Series: How Could You?

Two weeks ago a woman screamed at her mate, “How could you?” I remember, as the tears ran down her face and he hung his head in shame, asking myself “Why would you?” From all reports he was a decent guy and she a good woman. They seemed to have it all; beautiful children, a good life style and yet he had done something neither of them ever imagined would happen. Why?

Did he lack character? Was there something amiss in his moral development? Perhaps there was some sort of deep childhood wound at the core of his betrayal? Even so, I’m sure countless others have suffered similar wounds and they’ve not betrayed their mates with infidelity.

There is a looming question that I’d like to begin to unpack and address over the next couple of weeks. It’s not just how does someone commit a betrayal of infidelity on their mate, but more specifically, how do they betray their own sense of morals and values? How do they suspend what was at one time a core value held dear to them, allowing them to have an affair or engage in behavior that once would have repulsed them?

In 1961, psychologist Stanley Milgram (Milgram obedience studies: Stanley Milgram, Behavioral Study of Obedience, “Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology”, 67 (1963)) sought to discover the personality profile of those individuals in Nazi Germany who had marched millions of Jews, Poles and misfits of their society into the gas chambers. Social psychologist estimated that only 1.2 percent of the population would fit that profile. To identify these individuals an experiment was conducted where subjects were told they were part of an experiment determining the effectiveness of negative reinforcement in learning. Their role was to administer an electrical shock to a student in the adjacent room each time the student failed to supply the correct answer to a problem. Each time the student failed the voltage of the shock was increased. While the subject couldn’t see the student, they could hear a recording of what they thought was the student in the next room, screaming and begging them to stop.

To begin the subjects were given a 45 volt shock as an example of what the first shock felt like, the same one that they would give the student upon missing the problem.. They were also told the student had a heart problem, but the electrical shock would pose no danger to the student. With each missed problem the subject would raise the voltage and flip the switch. (Remember, the student was not actually being shocked.) Many of the subjects paused at 135 volts and questioned the purpose of the experiment. Eventually, if the voltage levels exceeded 315 volts, the subject would hear nothing as he or she continued to raise the voltage, cruelly flipping the switch when they heard no answer to the problem given.

If at any time the subject tried to stop the experiment a scientist in a lab jacket would inform him the experiment required him to continue. This was done up to four times. If the subject requested to stop the experiment a fifth time, the scientist would finally stop the experiment. Otherwise, the experiment stopped only after subject had given the maximum voltage of 450 volts.

Milgram believed that he would have to go through several hundred subjects to find those few individuals who would administer the maximum voltage. As it turned out, 65% of the subjects would inflict the maximum level of shock and pain! Milgram had not found a few sociopaths who would give their souls to a totalitarian and brutal cause; rather he found a potential monster in all of us.

Why would “normal” American citizens act in the same way as Nazi guards who participated in putting millions to death? Why do we place such a premium on the approval of others even when they are strangers?

Some of you may be asking what this has to do with infidelity, but if a majority of “normal” people in Milgram’s experiment were able to suspend their own sense of humanity to the point where they believed they may have killed someone, is it too far-fetched to see how individuals might also commit the betrayal they never thought possible?

“Edmund Burke’s aphorism that, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ needs a companion phrase: ‘The triumph of evil requires a lot of good people, doing a bit of it [evil], in a morally disengaged way, with indifference to the human suffering they… cause.’” (Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency: Albert Bandura 2002)

Over the next few weeks we’ll explore the process of moral disengagement and how individuals abandon what they believe, betray their loved ones and allow themselves to act in ways they never thought imaginable. We’ll also look at ways to stay true to what you believe.

If you find yourself in a situation where the unimaginable has occurred, there is hope both for recovery and change. Take advantage of the Affair Recovery recourses. If you’re in crisis and want to accelerate your healing, join us at our next marriage retreat at Affair Recovery. Three full days addressing your struggles can accomplish what would normally take months if you’re meeting a therapist once a week. Please don’t delay your healing from infidelity. Get the help you need.