Infidelity Recovery
Couples can benefit from therapy for many different reasons — big or small. Many couples seek couples therapy during a crisis, while others can be proactive about noting problems with communication or conflict resolution or being stuck on a perpetual problem when they seek care.
A common area of focus where many couples struggle to know where to begin is infidelity. Studies have found infidelity occurs in 15-20% of married couples. Often, people have more questions than answers, not knowing how to deal with the overwhelming feelings involved in infidelity.
At Kimberly Keiser & Associates, we see many clients who are trying to navigate infidelity, which we refer to as infidelity recovery.
Our therapists utilize a variety of therapeutic modalities, but specifically for couples, we implement techniques and interventions from the empirically based Gottman Couples Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) models. We also integrate many techniques outlined in The New Monogamy by Tammy Nelson specifically in infidelity recovery.
Although initially devastating and traumatic, we have found that infidelity recovery becomes a rewarding process that actually strengthens a relationship,addressing perpetual problems and improving communication, conflict resolution skills, and emotional and physical intimacy.
The Process of Infidelity Recovery
The infidelity recovery process is unique to each couple. However, it often focuses on the three components of an infidelity:
Outside Emotional Relationship. This can be any relationship that goes deeper than a “typical” friendship. For example, a line can be crossed when the relationship makes the other person equal or more important than your partner, or extends beyond what you and your partner have previously committed and agreed to with regard to outside relationships.
Dishonesty. Lying, denying, or hiding a relationship with another person makes it difficult to trust your partner.
Sexual Relationship. This can be the deepest injury for some. Knowing your partner crossed the line of physical intimacy with someone else can be a traumatic event.
The Need to Forgive?
Rebuilding after an infidelity doesn’t necessarily mean forgiving. Forgiveness is a natural process that comes with a new awareness and understanding of your partner. It develops out of a mutual and reciprocal understanding of how each person contributed to the events that led to the infidelity and compassion towards yourself and another as part of a healing process.
The Process of Grieving
Every couple entering infidelity recovery goes through a process of grieving. There is a loss. Perhaps a loss of trust, safety, or sacred connections that you felt you only shared with your partner.
The emotional experience of this can be very similar to the grieving process people go through after any significant loss, including death. During this phase, it is useful to consider key aspects of what can happen therapeutically:
Disclosure vs. Discovery. This includes how the infidelity was brought to light. One partner may disclose the infidelity or the other may discover the infidelity on their own through emails, texts, or other means. It is very therapeutic to be intentional with how the infidelity or even details of it are discussed.
The Role of Grief. Grieving is normal after an infidelity. Many emotions may be present, including anger, fear, denial, and eventually acceptance. In many ways you may feel you are grieving a death, the death of the old vision of your relationship.
Phases of Recovery from Infidelity
Infidelity recovery with intention includes a number of phases. During each phase, therapeutic interventions are used to support the couples to move forward in the process. The phases include:
Crisis Phase
The first phase is usually met with shock, emotional dysregulation, fear or deep betrayal. Being in a state of shock after learning about an infidelity can lead one to have a physiological response very similar to being in a trauma state.For example, you may find it difficult to eat or sleep.
This is the body’s normal response to being in a traumatic situation, and therapeutic interventions are used not only for each person, but for the couple’s relationship. The goal of this stage is to stabilize everything that was upset by learning of the infidelity.
Understanding Phase
In the second phase, each person begins to look at how the infidelity happened and understand not only their partner, but also themselves. Many couples coming to therapy for infidelity recovery have many years of unresolved problems or poor communication or conflict resolution skills.
During this working phase, couples are moving past anger and confusion and developing a deep understanding of themselves, the other, and the relationship. The focus is empathy as well as hope for the future.
Vision Phase
The third phase creates a new future together, being clear on what your new monogamy looks like.
This is an exciting phase to enter into with your partner. Old hurts have been cleared away and each person is ready to build something new. This is where the hard work of therapy and commitment to what’s possible in the relationship have paid off, and the couple embarks on a new kind of relationship that can be better than even pre-infidelity.
During the therapeutic process, your therapist may encourage you to engage in any number of activities. Here are some examples of what you might work on with your partner and your therapist:
Take care of yourself
Communicate
Have a date night
Address the reality
Create a new monogamy agreement
Initiate erotic recovery
The Importance of Empathy
One of the tools in infidelity recovery is the development of empathy within the relationship. Empathy is the ability to understand another’s emotional experience.
Understanding your partner’s inner world is part of the healing process. The role of empathy in infidelity recovery includes:
Why did the infidelity happen? What made your partner look for or pursue outside opportunities for sex or affection? You don’t have to agree with what your partner did, but if you can come to a place of understanding why they did it, you may be able to develop some empathy.
Empathy puts yourself in your partner's shoes — to feel what they feel — helping you understand why the infidelity happened.
Empathy works both ways. When your partner feels empathy for you, they will be able to take full responsibility for the infidelity.
The Imago Dialogue
A fantastic tool for any couple to improve understanding, emotional intimacy, empathy building, and conflict resolution is the imago dialogue. The imago dialogue includes simple communication techniques that develop core skills to help become a better listener as well as improving your ability to speak your feelings. Skills in the imago dialogue include:
Mirroring. Reflecting back to the speaker what you heard them say. This makes the speaker feel heard and seen.
Validating. The listener makes the speaker feel their experience is understandable. This helps defuse defensiveness. Validation doesn’t mean you agree or approve, it helps the speaker feel seen and understood.
Empathizing. Expressing you understand or are attempting to understand the speakers’ feelings in the situation, attempting to actually feel what they might have felt in a situation.
Building Trust Again
Throughout the therapeutic process, each step forward builds trust. Some key building blocks in developing trust are:
Not About Apologizing. Trust is not about how many times someone says I’m sorry. Someone apologizing doesn’t relieve the pain or make anything better. It doesn’t guarantee that cheating won’t happen again. Forgiveness happens over time. It is a living attitude that grows organically with time and empathy. It cannot be forced.
Empathy and Validation. Without empathy, there can be no healing. Empathy allows sharing experiences and fears, and trusting that your partner will make a real effort to understand. This allows feeling what it must have been like to experience infidelity from both sides. Everyone wants to be heard and understood.
Patience. Trust is a process. With empathy, openness, self-awareness, and patience, you can build a solid, trusting love relationship again.
Infidelity Recovery is Possible
For some, the idea of an infidelity being a catalyst for positive change seems unlikely or even impossible. However, as Tammy Nelson writes:
“Couples who have experienced affairs are forced into new discussions about former unmet needs that lead to new and creative ways of moving forward and staying together. Changing the old methods of communication can lead to communication about how to make monogamy and commitment work in a new erotic and emotional relationship. When couples focus on how they can learn from experiencing an affair, sometimes each partner grows as an individual.”
New Harbinger Publications, Inc. (2013). The Affair as a Catalyst for Positive Change. In The new monogamy: Redefining your relationship after infidelity (p. 40).
Every relationship is different, and part of the therapeutic process is navigating where each of us are at any point in time. Couples therapy and infidelity recovery can help a couple explore, heal, and move forward in a positive direction.
If you and your partner want to explore and work on the infidelity recovery process, let us know. We can help.