Unfaithfulness is catastrophic. It will rock the foundations of even the strongest relationships and leave those affected wondering why it happened. Can your relationship ever recover? While it might not seem possible at first, you can rise above infidelity with your partner at your side. But you shouldn’t do it alone. By speaking with an infidelity therapist, you can overcome the challenges that await.
What is Infidelity Therapy?
Infidelity therapy is a form of counseling that helps couples affected by infidelity work through the issue and evaluate their relationship. The therapist assists you and provides tools to help you and your partner communicate more effectively. As long as you agree that your relationship is worthwhile, you have everything you need to strengthen your bond and make use of infidelity counseling.
Reasons Why People Cheat
Few people go into a loving relationship or monogamous marriage expecting to get into an affair. Unfortunately, affairs happen more often than you think. When a relationship is healthy and successful, both partners are happy, stable, and enjoying physical and emotional intimacy. Without these things, a relationship will suffer.
The most common reason people become unfaithful is lack of satisfaction.
This stems from:
- Low self-esteem
- Depression
- Sex addiction and/or substance abuse
- Lack of intimacy
- Loneliness
- Boredom
There are also different forms of cheating that can take place, which can make one person’s idea of infidelity very different from the opinion of someone else. When in a relationship, it’s important to discuss this!
How Infidelity Affects The Uninvolved Partner
Finding out your partner betrayed you is the last thing you want in a relationship. The hurt is indescribable, and it can have devastating consequences on the uninvolved partner and their children.
You might experience the following if your partner had an affair:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Self-blame
- Anger
- Distress
- Low self-esteem
- PTSD
- Reduced performance
Working through these mental effects alone can be difficult. For some, this means turning to high-risk behaviors, such as substance abuse. While these outlets can help in the short term, there is little benefit. Don’t put yourself and your family in this situation. Getting help from an infidelity therapist is a more compassionate option for everyone involved.
How Infidelity Affects The Cheating Partner
Some affairs last a few days. Others can last for years. This impacts the cheating partner as well. Guilt, anxiety, depression, and feeling trapped by the situation are all common emotions. However, out of fear of being found out, many individuals keep the affair going.
It’s important to consider this when in infidelity counseling, as well as the number of times the partner has been unfaithful, and if they are willing to acknowledge their behavior.
How Infidelity Counseling Can Help
Infidelity therapy is meant to help you and your partner heal emotional wounds, rebuild trust, and move on with your relationship. Both parties have a chance to speak and be heard; if you have difficulty expressing your thoughts and feelings, the therapist is there to help.
What you need to realize is that this will be a process. In the same way, it may have taken months or years for you and your partner to truly love one another and exchange your vows, infidelity therapy also takes time.
Most infidelity counselors break this process down into three phases:
- Reducing stress
- Regaining trust
- Building intimacy
Let’s have a look at how these phases work:
Reducing Stress
The first step in infidelity therapy is about helping the betrayed partner work through their trauma. After discovering your partner’s betrayal, you may be experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and that is normal. However, it can also delay your healing, which is why therapy is needed.
The one who cheated will need to be patient, as they will need to answer questions about why they cheated. They will need to talk about it even when it’s painful because the truth is the only way to begin healing the hurt they caused.
If the truth comes out, the betrayed can begin to cope, and the therapy will move on to the next phase.
Regaining Trust
Next comes trust. Affairs are a breach of trust, and it will take time for the uninvolved partner to feel secure. With therapy, the betrayed can come to accept why it happened, and both partners can work to ensure the infidelity won’t happen again. Both partners must examine the relationship and understand their role in it.
Building Intimacy
The final stage is reestablishing an emotional connection and intimacy. Sometimes, the couple has already been intimate before this phase, but the therapist will discuss the importance of it regardless. Intimacy is incredibly important in a healthy relationship, as it can strengthen your connection and sense of trust.
Benefits of Infidelity Therapy
With infidelity counseling, many relationships can survive an affair. There are instances where the pain is too much to bear and the couple breaks up or gets a divorce, but visiting an infidelity recovery specialist can prevent this.
Rather than dealing with the pain and losing faith in your partner, infidelity therapy helps you reach the best outcome: You deal with the issue head-on and come out stronger and more in love than before. You flourish together and become more stable.
Can Infidelity Therapy Truly Help Us?
There’s no doubt about it: Couples counseling can definitely help your relationship. Infidelity doesn’t have to be the end. Yes, your relationship is going to change, and there are going to be (many) moments when you notice a lack of trust or intimacy with your partner. But if you take the time to work through the aftermath of the affair, if you work together to rebuild the trust and love that you already had for one another, you will find peace and—eventually—room for forgiveness.
But you can’t fix your relationship alone. By visiting a trained infidelity therapist, couples can work through more than relationship issues. Together, you overcome obstacles that you may have otherwise never known existed. On the other hand, if you try fixing your relationship alone, you could actually harm your bond and create distance.
Change Your Relationship with Couples Academy
You don’t have to work through the chaos of an affair alone. Infidelity counseling is designed to help both parties work through the grief, pain, and anxiety that comes with unfaithfulness. Therapists specializing in infidelity know how to handle infidelity in an unbiased manner and will give each person tools to strengthen the relationship.
If you are ready to save your marriage and work through the pain, Couples Academy can help. Designed by an infidelity recovery specialist, Couples Academy works you through the highs and lows of relationships, so you can come out stronger than before. Fill out the contact form to learn more.
