Relationship Counselor In Long Beach. Tip 7: How to Survive an Affair

Infidelity can be one of the most shocking and devastating experiences that a marriage can go through. Whether your partner confessed of having an affair, or you found it through your own investigating, it often leaves you emotionally paralyzed.
While infidelity is a common reason for people to divorce and often leads to the married couple being unhappy and angry, it is still possible for them to make their marriage work. There are couples who can still get through the situation and survive after having an affair.
Essential steps to healing:
Individual Healing
Believe it or not, both partners need to heal individually after someone cheats. If you were the one to be cheated on, you might not really be concerned about their feelings at the moment. It is something to be considered after you have done some healing of your own.
Needing to heal individually is especially true for those people who have been cheated on by their partners. After you have discovered that your partner had an affair with someone, you need to work on your own feeling and emotions. People who have been cheated on can feel a mixture of emotions such as guilt, betrayal, jealousy, disappointment and anger. Often, in one moment, their belief that they are living the dream of having a great relationship and trustworthy partner is shattered and their reality of who they are and how strong their marriage is destroyed. It takes someone a while to work through these issues and feelings.
Whether or not you intend to continue in your current relationship, it is really important for these feelings to be addressed. If you want to experience total healing, you need to learn how to control your negative emotions and find times/ways that are appropriate to express them.
You might ask yourself, “Since I didn’t do anything wrong, why do I need to get individual therapy?” Most of the time there is a breakdown in the relationship way before an affair occurs. In addition to working through your anger at your partner, it can be important to discover for yourself when you felt the disconnect in the relationship. If the affair was a total surprise, it could be that you have a really manipulative spouse, or it could be that you were in so much denial you didn’t even realize the connection was dwindling. These issues can be sorted out in individual therapy.
Healing Together as Couple
Healing your relationship after infidelity also includes working together (as much as you don’t want to see the person right now). After working out some of your individual emotions and issues, it’s time to heal as a couple. This is an essential stage that requires the necessary steps of establishing a more effective and better way of communicating with each other and connecting. This step is often more effective if you do it in couples therapy where you can have someone guide you through the process so that you have as little bumps as possible in the road to come.
Couples therapy can also serve as a preparation to the road of forgiveness.
Renewed Relationship
Starting a new relationship is the last step to consider in healing from an affair. This is an important stage wherein you and your partner can start to protect and rebuild the trust in your relationship. You can fill your relationship with forgiveness. Both you and your partner will need make an effort to strengthen your marriage. And at same time, you can re-establish your emotional connection and communication with each other.
It is my belief that it is possible to save your marriage even after one of you had an affair. Therapy can help you in dealing with your intense emotions and lead you to the road of forgiveness and renewed trust.

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.