Are You Wondering How To Deal With Infidelity?
Has your reality been shattered as a result of finding out that your partner has been unfaithful? Are you now wondering if your marriage or relationship is capable of surviving an affair? Or, alternatively, have you decided to stay with your partner after an instance of betrayal but are now worried that you will never recover and re-establish trust?
Maybe you have recently been blindsided by the news that your significant other has cheated. As a result, you may be doubting yourself, constantly questioning how you did not see the signs of an affair or suspect that your partner was unsatisfied in some way. It may seem as though you’re living on autopilot and walking through a fog in your everyday life.
On the other hand, you may have already learned of the affair a while ago and decided to forge ahead in the relationship. You’ve likely weighed your options to stay or go and considered if it’s better to weather the infidelity for the sake of your family. But now you may be grappling with trust issues and your own mixed feelings alongside the opinions of others, who all have their take on what you should do moving forward.
Once an affair has been revealed, a relationship can become an emotional minefield. One or both of you may be struggling with extreme shock, anger, shame, or guilt. Perhaps the news comes as such a blow to your partnership that one or both of you feel numb or unable to process your emotions.
All you want is to halt the pain and stop your anxious thinking, but you may be skeptical that there is any such thing as “recovering from infidelity.” However, recovery is possible—and infidelity counseling at Kaleidoscope Services is the first step on the path to healing after an affair.
Infidelity Is Both Common And Survivable
No matter what our partnership looks like, we all experience some type of betrayal or disappointment in the context of our most intimate relationships. And while not every instance of betrayal is necessarily an extramarital affair, infidelity remains an extremely common issue among couples.
According to the Infidelity Recovery Institute, there are several kinds of affairs—ranging from “accidental” (one-night stands) to “entitlement” (often involving revenge of some sort) to the “split-self” (which is usually the result of an identity crisis). And unfortunately, all kinds of affairs are normalized in our culture.
As such, many couples can trick themselves into believing that infidelity is an inevitable aspect of long-term relationships. Moreover, the feelings of shame and guilt that often accompany acts of infidelity tend to keep couples from vocalizing their experience or seeking help in marriage counseling.
The truth is that there is no one all-encompassing or “right” reaction to the news of an affair. A wide range of feelings are associated with betrayal, and any emotions you may be experiencing are valid reactions to such an intimate and painful incident.
These emotions, however, can be blinding. If you are a partner who has been cheated on, feelings of anger and rejection may be keeping you from understanding why an affair took place. And if you are the partner who engaged in extramarital behavior, you may be struggling to understand why you got involved with someone else at the expense of your committed relationship.
No matter which partner you are, feelings of shame and guilt will not be the driving forces in infidelity counseling. Instead, I will work with you to understand your respective roles in the relationship and how you both can contribute to healing after an affair.
Infidelity Counseling Can Make Healing And Recovery After An Affair Possible
First and foremost, I am sorry you’re here and that your relationship is suffering the pain of infidelity.
If the news of an affair is relatively recent, you and your partner are likely struggling with ongoing conflict, breakdowns in communication, and resentment. Yet, therapy can offer you both a chance to communicate your feelings in an honest, transparent way that will facilitate healing.
Affair recovery is rooted in collaboration and stonewalling or verbal attacks will not be accepted as effective means for resolution during sessions. Instead, as a therapist who specializes in affair recovery, I approach infidelity counseling first and foremost from the premise that each of you has a role in the partnership and, thus, each can have a role in overcoming the obstacles you face as a couple.
Our first session will serve as a consultation of sorts, wherein we will come together to discuss the affair and assess if my infidelity counseling services will be useful to you. During this session, we will spend a bit of time acknowledging and validating the pain brought on by the affair while working to understand the type of affair that has taken place and its impact on the partnership.
From there, I will offer a perspective meant to both validate and normalize. Sessions will include educational elements of recovery and healing that can help you both to see that no couple is immune to the possibility of an affair and that even happy, well-adjusted couples most certainly struggle with infidelity.
As we dig deeper, we will begin to learn more about how each of you thinks about the affair and what it means for your future together. Throughout ongoing sessions, we will use this information to rebuild and reconnect the relationship and incorporate elements of trust, intimacy, and touch to aid in healing.
My approach to affair recovery draws from components of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which is a demonstrated marriage/couples counseling model that can help you better understand the impact of betrayal. In addition, I may incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to aid in changing distorted thinking patterns and aspects of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) that can target trauma.
The combination of these approaches will help to calm the storm created by the affair so that you can think clearly and make deliberate choices about how to move forward. But no matter if you stay or leave the relationship, healing is necessary.
Though you may wish you could return to a carefree time in your relationship when the pain of infidelity had not yet surfaced, the truth is that you simply cannot heal what you’re not aware of. Therapy will help you understand the effects of betrayal on your relationship and provide you with necessary tools for surviving an affair.
There is hope for your relationship—even after an affair—and recovery is possible. Let’s work together to find out what that recovery looks like for the both of you.
Perhaps you’re curious about affair recovery but still have hesitations…
I just don’t think I will ever get over this pain and find it in my heart to forgive.
I understand that when an instance of infidelity takes place it can be agonizing and life-changing—and I am so sorry that this happened. Healing, however, does not mean getting over or forgiving infidelity; it means gaining the tools and awareness to ensure that a selfish act of someone else no longer maintains control over you.
Counseling can help you to regain a sense of clarity and agency so that you can figure out how to approach the partnership in a way that honors your needs and boundaries as you move forward.
Should I stay or should I go?
It makes sense that after a betrayal, you’re wondering if you should stay in or leave the relationship. This is a big question whose answer will be dependent on each unique couple. Moreover, I am not the authority on the outcome of this relationship—you are.
In counseling, you will be given an opportunity to thoroughly examine the infidelity, build the tools you need for healing, and ultimately determine how to move forward in the relationship. Working with me can give you a sense of self-assurance and validation in your decisions.
I don’t want to be blamed for the affair in infidelity counseling.
An effective therapist does not make either party feel blamed or responsible for the infidelity; instead, an effective therapist is trained to remain objective, nonjudgmental, and able to facilitate growth and healing among their clients.
I find that therapy yields the best results when attacks are mitigated or avoided altogether, and my approach is critical of the action—not the people involved. As such, I do not view affair recovery as an opportunity to place blame but rather as an opportunity to understand how betrayal has impacted the relationship and what we can do together in counseling to promote a sense of mutual progress and healing.
Whether You Stay Or Go, Clarity And Healing Are Necessary
If your partnership has endured an instance of betrayal or infidelity, counseling can aid in affair recovery. For more information or to schedule a consultation session, please call (480) 800-2527 or email me.