Recovering from Infidelity
September 2nd, 2009 |
By Robert F Scuka, LCSW-C.
Infidelity is one of the most difficult challenges that any marriage or committed relationship can face. Infidelity is almost universally accompanied by a deep sense of betrayal and a profound loss of trust. The reason is that the one partner experiences the infidelity of the other partner to involve a violation of explicit agreements or implicit assumptions about the nature of the relationship, and a violation of what is regarded as acceptable and unacceptable behavior relative to preserving a sense of safety within and commitment to the relationship.
Infidelity can take many forms, and is not limited to sexual intercourse or other forms of sex. In addition to sexual infidelity, there is emotional infidelity and financial infidelity. Infidelity can also take place in person, by telephone, by email, or via the internet, including pornography.
Each form of infidelity involves secrecy and a desire to preserve secrecy. The reason is that the person engaged in the infidelity knows on some level that the other partner would not approve of what is being done and would feel betrayed. That is why the revelation of the infidelity is almost universally accompanied by a sense of shock, disbelief, anger and a loss of trust. Indeed, the discovery of infidelity often results in a trauma-like experience akin to an emotional tsunami.
These feelings are fostered not just by the sense of having being betrayed, but also by a sense of having been lied to. Such an experience typically calls into question the very foundations of the relationship and even the one person’s confidence about who the other partner really is as a person.
In order for there to be genuine healing in the relationship in the face of all these complex factors, it is vital that both partners openly address both the infidelity and other issues in the relationship. The failure to address the issues and heal the pain from the rupture to the relationship risks either an emotional disengagement and deadening within the relationship, or the eventual dissolution of the relationship.
Addressing the infidelity and other issues in the relationship must be done in a safe environment that permits openness, honesty, caring and compassion. From this vantage point, Relationship Enhancement Therapy for couples is an ideal form of treatment. Its emphasis on communicating skillfully, empathically connecting with the feelings, concerns and desires of the other partner, dialoguing in a highly structured format that preserves emotional safety, and managing potential conflict in a manner that also preserves emotional safety all help create the conditions conducive to the constructive engagement of these emotionally charged issues. As a result, Relationship Enhancement Therapy is very effective at facilitating genuine emotional healing.
I personally have worked with countless couples struggling with the trauma of infidelity. My commitment is to help couples recover from this trauma in a manner that permits them to rebuild their relationship on a solid foundation of honesty, transparency, empathy, trust, commitment, love, compassion and forgiveness.
©Copyright 2008 by Robert F Scuka, LCSW-C. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Robert and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile
8 comments so far
My wife and I struggled with my infidelity a few years ago and it has taken lots of time and complete honesty for her to rebuild trust in me. This is a good article, it really tells the fact and issues that need to be faced.
I had been with this one girl for 2 years and we were in a serious relationship. Last year, I got to know that she has been cheating me (emotionally though) for a couple of months. When I instigated the matter further and spoke to her about it, her denial-acceptance-denial just choked me. I don’t know whether I have been a fool, but I just don’t seem to let go of the relationship and am very disturbed mentally even to this day. I have now broken up with her, but just can’t do without talking to her every day. I just hope there is a solution to effectively deal with such setbacks in life and that others do not suffer in the way I did.
My marriage never recovered after I found out that my husband was cheating on me. The revelation that he did this to me and my family was more than I could take and although I am working hard still to forgive I knew in my heart that I would never be able to forget and let go of all of that anger in order to keep moving our marriage forward. That was hard for me to accept and move on, but even harder for me was to get the image of him with another woman out of my head. I knew that it was never gonna happen, and there are still times even now three years later that I sit down and wonder what I could have done differently for him not to have done that to me and our family. But I know that there is nothing that will ever change that and that I have to stay in constant forward motion because there is no sense in reliving the past.
When I found out that my wife was cheating on me, it was extremely hard for me to deal with. I didn’t know if I should be angry or sad. I wondered if I would ever be able to trust her again after that. As I loved her a lot, I decided that I just cannot make do without her and that I should forgive her.
Even though I said “I forgive you” several times, I was just not convinced. I started coming back home from work unexpectedly to check whether she was still cheating. Thankfully, she proved to me, time and again, that there was no more cheating in the relationship. Hence, over the years I have been able to trust her again and we are now a very happy couple who love each other a lot.
Trust is the one thing that takes a backseat after a case of cheating and gaining it back should be the number one priority for any couple having suffered from it.
I discovered my partner had attempted to cheat on me with an old girlfriend and though I confronted him about it, I was just met with excuses and defensiveness. Though he didn’t actually physically cheat, the discovery of him attempting to do so had a profound effect on how I feel about our relationship and I know I can never leave it behind until or unless we have a meaningful discussion about it. Even though we love each other, as the author of this article states, the incident has deadened our relationship to some degree and has inhibited my ability to trust him. I believe only through therapy could we truly leave the incident behind.
Dear Fiorghra,
I am sorry to her about your situation. Trust can indeed be compromised by what is referred to as emotional infidelity, even if it has not (yet) become sexual infidelity. Therapy under such circumstances is virtually a necessity in order to rebuild trust. As the previous post by Mike indicated, regaining trust needs to become the number one priority for a relationship to be able to heal.
Rob Scuka
Dear Jesse,
I am sorry to hear of your circumstances as well. While there often are issues in a marriage preceding infidelity, no such preexisting issues justify anybody’s choice to engage in infidelity. Also, strange as it may sound, some people have affairs even though they are happily married. So while it may be a positive thing to ask yourself what you can learn for yourself from how you were in the marriage relative to possible future relationships, I encourage you to not think in terms of what you could have done to prevent his infidelity since he was 100% responsible for making that choice. Rob Scuka
Robin,
Given what you have described, I encourage you to seek out individual thetapy if you have not already done so. Good luck.
Rob Scuka