Five essential steps to rebuild trust & safety
Infidelity is one of the most painful, destructive things that can occur in a relationship. An affair devastates, humiliates and demoralizes the betrayed partner.
When an affair is discovered, it’s sadly the beginning of a long-lasting and significant life crisis for both the betrayed partner and the wayward partner. Learning that a partner has cheated often destroys the betrayed partner’s sense of safety and security in the relationship.
In fact, the discovery of an affair can shatter the injured partner's fundamental assumptions and beliefs about the relationship, and even about life.
He may experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as flashbacks (“mind movies”), hypervigilance, extreme anxiety and even panic attacks.
Both partners suffer…and the pain doesn’t go away quickly
After the initial shock, the profound sense of loss for both partners that surrounds the discovery of an affair often results in depression, characterized by a loss of interest in life, hopelessness, and an difficulty handling even the simplest day-to-day tasks.
Unfortunately, these intolerable symptoms don't go away quickly. Couples often describe the process of recovering from an affair to be the most difficult and painful thing their relationship has ever endured.
It can seem like life as you knew it is over. And in some ways, it is.
The relationship you had is, essentially, gone. If you choose to work towards healing and recovery, you’ll be creating a new relationship together.
Here are five things you must do to begin to move forward.
End all Contact with Lover
The offending partner must say an absolute and final goodbye to the lover. There should be a firm rule of no contact that is never violated by phone, email, texts, chance meetings or any other form of contact.
Think about it. If the betrayed partner has the sense that the affair is still going on, the injuries continue and healing simply doesn’t happen.
Many couples that I work with choose to co-create a final, boundary-creating message for “the other person.” Together, they write a letter, email or text that completely ends the relationship and all contact.
Betrayed partners have told me that this feels empowering, and helps them to feel like they are part of a team with their partner, working towards affair recovery.
Ending contact with the affair partner is an essential step that will help to create an environment in which the betrayed partner can begin to slowly regain trust.
Answer Betrayed Spouse's Questions
The betrayed spouse will likely have intrusive and racing thoughts about the affair. Some describe this as seeing a "movie" in their minds about what happened when the lovers were together. Because of this, she will likely ask many questions about the details of the affair. Hearing the answers can be difficult, and providing the answers is usually awkward and painful, as well.
An important caution that the betrayed spouse needs to consider, however, is whether he or she is prepared to hear and live with the answers; for example, is it helpful to know where or how the lovers had sex, or will this knowledge provoke additional and unnecessary anguish?
I typically caution betrayed partners to avoid these questions. They create what is too vivid a picture of the details of the affair – details that can’t be “unheard.”
That said, though, it’s absolutely essential for the offending partner to tell the complete truth the first time, no matter how difficult the truth is to handle. If further details are revealed later, the betrayed partner suffers a huge re-traumatization; she is brought back to square one in the recovery process.
Again, all questions asked should be answered honestly, but gently, as often as needed, for as long as it's needed. This honestly is another step towards rebuilding trust between the partners.
Work every day to rebuild trust
The offending partner cannot ask this question often enough: What do you need from me to help you get through this?
It’s likely that what the betrayed partner will need is total transparency from the offending partner. Secrets are toxic this point and will throw up a huge roadblock to the affair healing process.
“He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing.”
The wayward spouse needs to share cell phone records, passwords for all email accounts, bank records, phone contact lists and text records. Partners have told me that this feels like a huge invasion of privacy, especially after the secrecy and deception involved in an affair. However, it's an essential step in the recovery process…and it won’t last forever.
Words to never, ever say to the injured partner
"Get over it!" should never be uttered by the offending partner. Neither should, “Am I going to pay for this for the rest of my life,” or “How many times do we have to have this conversation?” or anything even remotely implying that the offending partner is weary of dealing with his partner’s pain.
Recovery from the severe emotional impact of an affair is a long and intricate process. Such insensitivity and impatience will very likely create even more pain and impede the healing process in a huge way.
Analyze the Relationship
The wayward partner must bear the burden of most of the responsibility for the affair, but – as hard as it is to admit this - each situation is co-created on some level.
In no way does this mean that the betrayed partner somehow “drove” her partner to have an affair!
"If you understood me/wanted me/paid more attention to me, I wouldn't have cheated!" is simply not true, in any respect. Ever.
That said, partners need to think about and discuss this: how did we create an environment that made it somehow okay for one of us to have an affair?
Both partners most likely created the troubled environment, but the decision to handle the relationship’s issues by going outside the marriage is 100% on the offending partner.
This is a Big Deal. Get serious about healing from the affair
If you’re impacted by an affair, you’re familiar with the intense pain and regret that are tangled within an affair's discovery. These powerful feelings can cloud your judgment and cause frequent emotional flooding, which is a sense of feeling highly agitated, overwhelmed and unable to think logically and clearly. In fact, when you’re flooded, your logical mind goes somewhat offline, and “fight, flight or freeze” takes over.
Couples have described situations where they have completely broken down in the middle of traffic, or grocery shopping, when they become flooded. Day-to-day functioning – like taking care of the kids, going to work – takes a huge hit.
Life doesn’t go on as normal. Everything is different.
It’s essential that you get help when you’re going through infidelity recovery. This is something that couples can rarely do on their own.
You need someone you can trust to help you sort through the destructive thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and move towards repairing the relationship brick by brick.
