How to Recover When Your Partner Has An Affair

Finding out that your partner has an affair is a very difficult experience. It is often one of our worst fears; that our partner gets sick, gets hurt, or has an affair. People often come into therapy describing it as disgusting and extremely disappointing. All that time you were faithful and invested all your energy and dedication in the relationship. And what does your partner do? Goes around cheating on your with someone else. Not only do you feel betrayed, but also disrespected. The feelings that go through your head are challenging to manage. Although the blame ultimately lies with the cheater, it is often something that has been brewing for a while. There are some cheaters who just cheat to cheat. Maybe they don’t care about the relationship, maybe they have a sex addiction, but maybe they weren’t getting their needs met and didn’t know what to do. Often cheaters come in describing the latter. They tried getting more connected, they tried getting their needs met in the relationship and somehow, someone else did meet those needs. They eventually got closer and closer with another person until, ultimately, they started an emotional and/or physical affair. Again, it was their job to tell you they weren’t feeling connected. It was their job to seek out couples or individual therapy to figure it out. But now the cheating has happened, and if you choose to move forward to try to salvage the relationship, then it is your job as a couple to heal.
No matter how hard and painful it may seem, you can recover after your partner had an affair. It will take some time, but you can make it and be ready again to enjoy life. Even after being in the therapy field for 20 years, it still surprises me who makes it and doesn’t make it. It’s not always about what happened, it’s about how shaken the foundation of the relationship is and also how strong the foundation of the relationship was before the event occurred.
How to heal? First, you will need to pass through the shock of making the discovery. It is difficult both for the one that makes the discovery and for the one that is caught. But avoiding each other or starting monstrous fights will not help either of you. You will need to sit down, in a neutral and quiet environment, and TALK about your feelings, no matter how hard it is. This doesn’t mean yell or criticize or tell the other person how horrible they are. This means talking about your feelings. There is a difference between saying “I am very disappointed and hurt that you would take advantage of my trust and go outside the marriage” and “you are an asshole”.
Second, you have to LISTEN. The one that cheated must be ready to hear whatever his or her partner has to say about it. The best way for a person that was cheated to cope with the situation is to have a chance of expressing the anger, pain, frustration and all the negative feelings. If the partner cannot offer this conditions, then a support group, a family member or a friend can help you out. If all else fails, try therapy. A therapist can act as an unbiased helper who can guide you through the process of talking so that the other person can listen. When people name call and criticize, for example, the other person will often shut down and not really listen. A therapist can help with this process. A therapist can help you to get out your feelings so that your partner can hear you and, most importantly, support you. This is the way trust is recovered.
Third, after the shock has passed and they have been able to talk about their feelings, it is time for them to make the next step. And that is to decide how it is possible to salvage the relationship. In a marriage, cheating on your partner can be an impulse for the moment, but it can also mean that you aren’t getting your needs met in the relationshp. The person who was cheated on needs to decide “do I want to try to trust them again?” The person who cheated needs to decide “am I willing to take everything that is about to come my way to save this relationship?” Once these decisions are made, there is a way to make the relationship work and rebuilt trust. Again, the support of a therapist may be of great help, as this is the most critical and challenging phase. Your relationship is at a critical point and probably cannot withstand you trying to figure it out on your own. Every time you fail at this, your relationship gets deeper and deeper into a place of no return. A therapist can often help you get to your end point quicker so that your relationship doesn’t have to withstand so many of these “errors”.
It is crucial to understanding the reasons behind the infidelity act, to move through it and repair the situation. And since both parties are involved in an intense emotional way, someone that is neutral and better understand the meaning behind some of your reactions, like a therapist, can help you out.

If you are looking for individual therapy or couples therapy in Long Beach, please give me a call to ask me a question or to set up an appointment.