Find the Hope again and let me help you move from surviving to thriving after an affair in your relationship…
This morning on the radio was an interesting discussion about affairs. If a couple has an agreement that if one of them cheats the other automatically gets a “hall pass” – would that stop cheating?
I once heard relationship expert John Gottman say that trying to recover your relationship after an affair without help is like trying to do knee surgery on yourself in the kitchen. He’s not wrong!
I remember clearly the first time my husband had to travel for work again after D day. We had been rebuilding for a while when he had to attend a conference. This was a particularly triggering scenario for me as his affair had been carried out while he travelled and conferences were pretty high risk zones – and he knew it. But we also knew that it had to happen one day. It was the nature of the job and although he had worked hard to stay close to home, especially in the early days, there had to come a point where real life had to come back – we couldn’t lock ourselves in our affair recovery bubble forever.
“…I wrestle with thoughts of why should her life go on as normal & ours is blown apart? Why should she get to live a normal life with her friends & husband & we are trying to reassemble after a bomb has exploded in ours. Several friends have told me I'm mad not to let her husband know.”
One thing I really understand about the Affair Recovery Journey is the FEAR. The revelation of an affair and the subsequent pain brings up an enormous amount of fear…fear for the relationships survival; fear they really can’t change and be the partner I need them to be in order to stay; fear they will do it again; fear that we will put in all this work and it will amount to nothing…and it goes on (you can insert your favourite recovery fear here).
I actually wrote this article for a newspaper here in Australia back in July 2015 when this issue first occurred. Those of you still in your pre-D-Day bubble of this could never happen to me may not have even noticed this worldwide event. I know I probably wouldn't have. Anyway I thought I would share this here before the website it was on disappears. The newspaper did not end up publishing it - I think I finish a bit strong...read it and see.
I often get asked the question – How can you tell if the unfaithful spouse will cheat again? And the short answer is you can’t. There are very few certainties in life and no one can guarantee how anyone will or won’t behave in the future.
When you have been through an affair in your relationship it can feel like everything is thrown in the air and up for questioning and potentially redefining. This can be a good thing in the long run although it can feel quite painful emotionally as you go through it. The following themes came out of my Beyond Affairs Network BAN meeting last night on the theme of Love.
The emotion that comes up as part of the affair recovery journey can at times seem completely overwhelming. I have heard many people who have been through significant other traumatic events in their lives talk about the experience of betrayal by your partner as the worst by far. It knocks you out in a way that most of us have never experienced before. So it makes sense that most of us do not have experience of the kind of strategies and tools that would be helpful in managing this level of emotional turmoil.
I have often said and will continue to say that no one can make the decision to stay in a relationship after one person has had an affair but the people in the relationship. The choice to stay or go is yours and yours alone. The kids; your mother-in-law; your best friend the manager of the grocery store can all have their opinions but they are meaningless. You and only you - meaning the two people in the relationship need to work this through and wholeheartedly decide what is right for you.
The affair recovery journey is a marathon, not a sprint and just like marathon runners need to be prepared for the task ahead, by fuelling up on the right foods and maintaining a healthy can do attitude, so do those of you running the Affair Recovery Marathon.
Last night in my Beyond Affairs Network (BAN) meeting we had a discussion about what people have found useful in helping them move forward in their healing. Along with BAN meetings and counselling and workshops such as the Take Your Life Back or Healing From Affairs weekends, and reading and talking about it, working on self (and many others that people shared) there are two I want to highlight today because they are free and you can implement them immediately - and very quickly you will feel their impact for the better. They are Gratitude and Journaling.
No one can decide whether to continue a marriage after an affair but the two people in it.
It is a very rare occasion when I hear from a betrayed spouse that their unfaithful partner has told them the truth about the extent of their infidelity right from the start. Instead it is way more likely that the truth has been trickled out over a period of time – trickle truth. This is an extremely painful way to come clean about the affair for the betrayed spouse. And it gets worse when lies are told to cover up other lies or minimise the truth. Layer upon layer of deception that has to be unravelled.
Everyone involved in an affair takes a huge hit to their sense of self worth. I remember feeling totally worthless – I described it as chewed up and spat out – not a pretty visual but real. My husband wasn’t feeling that great either. He had violated all the standards he had for himself and his marriage and he was struggling with feeling good about himself when he had sunk to such a personal low.
This article is specifically on the obsessive thoughts about the other person (people)/affair partner(s). They are often the hardest thoughts to shift, lingering after all the others have been dealt with and you are quite well down the path on your healing journey. Really, the affair partner was around for long enough in person – you don’t want them still there in your head.
Why do we need to talk about it? This is often said by the one who had the affair…can’t you just forget about it and move on?
There are a couple of perspectives on why you need to talk.
Today I am responding to an excellent question I have recently received because I know most people affected by an affair carry this fear – and it is not just the betrayed spouse. Twice lately I've had some freak out moments. Was out a couple of times over the weekend with someone who doesn’t know about the affair and saw people who looked like the Affair Partner (AP). Sent me into slight panic attacks at the thought of actually bumping into her one day and having no idea how to handle that kind of a situation (one for my own self sanity and two if it was to happen in front of someone who doesn't know what's happened).
It seems like a lifetime ago that I found out about my husband’s affair. Actually it was 5 years ago this week. 5 years that started in intense pain and are now full of much joy. And although there were many times in the early days when it all felt too hard and I wanted to give up, I do not regret a minute of the time that I spent rebuilding my marriage.
The revelation of an affair is a serious relational and emotional trauma. Put simply the world as you knew it is no longer and everything you thought was real is up for question. This can permeate your whole life and extend to the other person, family and friends as you try to piece together what happened and who was involved.
