My Partner Had an Affair – Does It Mean I Wasn’t Enough Sexually?

Why an affair does not mean you were sexually not enough

When a partner has an affair, one of the most painful questions can be: “What did the other person have that I didn’t?”

For many people, this quickly becomes a sexual question. Was I not attractive enough? Was our sex life not exciting enough? Did I reject my partner too often? Was I not adventurous enough?

After betrayal, the mind searches for explanations. If we can identify what was missing, perhaps what happened will make sense. And if we believe we caused it, we may even gain an illusion of control: If I had been different, perhaps this would not have happened.

But an affair cannot simply be explained by whether a couple was having enough sex.

Sexual disconnection can be part of the story – but it is not the same as responsibility

A couple may genuinely have been sexually disconnected before an affair. Perhaps one partner had repeatedly initiated and felt rejected. Perhaps the other experienced sex as pressure. Maybe there had been years of resentment, emotional distance or very little physical intimacy.

These things matter when we try to understand what was happening in the relationship. They do not, however, make one partner responsible for the other partner’s decision to have an affair.

This distinction is essential in therapy:

We can explore the relationship together without sharing responsibility for the betrayal.

Both partners may eventually need to look at the relationship they created together. But the person who crossed the agreed boundary remains responsible for that choice.

Why sexual rejection can hurt so deeply

Dr Sue Johnson’s attachment perspective helps explain why sexual disconnection can become so painful. Sex can communicate much more than physical pleasure. For some people it carries questions such as: Do you still want me? Am I desirable to you? Do I matter? Can I still reach you?

Repeated sexual rejection can therefore become an attachment injury, particularly when the couple is already emotionally disconnected. A partner may begin to experience every “no” not simply as not tonight, but as not you.

If somebody outside the relationship then offers admiration, attention or desire, that experience can feel extraordinarily powerful. Suddenly the person feels seen, attractive or alive again.

Understanding this vulnerability can help us make sense of how an affair developed.

It does not justify it.

There were still other possibilities: talking honestly, seeking couples counselling, renegotiating the relationship, setting a boundary or ending the relationship before beginning another one.

An affair may represent much more than sex

Esther Perel’s work on infidelity invites us to ask not only why this person? but also what did this experience represent?

An affair may involve sex, but it can also represent novelty, freedom, admiration, escape, excitement, attention, secrecy, rebellion, possibility or the experience of becoming a different version of oneself.

This can be difficult for a betrayed partner to hear because the immediate comparison is often with the affair partner: Was that person more attractive? More sexual? More interesting than me?

But sometimes the more revealing question is:

Who did your partner get to become when they were with that person?

Perhaps they felt spontaneous rather than responsible. Desired rather than insecure. Interesting rather than ordinary. Free rather than burdened by everyday responsibilities.

That does not make the affair acceptable. But therapeutically, it can help us understand what the affair was doing for the person who had it – and what will need to be understood if the couple wants to rebuild.

Sometimes the affair is connected to identity

Affairs can also emerge during periods when people are struggling with who they are. Parenthood, ageing, career changes, loss, illness or simply years of routine can leave someone disconnected from parts of themselves.

An affair may temporarily create access to an identity that feels lost: I am still attractive. I am exciting. I am independent. I am wanted. I am not only a parent, provider or spouse.

Again, this distinction matters. Understanding what somebody was searching for is not the same as saying that the affair was necessary or justified.

The therapeutic question becomes:

What were you trying to find there that you had lost contact with in yourself?

And eventually: How can you take responsibility for finding or expressing that part of yourself without secrecy and betrayal?

What if one partner genuinely wants more than monogamy?

Sometimes an affair also opens a conversation that a couple has never had honestly: Do both of us actually want a monogamous relationship?

There are different ways people structure intimate relationships. Some choose monogamy; others consensual non-monogamy or other openly negotiated arrangements. The important distinction is not simply the number of people involved. It is whether the people in the relationship understand and consent to the agreement.

An affair involves a violation of the relationship agreement through secrecy or deception. Consensual non-monogamy involves an agreement that the partners have knowingly made together.

Discovering after an affair that one partner desires a different relationship structure does not retroactively remove the betrayal. But it may raise an important question about what kind of relationship each person genuinely wants going forward.

What relationship are we actually willing to choose – openly and honestly?

After an affair, building a higher wall is not enough

After betrayal, the instinct to protect the relationship is understandable. The betrayed partner may want more information, reassurance and transparency. Clear boundaries and accountability can be essential for rebuilding safety.

But if recovery becomes only about building a higher wall around the relationship – more rules, more monitoring, more checking and more fear – the couple may become safer from opportunity while remaining emotionally disconnected from one another.

Repair therefore needs both safety and reconnection.

The partner who had the affair needs to take responsibility for the injury, understand its impact, answer necessary questions and demonstrate reliability over time. The betrayed partner needs space for anger, grief, fear and uncertainty without being rushed towards forgiveness.

At the same time, if both partners choose to continue the relationship, eventually another question emerges:

What kind of relationship are we trying to rebuild?

The goal cannot simply be to return to the relationship that existed immediately before the affair. The couple needs to understand what happened between them, what was missing or unspoken, what each partner needs now and how they want to relate differently.

Repairing the sexual relationship takes time

Sex after an affair can be particularly complicated. Some couples experience an intense period of sexual connection. Others find that sexual contact suddenly feels unsafe, intrusive or full of images and comparisons.

The betrayed partner may wonder: Are you thinking about the other person? Am I being compared? Do you really want me? The partner who had the affair may feel guilt, shame or pressure to prove desire.

Trying to “fix” this by simply having more sex can create another layer of pressure.

Sexual repair often requires rebuilding emotional safety first while gradually making space for honest conversations about desire, hurt, fear and what sexual contact now means to each partner.

The betrayed partner does not have to become “more sexual” to prevent another affair

This is particularly important.

After an affair, the betrayed partner may begin trying to change themselves: lose weight, initiate more sex, become more adventurous or stop saying no because they fear that otherwise their partner might look elsewhere again.

That is not genuine sexual safety.

A sexual relationship built on the fear I need to keep you satisfied so you will not betray me is not secure intimacy. It turns sex into protection against abandonment.

Repair needs a different foundation: I want us to build a relationship in which we can talk honestly about dissatisfaction, desire, attraction, frustration and difference – without secrecy becoming the solution.

What does therapeutic repair look like?

There is no single pathway after an affair. Some couples decide to separate. Others rebuild their relationship. Some discover that they want a different relationship than the one they had before.

Therapy can help separate questions that initially feel tangled together:

What happened? What did the affair mean? What was happening in the relationship before it? What belongs to the relationship dynamic, and what belongs to the individual responsibility of the partner who crossed the boundary? What does the betrayed partner need to feel safe again? What needs to be mourned? What needs to be understood? And what kind of relationship do both people genuinely want now?

The aim is not to rush towards forgiveness or to find a simple explanation. It is to create enough safety to understand what happened without turning understanding into justification.

An affair is not a verdict on your worth

Perhaps one of the hardest things after betrayal is separating another person’s choices from our sense of ourselves.

The fact that your partner desired someone else does not establish that you were insufficiently attractive, sexual, interesting or lovable. There may have been genuine problems in the relationship. There may have been sexual disconnection. There may be important things for both partners to understand and change.

But those are questions about the relationship.

They are not measurements of your worth.

A more useful question than “What did that person have that I didn’t?” may eventually become:

“What happened here, what does it tell us about ourselves and our relationship, and what do we want to do with that understanding now?”

Healing does not require pretending that the affair did not matter. It requires making sense of what happened, restoring agency and deciding – individually and together – what comes next.

References and further reading

Esther Perel – The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity.
Sue Johnson – work on attachment, attachment injuries and Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples.
Laurie Watson – Wanting Sex Again: How to Rediscover Your Desire and Heal a Sexless Marriage.
David Schnarch – Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships.

This article is educational and does not replace individual or couples therapy. Affairs can involve complex experiences of betrayal, trauma, sexuality, attachment and relationship agreements, and individual circumstances differ considerably.