Couples therapy offers a path to recovery. It helps you express your feelings, understand what happened and, quite often, to create a relationship/marriage 2.0.
Let’s talk about the stages of the work:
Expressing feelings
Affairs create very deep wounds in the person who was cheated. Everything one believed about their relationship is in question and it leaves them feeling betrayed, stunned, extremely hurt and hopeless. It’s important to hold space for the excruciating pain of the cheated partner, to acknowledge it and empathize with it. That’s something we start with.
Understanding factors that lead to cheating
There are paths the lead to infidelity: sexual boredom, feelings of being controlled or treated wrongly, needs not being met, fights or conflict avoidance, unintentionally falling in love with another, addictions, transitioning to parenthood, etc. These are just a few of the most common ones. Understanding is not simply creating excuses nor invalidating the feelings of the person who cheated.
Treating difficult emotions
This part of the work focuses on PTSD symptoms (intrusive thoughts, rumination, insomnia, low self-esteem, isolation) of a cheated person and on the shame and guilt of the person who had an affair.
Discernment work
If a couple feels they’re on the brink of a breakup or divorce, then after we’ve worked on the above mentioned aspects, we then focus on the question of whether the relationship/marriage should continue or not. We create space to talk openly about how each person imagines their life together and how it might feel to part ways. We focus on the couple’s strengths as well as on the developmental aspects of the relationship in order to see if there’s hope.
Creating a relationship/marriage 2.0
This includes working both on forgiveness and on creating trust. We take a look at the problems that could lead to cheating again and work on resolving them. Having an affair is a symptom of deeper issues. The good news is that couples therapy is an effective way of helping couples achieve their goals – if they’re determined to work.
