Infidelity—unfaithfulness in a marriage or committed relationship—can severely strain a relationship and the individuals involved can be left feeling disconnected and confused about their relationship.
One partner’s affair can leave the other person feeling devastated, alone, betrayed, jealous, confused, and aggrieved. Sometimes, an affair ends a relationship, and other times couples are able to repair the relationship on their own or with the guidance of a therapist.
When your partner has been unfaithful, a lot of things can happen. Your world can become chaotic. Nothing looks or feels the same. Initial shock often turns to anger, and questions arise within you:
Why?
How could it happen?
How did I miss it?
Did I cause it to happen?
Is it really possible to put the past behind us?
Can I ever trust my partner again?
Dealing with infidelity is never easy – it is one of the most difficult challenges to any relationship. Many of your deepest questions can only be answered by the partner who has had the affair.
Yet, the one who had an affair often finds openness difficult, and he or she can be overwhelmed by the shame and the profound hurt that they see they have caused in their partner’s eyes.
Recovering from an affair is possible. Many couples do and come back even more connected than before the trauma of infidelity. Infidelity can mean the end of the relationship, but it doesn’t have to.
Couples counseling can be essential to helping couples talk through their situation and to find a way forward to help repair and rebuild their relationship and trust.
It’s critical to work with a therapist who believes that affair recovery is possible (many friends, many therapists don’t), and who has the skills and training to recognize and cope with the powerful underlying issues that created the situation, not just the surface symptoms.
Recovering is difficult, uncomfortable, and yet at the same time meaningful work that can be a couple to a deeper level of connection.
Ways Couples Counseling Can Help You Recover From Infidelity
After an affair, couples seek counseling for a variety of reasons:
To put to rest those questions that will not go away until they’ve surface and been dealt with
To understand their actions, their reactions to themselves and each other
To regain equilibrium, rebuild connection and heal. (The emotional rollercoaster is normal, and yes it will get better)
To discover that couples DO have choices and how to keep anger and pain from dictating those choices or their future
To look to their future using the past as a tool to make them stronger, so they can each come out a better person no matter what path they chose in their relationship
To repair and rebuild their relationship and trust in a meaningful way
Types of Infidelity
Several different types of infidelity can occur in a relationship.
An object affair is when one partner neglects the relationship for the sake of pursuing an outside interest. This pursuit may reach a point of near obsession. This might be work, a hobby, an activity, an actual object or some other interest.
When there is a sexual affair, one partner had sexual intercourse or sexual interaction outside the relationship, but he or she generally experiences no emotional attachment to the other person. Studies show that men have a more difficult time forgiving a sexual affair than women do women appear to be more likely to forgive extramarital intimacy when emotions are not involved.
A cyber affair, is where there is infidelity committed through sexts and chats, may never reach the point of real life or actual physical sexual intimcay. This type of affair might also include the viewing of pornography, which some people consider to be a form of infidelity.
An emotional affair is an emotional attachment to a person outside of the partnership that takes energy away from the partnership. In an emotional affair, a person might spend hours chatting online or talking on the phone to someone other than his or her partner. An emotional affair can have a negative effect on a relationship because a person engaged in emotional infidelity often discusses relationship problems with the object of his or her attachment, rather than with his or her partner. Sexual intercourse is usually not part of an emotional affair.
An affair might also combine sexual and emotional intimacy. This is generally considered to be a secondary relationship, and most would view this as infidelity.
What one person considers infidelity may not be considered infidelity by others. For example, a person might not consider his or her partner’s viewing of pornography to be cheating, while another person might consider it to be infidelity and experience feelings of inadequacy as a result of the disclosure. And some view infidelity as sexual intercourse outside the relationship and therefore may not consider emotional affairs to be cheating. However, this type of infidelity may be more detrimental to a relationship than physical infidelity, as an emotional affair might indicate that the partner committing the infidelity is no longer invested in the relationship. It can be helpful for partners in a relationship to discuss their views and expectations around monogamy and relationships outside of the primary relationship early in their relationship to avoid future hurt or transgressions.
The Infidelity Recovery Process
Recovery, should a couple choose to maintain a relationship after infidelity, can be a lengthy process. Although there are no steadfast rules for determining how quickly or whether a couple will recover from an affair, experts agree that healing can often occur within one to two years, though some couples may take longer to fully recover, while others can repair their relationship sooner. Again, there is no concrete timeline for recovery, and the length of time recovery takes is often related to what happens immediately after the affair is discovered. The process of healing and the amount of time of recovery includes many factors such as each partner's communication skill level, tolerance for conflict, capacity for honesty, acceptance of personal responsibility, working through trauma history, and attachment style.
Just as each relationship is unique, the process of recovering from an affair is different from each couple. Recovery typically progresses through the following phases:
Trauma Phase: Following discovery, the betrayed partner may experience shock and significant emotional trauma as a result of finding out about the affair. He or she may feel angry, vengeful, and hopeless. This phase is often a roller coaster of emotions, ranging from deep feelings of loss to rage and frustration. Both partners struggle with the reality of the betrayal and trauma during this phase.
Issues Clarification: It is during this time that couples begin to examine what led to the affair and explore underlying issues or past trauma that might have contributed to the disconnect. Although there is still a great deal of emotional instability, partners want to understand why the affair happened. The sooner couples can begin this process, the sooner they can reap the rewards of closure and identify unhealthy coping mechanisms and dysfunctional relational patterns.
Addressing the Problem: This is when the real work begins. As emotions become more manageable, partners can tackle the difficult task of working on the underlying issues that led to the affair. There will be highs and lows as guilt, resentment, and anger become mixed with longing for the relationship as it once was, but couples who get on the other side of this phase will often be able to finally address the issues that are at the root of much of their pain and heal themselves and the relationship.
The hope of anew, the beginning of a new beginning and couples can embrace the new relationship they have created. After working through this trauma and rebuilding trust, couples will likely have stronger, more genuine bonds. It may still be difficult for the betrayed partner to trust the other, and both partners may still experience difficulty understanding why the affair happened and accepting that the previous life they knew has been changed forever. But by practicing new communication skills learned in therapy, couples can continue to develop an open, honest, and new and deeper relationship.
If you are ready to get started in couples therapy with Soul Journey Therapy click here to schedule an consultation.
