Are You Reeling From Your Partner's Infidelity?
- Have you experienced infidelity in your relationship and don't know how or if you can ever return to how things were?
- Has your trauma turned you into someone you don't recognize or want to be?
- Are you open to the idea of working with an affair recovery specialist who can help you heal from infidelity and move past this painful chapter of your relationship?
The distress that infidelity causes can make life come to a standstill. Perhaps, after suspecting your partner was cheating on you and becoming a detective of sorts, you've recently confirmed your instincts were correct—your spouse has been having a sexual or emotional affair. Even though you may have experienced some momentary relief in confirming your suspicions and realizing you weren't just being paranoid, those feelings have now given way to profound anger, sadness, and emotional pain.
You Might Hate How This Experience Has Changed You
Although thoroughly unwelcomed and unwanted, infidelity can change who you are as a person. Maybe you've become so consumed with thoughts of the affair that it's difficult to focus on anything else. Or maybe it's hard to talk with your spouse without crying or yelling. You might not be able to sleep or eat as you ruminate over what happened and try to figure out how to move forward.
More than anything, you want to know why the affair happened and if it's possible to recover from it. In infidelity counseling, your therapist can guide you through a systematic couples counseling method to help you process infidelity step-by-step. By utilizing Gottman's Atone, Attune, and Attach approach, you can honor the stages of affair recovery, ensuring that you repair the relationship from the ground up and heal.
Infidelity Is More Prevalent Than We May Think
Infidelity within relationships is much more common than many of us realize. According to a New York Times article, "National surveys indicate that 15 percent of married women and 25 percent of married men have had extramarital affairs." However, the notion that affairs are an automatic dealbreaker is a myth. The truth is that many couples who have experienced infidelity have been able to recover from the affair and restore trust in their relationship.
None of us start a new relationship with the intention of cheating. Infidelity is often the result of repeatedly turning away from each other and allowing intimacy—both physical and emotional—to slip away. And sometimes, when intimacy with our partner erodes, talking to someone else often feels easier than reestablishing what's been lost.
The Influence Of Others Can Impede Getting Over An Affair
Unfortunately, the difficulty of repairing a relationship is often exacerbated when family and friends convince us that taking our cheating partner back would make us weak. Sadly, we often allow the views of others to cloud our judgment and persuade us that our only choice is to break up. However, the only people that need to know about the affair and decide how to move forward are the two people in the relationship.
You're in this together—you have so much riding on your partnership. As hard as dealing with an affair is, it doesn't have to mark the end of your life together. With therapy, you can rebuild your relationship and not allow infidelity to define who you are.
With Counseling, Recovery From An Affair (And A Better Relationship) Is Possible
After an affair, feelings have been hurt, and trust has been broken. With this level of emotional turmoil, it's hard to know where to start the recovery process without guidance. As a counselor specializing in infidelity, I can help you calmly and objectively talk about what happened, identify and work on repairing the underlying cracks within your relationship, and, eventually, rebuild trust and intimacy.
What To Expect In Sessions
Before getting underway with infidelity recovery, we will first:
- Ensure the affair is over before moving forward with therapy and establish rules for interacting at home.
- Review the peaks and valleys of your relationship, discuss conflict resolution, and conduct individual sessions before reconvening together to decide on a treatment plan.
- Determine whether further individual sessions will be required due to unresolved conflict outside of couples sessions.
Additionally, at the onset of therapy, I always like to hear how you met and fell in love. It's a reminder that there is more to your story than what's happening right now, and there are good reasons why you want to repair the damage that's been done.
Incorporating Atone, Attune, And Attach Into Couples Counseling After Infidelity
The process I utilize in affair recovery counseling—Gottman's Atone, Attune, and Attach—spells out a game plan for working through the aftermath of the affair. Throughout therapy, you will learn how to stay invested in each other, talk through your issues, and work on making your relationship a priority.
Here's how it works:
- Atone: In the first phase, we will talk about the affair and get it out in the open. Without getting into the reasons behind why it happened, you will get to ask specific questions. Learning how to talk about it usually helps you feel better.
- Attune: We then start to notice where cracks in the relationship have formed, such as the times when you turned away from each other or stopped confiding in one another. Looking through the relationship objectively allows you both to see the part you played in creating the emotional distance that made the affair possible. Once identified, we can work on repairing these cracks.
- Attach: Little by little, we work on rebuilding intimacy and trust, so that eventually, forgiveness can happen.
Although engaging in therapy after infidelity likely won't be easy, the work you put into repairing your relationship will be for the long haul and well worth the.
But Maybe You're Not Sure If Affair Recovery Therapy Is Right For You...
I can't see how infidelity therapy will prevent this from happening again?
Understandably, you may be wary about affair recovery counseling after experiencing a breach of trust. That's why in counseling after an affair, we work on rebuilding intimacy before discussing how to prevent it from happening again. Once intimacy is restored, we can then focus on closing the gaps within the relationship and identifying how you can continue to nurture a deeper bond that fosters trust. From there, your relationship can blossom into a happier, healthier phase.
I don't like how this experience has changed me. How will I ever be able to trust again?
The betrayal you feel may cut so deep right now that it's all you can see. You might believe that this experience has profoundly changed you and that you'll never be able to get back to the person you once were before the affair. I'm here to help you work through the tough feelings you're dealing with in a safe environment. By offering you a clear and effective recovery process, infidelity doesn't have to leave an indelible mark on you.
Affairs are deal breakers for most couples—what's wrong with me for wanting to work on things?
After experiencing infidelity, it's easier for many couples to break up rather than recover from the affair in therapy. However, those who choose to do the work end up with a much more loving and satisfying relationship. In affair recovery, you will realize that infidelity doesn't have to represent everything you are as a couple.
You Can Get Back To The Love And Trust You Once Shared
You've invested too much in your partnership to let infidelity be the end of it. If you would like to find out more about affair recovery with me, you can call (954) 840-3249, email me at jennifer@facetofacetherapy.com, or visit my contact page.