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“I can’t believe what he’s done to me,” Susan said during a recent counseling session, tears streaming down her face. Dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, she spoke angrily about being unable to go to work because of being so upset.

“I could never even consider doing what he’s done. I think it’s despicable.”

Susan appeared tired, older than her thirty years. She admitted she hadn’t slept the past several nights since learning her husband of ten years had an affair.

Susan’s husband Bryan, sat stoically in front of us. While he admitted having the affair, and voiced being sorry for what he had done, he seemed detached and distant.

“I’m sorry for what I did,” Bryan said. “But, there’s more to the story. I know I’m the bad guy, but we need to talk about everything.”

“Okay,” I said. “What else do you want to say?”

“We’ve had problems in our marriage for years. Both of us have been unhappy. I’m not offering any excuses for what I did. It was wrong, and I know I’ve hurt Susan badly. But, I’ve been hurt badly in other ways.”

“This is impossible for me to hear,” Susan said angrily. “How can he possibly justify his actions? There is absolutely no justification for having an affair. None.”

“I’m not giving an excuse,” Bryan said, still showing little emotion. I just want to have an opportunity to talk about my pain as well. There are deeper issues.”

“I wonder if this isn’t the time for that,” I said. “I don’t doubt that you two have complicated lives, with a complicated story. But, I think right now we need to deal with one issue at a time. The first issue to deal with is Susan’s pain and how you both can recover from this. Then we can move on to the deeper issues leading up to this affair.”

“I can do that,” Bryan said cautiously. “But I want to make sure I get my chance to talk. I’ve never felt like I could talk about what bothers me in this marriage---and that has something to do with what I did.”

Bryan and Susan are evidence that marriage issues are rarely simple, one-sided issues. While we might quickly come to Susan’s defense because of Bryan’s egregious actions, we’d be making a mistake by failing to look deeper at other contributing factors. While we certainly want to empathize with Susan’s pain, and hold Bryan accountable for his actions, we dare not get caught up in one person being the victim and the other being the villain. This won’t help us unravel the complexities of their problems.