’re feeling lonely and they’re not getting that emotional connection in their relationship. And so then they look for emotional connection somewhere else because it’s so foundational to like mental health and quality of life. Like I, I need that safe emotional connection.

Unexpressed emotions affect well-being, demand expression.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:13:21]:
We need, we all need to be seen, we all need to be heard. As you know, we do emotionally focused therapy at the relationship center. And one of the basic tenants of emot focused therapy is that unexpressed emotion demands to be heard and it comes out. And so if you can’t speak what you’re feeling to your loved one, who’s your safe person, that safe port in a storm, if you will, then we keep it inside.

And it is going to emerge and it’s going to emerge in ways that we may not like. It may emerge if, you know, in anger, it may emerge, may more physiologically, somatically, you know, where we get ill or have headaches or, you know, some kind of other somatic complaint. But unexpressed emotion demands to be heard.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:14:06]:
Yeah. So I think I’m, I’m wondering about a couple of things. You know, we sort of mentioned briefly before we started recording that there were different types of affairs. Do you mind if we switch over to that?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:14:18]:
It’s a newer study by Scott Woolley and he is an emotionally focused therapist. I’m not sure exactly what university he’s associated with, but he’s in California, I believe, in San Diego. And he’s been an emotionally focused therapy supervisor and trainer for the better part about 20, 25 years, I believe. And he Identified, along with one of his doctoral students, seven different types of affairs.

And the first type of affair is a protest affair. So that is an affair and it’s going to sound terrible, but an affair for feeling hurt or revenge or rejected or abandoned by your partner. So it’s really very reactive. However, in the protest affair, partners are really more motivated to work on fixing the relationship.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:15:08]:
As long as the pain and the hurt and the sadness and the disconnection pre affair is addressed and dealt with like, look at me. How could you hurt me? How could you do that to me? In fact, I had a woman say that to me just last week. She felt that her husband had a one night stand and they have been together 28 years. And she said, I’ve only been with him, I’m going to go out and have an affair. Give me a good reason not to.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:36]:
Yeah. So it’s like, I’m going to hurt you because you hurt me. But what I’m really wanting deep down is for us to improve our relationship. I’m. What I’m really longing for is for you to give me the reason to not go have the affair.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:15:49]:
Right, Exactly.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:50]:
To say that you want me.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:15:52]:
Exactly. It’s kind of like a toddler screaming, look at me, pay attention to me. You know, so they’re pushing you away, but they’re pulling your clothes so that it’s a real protest.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:04]:
Okay.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:16:04]:
And then he talks about the come and get me affair, which is very similar. It’s a plea to be noticed and feel important, but it’s more manipulative way of pulling your partner close. So the participating partner is very motivated to fix the primary relationship.

So the primary relationship is the one that is being damaged and the participating partner would be the one that’s having the affair. The come and get me is similar to the protest affair, but it’s. I guess the difference is the only way they know how to develop a secure relationship with their partner is by having an affair. So it’s not in retaliation or revenge. It’s like, you don’t notice me, you don’t see me, I’m going to make you look at me.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:57]:
Gotcha. So the first one is really about like, you hurt me, I’m going to hurt you back. And this one is more like, I want you to pay attention to me and like prove that you care.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:17:09]:
Exactly. And I guess, you know, I said the first one was like the angry toddler, like, look at me. But the come and get me affair is kind of more like, come and get me, look at me. Look what I’ve done. Pay attention to me.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:22]:
Yeah, it reminds me that one, that second one is kind of reminding me of like, I don’t know, I’ve maybe seen it in movies. Like this idea that you go to a bar with your partner and then you flirt with someone to make your partner jealous, but then you get that confirmation that they care about you because they’re jealous, type of thing.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:17:40]:
Yes. In fact, another couple, the woman was sending herself flowers just recently because she wanted to kind of pique that jealousy in her husband to make him notice her. In other words, if other people might find me interesting, if there may be somebody out there, you’re going to sit up and take notice of me.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:00]:
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:18:04]:
So then the third type of affair is. And these kind of. I like the names, he gave these as the head fudge hedge fund, if I say that correctly, the hedge fund affair. And that’s where the person who has the affair, the participating partner, has a really deep view of him or herself as unlovable or unworthy and they have a view of their partner as untrustworthy or unstable. And this isn’t going to last.

So I’m going to keep somebody else on the side because, you know, that’s my hedge fund. I need to know that there’s something else out there because I’m afraid of being alone. So they’re basically getting involved with someone else as a way of hedging against what they believe is going to be inevitable abandonment.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:52]:
Yeah, it just. That’s making me think there’s a lot of fear. Yeah, a lot of fear.

Identify core wounds to prevent relationship affairs.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:18:59]:
In order to work with that type of couple, you really have to identify that core wound within themselves, that part of themself where they feel unlovable and unwanted and that has to be changed and identified and changed and healed to avoid any further affairs. And a good example of that is I was working with a man who was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and he had three or four people going at any one time he travels and he would have different affair partners in different cities.

Now, narcissism or the majority of narcissistic identity or disorder in men comes from or stems from low self esteem. So this man, you know, believed that at his very core no one they knew him would want him. So he was just keeping options open.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:20:00]:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve worked with a couple of people with narcissistic personality disorder and I would say that that sounds about right. That it comes from sort of this lack of self esteem. And if I can keep my options open, then I know I’m valuable versus if I don’t have any options, then that’s terrifying to think that nobody wants me.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:20:27]:
And this goes right back to what we talked about when we open up the conversation about, you know, that, that theory of love or how we attach to our care group givers early on, if we receive that love where we feel very secure, then we’re not likely to have that sense of low self esteem and fear of abandonment.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:20:46]:
Yeah. So fascinating. But now I’m wanting to know what’s the next one.

Romantic fantasy affairs: escape everyday life stress.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:20:51]:
It is fascinating. And I know, I know you feel the same way. I mean, I love what we do because relationships are endlessly fascinating. But to get onto the next one is really, it’s called the romantic fantasy affair or the fantasy affair. That’s when, you know, turn turning to your primary partner for the everyday stressors of life, whether it be work or family or feeling of failure, isn’t working.

And the individual needs to escape into a romantic relationship that involves a lot of excitement. So it provides them with that escape from everyday life. And these are the kind of affairs that go on for years because the participating partner will go back and forth between the primary partner in the affair depending on what’s happening in their life, the stressors of their life.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:21:42]:
And both relationships end up serving a function, which is why they can for years. And these are the ones that are hardest to work with as a couples therapist because the participating partner may have like real deep emotional connections with both affair partners. And you have to work with them to understand the function that each relationship serves and help them to be really open and honest. So in my experience, the kind of romantic fantasy partner is the most difficult.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:15]:
Yeah. Because then it’s gone on so long. It’s that the person does pretty much love both people.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:22:23]:
So I have a couple right now that I’m working with and this is exactly what. They’ve been dating since they were in high school and they’re now in their late 30s. And the participating partner is the husband and he’s had an ongoing affair now for seven years. But it’s been purely sexual. It’s all about the clandestine meetings, you know, not anywhere even nice. It’s kind of just wherever they can.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:52]:
It’s that sexual fantasy that makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:22:55]:
That was number four. So those, the protest affair, the come and get me affair, the hedge fund affair, and romantic fantasy affair, they’re associated with a lot of anxiety for the participating partner. The participating partner being the one who’s stepping out. There’s a lot of internal anxiety. I’m not loved, I’m not seen, I’m not valued. So it has a lot to do with their own internal anxious kind of emotional experience.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:26]:
Yeah. That makes me think the next ones are a little bit different. Are they not related to anxiety?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:23:32]:
Not as much related to anxiety as they are to avoidance. So that the burned out affair is when that participating partner is looking for connection outside of the relationship after many failed attempts at restoring their primary relationship and has lost hope. So I guess the objective behind, or you would say the objective behind a burned out affair is not to end the primary relationship, but it’s just to have this. Just because they don’t believe they will have safe, loving connection.

Veterans’ relationships often lacked emotional fulfillment

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:04]:
It’s making me think about some of the veterans that I’ve worked with in the past who maybe had like mail order brides or they got. They married somebody when they were deployed in a different country and the person came back. This was a pretty typical conversation, especially in the older veterans that I worked with.

While it was like nice to have a wife who was there in the home, there was often this feeling of this person doesn’t really care about me. They’re not there meeting my emotional needs and oftentimes not being there sexually for the individual, but they would stay, they would stay in the relationship. So it was sort of just this ongoing like I’m hopeless about the relationship ever improving at this point. But for whatever reason they don’t want to end the relationship. So then they might have an affair.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:24:59]:
Is that kind of you, you put it together beautifully. It’s just that I don’t necessarily want to end this relationship that I’m in. My primary relationship, maybe I’ve got a lot of property or money tied up or children, and if I stay, you know, my motivation isn’t to repair this. It’s just that I really don’t, you know, I’m just, I’m almost, how can I put it? I’m just meh. Doesn’t matter. I don’t really have much choices. I’m really just kind of. There’s no reason to believe that the future will be fundamentally different than the past.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:25:33]:
So why not stay? There’s a lot, it’s, it’s earmarked by a lot of ambivalence as a, you know, therapist working with this type of affair. Ambivalence is kind of what cues us into the burned out affair.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:45]:
Okay. And so that was number five. What’s number six?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:25:49]:
The power player affair. So the participating partners, long standing kind of thought belief is that romantic relationships are, you know, basically are fundamentally unsafe. And the only way to feel safe and secure is to be in power and control. And affairs are a way of being powerful and making your fellow, you know, safe. Making yourself feel safe and secure in the affairs safeguards against feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. And because relationships are dangerous, these affairs are typically short and intense sex only affairs. They’re often. Yeah.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:26:31]:
Gender related attachment wounds from the past. And those attachment wounds need to be identified and healed by the therapist in order to prevent it from occurring again in the future.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:26:45]:
Yeah. So I think I might need you to repeat that because I think I was trying to understand it and there was one phrase that you said, you said relationships are dangerous. So for this person, a person who has these types of affairs, they view relationships as dangerous. Is that what you were saying?

Avoidance behavior stems from unsafe love perceptions.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:27:02]:
Well, this is again marked by that avoidance. Any type of love is not necessarily safe. So perhaps as a child or in other relationships, there hasn’t been any safety. So in order for me to love, I’m going to have. There’s a not in order for me to love. Let me put it differently. Love is coded as dangerous because I can’t trust that I’m going to be safe and cared for in this relationship. So the only way for me to feel safe and secure and in power is to be the one having the affair.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:27:39]:
Gotcha. And you said the affairs are really short or the relationships are really short.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:27:44]:
Typically the affairs are very short and they’re intense and mostly centered just around sex. So there’s not, this isn’t like the emotional affair. So the power player sees affairs as a way of helping them feel more, you know, secure in their world and so safeguard against feeling powerless.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:28:03]:
Yeah. So fascinating what was going through my mind. And I don’t know if there is a relationship between this or not, but I was thinking if it’s about power and control, then that makes me think about sort of like that cycle of violence that happens with intimate partner violence, even if it’s not always. You know, there may be multiple ways that violence gets perpetrated or shown in a relationship. It’s not always physical. It could be different types of controlling behavior.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:28:35]:
Oh, it could be financial, it could be verbal. Yeah. It could be controlling the children if they’re married.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:28:42]:
Yeah. Do you think this is related at all to that?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:28:45]:
Because we’re talking about power. I think you’re Onto something. And that would be a really interesting conversation to have at another time looking at the different components of power in relationships and how that may relate to or correlate with different types of affairs.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:29:04]:
Yeah, so maybe we’ll earmark that one for another time.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:29:08]:
That sounds like a good topic.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:29:10]:
Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, I’ll sign you up. Yeah. Okay. So that one seems like it might be a little bit about anxiety too. Like if relationships, all the relationships I’ve had in the past haven’t really been safe for me then so I need to be the one who’s sort of in control of how they go. That would be like sort of fear, right? Fear that someone’s going to hurt me.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:29:37]:
Again, definitely fear based because perhaps as a child there was a lot of fear and now as an adult, I’m not going to allow that to happen again. No, not to me. I’m going to be the one in control here.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:29:50]:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So the first four were kind of anxious, sort of like worrying a lot, overthinking, kind of jittery. They do a lot with that fear. But these last couple of ones are more about, I’m going to avoid things because it’s scary, very scary.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:30:10]:
But then you’re not consciously thinking of it as scary. It’s a conscious. It’s more. It’s very subconscious. You know, if we were to talk to the individual, they would deny vehemently that it’s, you know, they’re fearful of anything. But rather being in control makes them feel safe. So when you. People who are like to control things have often had, growing up, not a lot of control.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:30:37]:
So being able to control and order things in your life gives people a sense of safety, insecurity. You know, I like my kitchen clean. When I come down, I know where things are. It makes me feel safe and secure in the morning. Kind of a short little like example of just what, you know, having things in order makes you feel. But to feel really secure in a relationship, I need to be in control.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:31:02]:
Yeah. And I think this happens a lot with like military members and veterans that I see, especially when they’ve come back from pretty intense deployments. It may not always be this affair, like I’m controlling the relationship through affair, but that same sort of. I need this structure and control in my life to feel safe. Because when things are chaotic, that feels unsafe.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:31:27]:
Yes, you articulated it beautifully.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:31:29]:
Well, thank you. All right, so that was. How many more do we have left? I think we’re one more.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:31:35]:
Okay, one more to get one more. It is the compulsive affair. So that’s when the participating partners attempt to numb intense emotional pain through disconnected sexual affairs. Prostitutes. It could be pornography, it could be strip clubs. It’s just a. It’s compulsive and it. It doesn’t necessarily have emotional attachment to it.

Interactive porn addiction viewed as infidelity issue.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:32:04]:
So it could be interactive porn. And I’ve seen a lot of that, especially now with COVID There’s so many people that are home and are online that are connecting with interactive pornography. And the partners are now coming into therapy and they’re calling it an infidelity or they classify it as an infidelity or an affair. And it’s compulsive because a participating partner believes that they cannot stop and they’re using sex in order just to kind of numb and shut down.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:32:36]:
Yeah. Kind of like a coping skill that hasn’t been working anymore and is causing more problems.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:32:42]:
Yes. Yeah. And these compulsive affairs are often labeled as addictions. And typical addiction models work well with this compulsive sexual behaviors. However, as a therapist, you still have to get to that attachment history and understand how they. How that individual, you know, views themselves and how they express their emotions and how they, you know, co regulate emotion with their primary partner.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:33:10]:
Yeah, this is. I am really loving this conversation. And the more we talk, the more questions I have. And I feel like I could keep going for a long time, but I think we’re probably nearing the end of our time.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:33:22]:
Yeah. It’s a good thing we do this for a living, right?

Advice on handling relationships after an affair.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:33:25]:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, we work together, so I get to talk to you all the time and pick your brain, which is lovely. So I’m thinking, you know, people who are. Might be listening to this episode have maybe, maybe some of them have had affairs in the past, and this might give them an idea as to maybe the type of affair they had and the reasons why.

Or maybe they were the partner of somebody who had an affair, and maybe they’re even somebody who, like their partner, recently had an affair, and they’re even trying to decide whether or not to stay in the relationship, if it can be salvaged or not. Do you have any, like, words of wisdom or advice for people who might be listening to this podcast and thinking about their own life experiences and whether or not, like, how to proceed after somebody in a relationship has had an affair?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:34:21]:
Well, having done this now for, okay, two decades, I’ve had so many couples who have tried to go it alone. And you maybe read a book or work through it on their own. And I firmly believe, and research shows, that there really needs to be some form of intervention from a skilled therapist, because what a therapist is doing is really just processing and helping the couple have those very difficult conversations that it’s too painful to have on their own.

So having a skilled therapist or counselor to walk that journey with a couple is essential. Within that, what I always look for and when I. When I teach this is that we need to. We need to assure that there is not an ambivalent partner. There’s different.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:35:11]:
You know what? We look for contraindications into repairing affairs. And the first one is ambivalence. And typically we can figure that out in, you know, the first one to three or four sessions. If a partner is really not. They’re just going to therapy to go through the motion to say, hey, I did this. I checked the box, but I really don’t want to be here. So once you know that there is no ambivalence and there is not an active or ongoing addiction, and the fair is over. Because you can’t do effective couples therapy with an ongoing affair because we cannot get safety.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:35:47]:
And I don’t mean physical safety, but I mean that safety, that emotional safety. And it always comes out. Liz, I think you probably know this, so somebody could stay in affairs over. And then we start the work. But as therapists, we bump up against it all the time. Time. So the affair has to be over. There has to be.

Motivated partners heal relationships like mending bones.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:36:04]:
You know, we know that there isn’t any ambivalence. Both partners are motivated to heal and do the work for their relationship, and there is no active or ongoing abuse or addiction. With that being said, we can. We roll up our sleeves and we’ll get to work. But what I do say to every couple that comes in and every couple does say, do you think there’s hope for us? Do you? Do you think so?

And I like to tell that think about an X ray of your own or loved one’s broken bones, which is hard to look at, but when you see that X ray six weeks later, there’s a calcium envelope that is formed outside the break. That is the body’s protection. Our body forms a calcium envelope on the outside of the break, so the break has time to knit itself together from the inside out. And that’s literally.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:36:59]:
I used to think that calcium envelope got dissolved or goes away, but it doesn’t. So for anyone that has a broken bone, it’s stronger than it was broke, than it was before it was broken, because it has that calcium envelope in place. So couples who repair from an affair are going to be stronger after the repair process than they were before the break because they literally get stronger in that broken place.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:37:27]:
Yeah, that’s such a, I think, a really beautiful analogy because oftentimes people are wondering, you know, even if there is hope, am I ever really going to trust again? Am I ever. Is it ever going to be like a good, positive relationship again? And so what I hear you saying is that it can be even better than it was before.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:37:47]:
Yes. And I got this beautiful metaphor from my mentor, Catherine Rehm up in Washington, Baltimore, about the calcium envelope. And I share it with most or all of the couples that I work with, you know, who need hope. And they’ll say, oh, that’s easy for you to say, Victoria. And I’ll say, no, no, it’s not. What I do, what my job is, I hold the hope for you while it’s too risky for you to hold the hope. And then I help them heal. So it’s our job to make space for their experiences and hold the hope.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:38:22]:
Because I think I do this job because I really always believe in, you know, people’s ability to heal and reconnect after an affair.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:38:31]:
Yeah, I love that. So before we end, if anybody wanted to work with you, maybe could you go over, like the states that you provide services to and how someone could contact you?

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:38:46]:
Oh, of course. Well, My website is www.victoriaholroyd.com V I C T O R I A H O L r o y d.com or Google the Relationship center of Hampton Roads. And I am licensed in New York State and the state of Virginia.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:39:08]:
Yeah, great. So if there were couples who wanted to work with you from either of those states, they could.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:39:14]:
In fact, I have right now about 10 couples in New York State, even though I’m located in Virginia.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:39:22]:
Yeah, yeah. Which is, I think, you know, exciting. That’s. That’s the wonders of telehealth right there.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:39:29]:
Yes. So, yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:39:32]:
Well, Dr. Holroyd, thank you so much for participating and being willing to talk on this podcast. I have really enjoyed our conversation and I’m looking forward to having you on again in the future to discuss all those, all those other topics we have earmarked.

Dr. Victoria Holroyd [00:39:48]:
Talk about love. Love.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:40:02]:
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If so, please take a second to go, rate, review and subscribe so you get all of our future episodes. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for our free 10 week relationship email course.

This email course is really designed for people who are maybe having trouble with communication or connection in their relationship and helping them develop some quick wins right away to start improving it. While I am a therapist, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not considered therapy and it should also not be a replacement for therapy. If you think you need a professional of any kind, you should definitely go find one.

Until next time.