Can A Relationship Survive Infidelity?
Written by a Couples Therapist in Long Beach.
When two people marry, there are understood do’s and don’ts that should be well understood. Some broken promises or rules really don’t add up to very much, but infidelity is not one of those “oops”! When one person becomes unfaithful to the other, it’s very difficult for the other spouse to forgive this indiscretion.
Loss Of Trust Is Hard To Heal:
The main reason it can be very difficult to repair a marriage that infidelity has entered into, is the immediate loss of trust. Trust is the life-line of a solid relationship and lack thereof is very difficult to get through and be willing to trust the other spouse for their actions.
That is not to say there are not marriages that have gone through infidelities and have found ways to come back around, find forgiveness, request forgiveness and get back to a good place. These cases do involve a great deal of couple’s therapy and a great level of forgiveness.
There is no doubt that out of emotional infidelity and physical infidelity, that physical is the most difficult to forgive. Keeping that in mind, there are emotional affairs that do not involve any form of physical contact. If your spouse is no longer confiding in you about what’s going on in his or her head, then that spouse is taking the conversation somewhere else. This can be very painful, leaving the other spouse to believe they are no longer the most important person in their lives. Regardless of what type of infidelity has been committed, if both parties want to turn things around, they must discover the core problem that brought about the betrayal of trust in order to find healing.
Why Infidelity Came Into Your Relationship:
This usually happens when one person within the relationship feels they are no longer feeling their needs are being met. In some cases, love and romance aren’t happening in the relationship. While one person wants to make it work, no matter what, the other just cannot handle their needs being unmet, so fall into another relationship. Some spouses still love the person they cheated on, but have found conflicting emotions for someone else. I am not making excuses for the person who has cheated. It was their job to insist on getting help or leaving the relationship, but they didn’t. They chose to stay in the relationship while getting their needs met elsewhere. That being said, if you want to heal, it is important that you know what it was like to be in their shoes before they decided to cheat.
These are just a few of the complicated sides of infidelity. If healing is going to come about there must be very open and honest communication going on. Seeking help from a professional in couple’s therapy can help both people to sort through what has happened within the relationship and aid in getting it back on track.
Therapy Is An Important Tool If A Marriage Is To Stay Intact:
A good couples therapist will dig deep to get to the heart of the problem and help the couple to see what caused the entire situation. That said, both parties must want to make this happen, it will not work if only one partner wants it. It’s also a good idea to have in home therapy vs within a clinic. It’s a more comfortable setting, allowing both people to open up and be honest in the comfort of their own home. Again, both parties must live up to their roles in therapy and truly want this to work out.
Without confronting the problem thoroughly, or if one partner is no longer interested, chances are your marriage will end in divorce, or possibly a lifetime of unhappiness. Couples that truly want to turn things around must be willing to put hard work into it and get into therapy.