It has only been 6 hours since you found those messages.  But it feels like 6 weeks.  Everything in your life feels different now. At first, it seemed like a joke. You didn’t even go looking to find them.  Innocently using his device to quickly look up information when something caught your eye.

 

Thinking it was nothing, you clicked into them.  You only meant to glance, but once you started reading, you couldn’t stop. Shock and confusion roll through your body. How could this be happening, you think.

 

Moments keep flashing through your mind.  Times when you thought everything was fine.  Happy even.  But now you have to re-write your own history.  The more you learn, the more you question everything. 

 

It feels like you’ve lost so much from this affair. Things you used to take for granted now seem fragile.  Especially your certainty.  Your certainty about your relationship, about your life, and about yourself.  It seems like everything in your life is now broken.  Like the mess this affair has exploded into your lives could never be cleaned up. 

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You’ve actually thought about what you would do if he had an affair before.  The answer seemed simple then.  Leave.  Have some self-respect. Don’t allow someone to treat you like this. “Once a cheater, always a cheater” right? But it doesn’t seem so easy now. You’ve been together for years.  There’s the house, the kids, all of your friends… Losing all of that seems too high of a price.  Not to mention that you still love him.  When things are good, they are so good.  But is staying the wrong thing to do?  Doesn’t that tell them what they did is okay? And what will people think?

 

“Well,” you think to yourself, “it’s better to say you tried everything.  Even if doesn’t end up working.”

 

There are many different types of affairs. Some affairs are more clear violations. Long-term affairs that include sex are usually what we think of when a spouse cheats.  But there’s also other types.  Emotional affairs are when someone has a connection and intimacy with someone else that is typically only reserved for the relationship.  They can be just as damaging, if not more damaging, than recovering from a physical affair.  This is because emotional affairs can be hard to define where the boundary line has been crossed because partners will disagree about what constitutes “cheating.”

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Recovering from an affair is a brave thing to do.  Sometimes people think it would be easier to “just leave.”  I’m here to say that both are difficult, yet possible.  Marriage therapy for affair recovery is broken into several steps necessary to heal. (These may be done in any order).

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1. Clearing the Air: having the spouse with the affair tell the details of the affair to take accountability

2. Adopt a New Form of Communication: using reflective listening for communication and listening

3. Defining Fidelity: creating a shared definition amongst the couple of appropriate boundaries

4. Building Trust: through defined sets of behaviors the couple will build back and look for examples of trust within the relationship

5. Plan for Fighting: using a structured approach to how the couple will handle disagreements so they bring them together versus tear them apart

6. Repairing Self-Esteem: both partners need to be in a healthy place with self-esteem in order to have a successful egalitarian relationship

 

Marriage therapy to recover from infidelity is successful.  A study by Shirley Glass in 2000 showed that 71% of couples after therapy stayed together. 

 

To heal your pain and repair your relationship after an affair, give me a call today to start.