Healing from Affairs, Erotic Recovery and Getting Past Betrayal

In part one of our session with Dr. Tammy Nelson, we covered some of the reasons behind infidelity and affairs within couples.

In this session, we’ll dig deeper into the meaning of infidelity and what the road to recovery looks like.

Infidelity

In order to create true intimacy and restore sexual and erotic desire, the couple must remain individuals — separate and dependent at the same time.

Monogamy is not a sexual dilemma, but a dilemma of integrity. 

Statistically, affairs aren’t always because a relationship is unhappy. It could be because an opportunity presents itself. 

There are three parts to an instance of infidelity:

• Dishonesty

• Sex

• Outside Relationship

Dishonesty can include anything from gaslighting your partner to covering up a transgression from years past. Most people often lie because they truly don’t want to hurt their partner. 

The relationship outside of your family can be anything from connecting with a sex worker, chatting online with someone else, or a full blown, long-term affair resulting in an entirely separate family unit.

Three Stage Erotic Recovery

1. Crisis 

The crisis phase is where we experience the intensity and the emotional distancing. This is where a lot of pleasure denial comes from. The drive is to control the self, to control urges and reduce desires and cravings. Having control over something like sex gives the sense you have control over yourself.

The solution: reduce denial.

During therapy, you can assess and diagnose any sexual issues, identify the difference between anatomical and relational issues and work on integrating sex and your relationship.

2. Insight

During the insight phase, you may experience low arousal, low interest, postponed pleasure and focus on performance.

Pleasure resistance is when sex is used as a commodity in a relationship. This can be displayed in avoidance of physical touching and can be intermittent or situational. It can be symptomatic of current relationship issues, outside issues or past issues. This can also include self-pleasure. 

The solution: reframe resistance.

When the intensity of the emotion decreases, the door is opened for rehabilitation and healing. Therapy allows the time to identify the difference between pleasure and performance, arousal and desire, secrecy and privacy and allows you to rebuild the relationship with yourself. 

This is a new way of looking at arousal and desire without the end goal being penetrative intercourse. 

Something to be aware of and work through is attraction dysfunction. Partners may find themself thinking “how come I’m just not that into you anymore?”

Remember, you alone are responsible for your own sexuality.

Getting the Sex Dialogue You Want

Learning about each other as you recover and rebuild your relationship should consist of sharing your responses of the following statements:

• One thing I appreciate about you is…

• One thing I appreciate about our sex life is…

• One thing we do that I would like more of…

• One thing I would like to try is…

• One thing I appreciate about this dialogue with you is…

Check out Tammy’s book: The New Monogamy to learn more about the stages of recovery and helpful dialogues to have along the way. 

You may not receive everything you’d like, but this is a way to re-establish the erotic energy between you and your partner. 

Next, it’s essential to look at what sex means for each partner. Is it for emotional, psychological, spiritual or physical reasons?

3. Vision

During the final stage, or the vision stage, you may experience feelings of fear, hope, frustration and/or negativity. 

There may be feelings of pleasure aversion as well. If you start to be intimate again, you may have a negative reaction — like aversion or repulsion — to physical touch. This also uncovers and works through unhealed relational problems.

The solution: reimagining the relationship.

Once the focus is on reimagining the relationship, healing the betrayal can take place and empathetic communication can occur. The agreement with you and your partner to re-envision your relationship creates a shared vision with both of you for the future. 

In the end, you and your partner are creating a new monogamy agreement. This will consist of long-term conscious repair in the areas of sex, attention, time and affection. 

This agreement should be explicit, and remember: monogamy is not synonymous with morality.

The relationship will never be the same after an infidelity, but it can be something better as you create something new and learn from what happened in an infidelity. 

Couples will continue to have disagreements throughout any relationship. What matters is how you address those disagreements and what you do moving forward. It doesn’t necessarily mean the affair will reemerge, but it’s important to know that the conflict can.

Dr. Tammy’s book has additional information on how to work through infidelity with your partner and establish a monogamous agreement. Her other book, Open Monogamy, covers the spectrum of relationships — with or without infidelity.

Stay tuned for future sessions with Dr. Nelson and more Sex Plus Symposium content. And if you need help dealing with infidelity or any issue within your relationship, we’re here to help.