A relationship therapist on the reasons we cheat and breaking taboos

Anna Williamson knows her new project is going to cause a stir — which is just the way she wants it.

“I want people to perhaps be more curious about [the subject of] infidelity,” she tells me. “I’m not saying we are okaying it in any way, we’re not. But as they say, knowledge is power,” says Williamson, a relationship therapist, who’s appeared on shows like Channel 4’s Celebs Go Dating in the past.

Hence her new podcast, The Affair. It’s an episodic series in which Williamson sits down with people affected by infidelity, to break down exactly what happened to them, and why.

The show has only been out for two weeks, but the feedback, she says, has been “extraordinary”. It has shot to number one on several of the podcast charts.

Clearly, The Affair it has resonated. And Williamson is adamant that it’s worth having a conversation from all perspectives on affairs. One in five people will engage in infidelity at some point, and it’s not just men: 20 per cent of men, and 13 per cent of women in relationships have cheated.

That’s a lot of people, and yet it still feels taboo to discuss. “It just became really apparent to me that there just was not a bigger discussion happening around this in a way that didn’t vilify people that were having it,” she says. “I’m not saying that affairs are fine. Absolutely not. It’s about being curious.”

So what has Williamson learnt so far?

As she puts it, some people are “terrible people” who have affairs, but some “have found themselves in circumstances which are deeply emotional and require a different understanding.”

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“Because the very notion of an affair is shrouded in negativity, we paint everyone with the same brush.” That, in turn prevents people from speaking about it: both the people who are cheated on, and the person who ends up having the affair in the first place. “It just gets buried underground. And what I wanted to do is shake up this conversation.”

The way she’s doing that is by speaking to all the parties involved — the cheater, the cheatee and the third person affected — getting them to dissect their experiences via one-on-one interviews about their stories.

“A lot of them have never ever talked about their affairs until they come on this podcast,” she says. “Every single one of them, I would honestly say to you, is a really decent human being, and they have all had some really huge situations and emotions that they have been grappling with that have played in to how and why they got involved in infidelity,” she explains.

If that sounds rather incendiary, it is: especially when we hear from the parties involved in the affair. When I ask Williamson if there were any moments that surprised her, she’s quick to agree.

“There were so many situations where I literally was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’” She’s reluctant to give spoilers, but cites one instance from a recently released episode, where she interviews ‘Jane’, a woman who became involved in an affair by entering a relationship with a married man.

“His wife had a baby and bought the baby into work and she found herself holding this newborn baby that had just been born to the man that she is in a relationship with,” Williamson recalls. Another person she speaks to is the product of an affair, who then goes onto have an affair themselves.

The majority of people that get involved in affairs talk about the deep emotional connections and conversations that they would have with their affair partner

So why do people have affairs?

Banish stereotypes of people looking for a friends with benefits situation: often, it’s about finding an emotional connection.

“The majority of people that get involved in affairs talk about the deep emotional connections and conversations that they would have with their affair partner. That they felt truly connected to them,” Williamson says.

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“I think affairs have been wrongly stigmatised as just wanting a quick bunk up. Purely physical. But I believe just through my own research and experience, that it is typically driven by emotions more than a physical desire.”

And for those that have them, justifying it can often be the doorway to a strange world of double-think, where the third person engaging in the affair is the ‘good guy’ and the cheated-upon spouse or partner is the ‘bad guy.’

“Some people I spoke to would almost villianise the wife or the husband,” Williamson says. “They never met them, but they almost created a narrative in their own head. They were the one that had the real emotional connection with that person and the partner was the villain,” she posits.

I think affairs have been wrongly stigmatised as just wanting a quick bunk up

And in addition to indulging our curiosity, there are lessons to be learned here, too. By listening, Williamson hopes, “we can start to understand what is going on for people, from different perspectives.

“Perhaps we can change that in our own life. Perhaps we can tackle things in a different way. Perhaps we can approach our own choices in a more non-judgmental, educated way.”

“I think this is my point,” she says, as she signs off. “We’re all humans. We all f*** up. But inherently I don’t believe we are all bad people. I believe we make bad choices.”

And perhaps, through The Affair, we can start making fewer.

‘The Affair… with Anna Williamson’ is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms