Is it to flee or to stay free? Find yourself or rather disengage? What does that say about a relationship, what does it hide, too? Sexologist and psychotherapist Sylvie Lavallée dissects this subject, as explosive as it is recurring, which she has made her specialty, in a new book with a shocking, unequivocal title: To betray.
After Do you want to want ?, on the art of rekindling the flickering flame in the couple, the successful author returns these days with a less cheerful subject: infidelity. With a whole section in solution mode on the infinitely delicate art of “repair”, to meditate on.
Here, no pity, there are two camps: the “traitor” and the “betrayed person”, a duality underlined in broad strokes which can be a bit surprising when reading, which the author, met in her offices in Longueuil, however defends honorably.
“I reflect how patients tell their stories: I feel like the bad guy in the story, I feel that it is me who is the odious one, etc. Yes, it’s shocking, but that’s it! »
It’s a frontal subject, a stab in the soul!
Sylvie Lavallée, sexologist and psychotherapist
Her book is intended to be a sort of “summary” of what she hears within her four walls, stretching over more than 300 pages, to expose all the possible nuances, and God knows if there are any. If each story is unique, let’s say that this sofa on which we are sitting for the purposes of the interview has obviously heard all kinds of stories over time. “I have been practicing for 25 years, and since the beginning, I have been facing this problem,” confirms our voluble interlocutor, obviously inhabited by her subject.
And for good reason: it’s hard to get more emotional. “Infidelity, betrayal, these are multiple, complex issues, it does not only affect desire, but relational ambivalence: should I stay or should I leave? If I cheat, do I run away, disengage? », she illustrates.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Sylvie Lavallée
What does it reveal and what does it awaken?
Sylvie Lavallée, sexologist and psychotherapist
A vast subject if ever there was one: “Infidelity affects all spheres: the being, its evolution, its existential crisis, the heaviness of the couple, the issues of commitment, the desire to give oneself permission. […] And it’s so touching, she adds, to hear so many people who betray or who are about to do so, feeling so bad, stuck. […] And for the betrayed person, it is so atrocious, so cruel,” also says the therapist, who cites extensively cases experienced and heard in the book. It must be said that she is immersed daily in three recurring themes: “shame, doubt and anger”. On one side or the other, in fact. “Why am I going through this, I can’t believe it’s me doing this […], why didn’t you stop me, etc. » If you are immersed in this kind of turmoil, there is a good chance that you recognize yourself in the text.
Let’s settle one thing here: if she aims to paint a portrait of the “traitor” on the one hand, and of the “journey into hell” of the betrayed person on the other, Sylvie Lavallée does not venture towards a questioning of the couple in general, or of monogamy in particular. Far from there. Once again, his argument is valid, even if others (we think of the New York therapist Esther Perel, who further shakes up the concept in I love you, I cheat on you): “Even if we are in a society where we want to broaden marital statuses, reformulate or reconfigure marital statuses, monogamy is still the norm,” she says.
The open couple, polyamory, remains marginal. I reflect what is happening in my laboratory.
Sylvie Lavallée, sexologist and psychotherapist
“I am not a sociologist or an anthropologist,” she adds, “I do psychotherapy. »
Noteworthy, and if we were to look for a beneficial effect of betrayal, it is the communication that it triggers, notes the therapist. “And I say it in the book: couples never talk to each other as much as when infidelity is discovered. Things are named. It’s one of the strengths, if we want to find a positive angle,” she argues.
A final word on possible repair, or rather “reconstruction”, as Sylvie Lavallée prefers to say, a thorny subject which she tackles in the last third of the book. “It’s not an easy road. […] And it’s difficult for both parties. » But she does not budge: “It takes the will on both sides to honor the relationship and understand what happened. […] Even if the betrayed person does not necessarily want to contribute, she adds. And that’s why it’s so difficult in marital psychotherapy. »
If a form of “redefinition” of the couple is possible, after having, among other things, named the ins and outs of the affair, with infinite empathy from both parties, we understand that to “choose” each of us and again, the task n It’s not easy, to use the therapist’s words again. That’s saying something. Besides, no, Sylvie Lavallée doesn’t exactly believe in “forgiveness”. “We can’t get over it,” she corrects. I’m saying let’s get through it. And it’s a road full of potholes…”
Betrayal – The wound of loving betrayal
Editions Robert Laffont
311 pages