Surviving infidelity for many seems like an impossible task. Whether you have been unfaithful and your partner is now aware, or you are just now finding out that your partner has been unfaithful, this post is meant for you. Use these 5 tips in the early stages of affair recovery. If you are a couple reading this, I recommend you decide if you are staying together or ending the relationship prior to trying any of these strategies.
Tip #1 for Surviving Infidelity: End the Affair
This is a no-brainer. You cannot begin to heal from the damage of an affair if their is still an active affair happening. As mentioned above, both partners need to have a firm decision to repair the relationship, which means ceasing all contact with the affair partner. To truly end an affair and make progress, the unfaithful partner must be willing to cut off all contact including phone numbers, hookup/dating apps, and absolutely no in-person contact with the affair partner again.
A potential dilemma could arise if the unfaithful partner and affair partner work in the same office, space, etc. The best solution to heal the attachment wound is to quit that job, if at all possible, and find another one where the affair partner does not work. If changing the place of employment isn’t an option, at the very least it would be helpful to transfer to another department or another work station where the affair partner doesn’t spend most of their day.
As for the hurt partner, resist the temptation to contact the affair partner and give them a piece of your mind. It is natural to concoct a variety of “fantasy scenarios” where you show up to their home or work and make a huge scene or even get into a physical altercation for revenge. This is your mind accessing anger as a way to take control of the situation where power (or security) has been taken. Whoever the affair partner is, they are not worth becoming the most important person in your life because of one bad decision that you will regret.
Tip #2 for Surviving Infidelity: Limit Conversations About the Affair
Healing trust issues after an attachment wound like infidelity takes a long time. It is crucially important that the unfaithful partner is willing to dedicate the time to hold space for their hurt partner. However, if the focus of the entire relationship is more often than not about details of the affair, it will be difficult for both partners to heal and move on whether they choose to stay together or part ways. In this aspect of recovering from an affair, containment for these necessary conversations is key.
In order to meet the needs of both partners, it is a good idea to think of a way to limit how often as well as the duration of these conversations so that infidelity does not consume your relationship. A practical way to implement this strategy is to set a time or times and a time limit for the conversations about the affair throughout the week. It might initially seem like you are creating more opportunities to drag this topic out and slow progress, but I promise you nothing will stop progress more quickly than a partner who feels unheard or that their experience is frustrating for their partner to hear.
Tip #3 for Surviving Infidelity: Be Careful What You Ask for and What You Share
This strategy can help whether you are the unfaithful partner or the hurt partner. The initial half of this strategy is geared toward the hurt partner. In the wake of discovering infidelity in your relationship, a million questions have probably come to mind about your partner’s intentions, timing, and any other potential deception that kept the infidelity alive. I highly recommend you take some time to decide what you absolutely need to know and what you are curious about. Good places to do some soul searching for this question are in couple’s counseling with a specialist, who has experience working with couples who are repairing a relationship or in your own individual counseling sessions.
The reason you will want to narrow down your focus is to avoid getting information about the affair that you cannot unlearn after your partner tells you. You do not need to know the positions, physical characteristics, pictures of the affair partner or any of the affair partner’s contact information to find the answers you need for your own inner peace. For the unfaithful partner, the same strategy applies in what you decide to tell them about your infidelity. Hurt partners can and will ask for more information than what is helpful, and it is at least partially the responsibility of the unfaithful partner to choose their words carefully to avoid flooding their partner’s mind with disturbing images.
Tip #4 for Surviving Infidelity: Put Equal Effort in to Healing the Relationship
Both parties of the relationship need to be equally invested and willing to put in some serious effort to repair the relationship. The parties of the recovering couple have two very important jobs for the foreseeable future if they are to heal the betrayal trauma of the infidelity.
The unfaithful partner’s main job in this process is to be willing to hold space for the pain they’ve caused. There should be no timeline for the hurt partner to heal. The hurt partner’s main focus in this process is to sit with their emotions and express them in a healthy way to their partner.
Neither of these are easy tasks because patience for what might seem like “dwelling” can run thin on the unfaithful partner’s end, and, equally problematic, the hurt partner may experience flooding and feel overwhelmed by intense emotions that are difficult to regulate in the moment.
Tip #5 for Surviving Infidelity: Be Patient with the Healing Process
Healing the pain from infidelity is extremely emotionally taxing to both parties. Both partners are ready to “get back to normal”, but, and this is very important, things should NOT go back to normal. What was normal wasn’t working because infidelity is just the symptom of a larger problem in the relationship.
The hurt partner must learn not only to trust their partner, but ultimately themselves again as their perception of reality has been shattered. The unfaithful partner must be willing to do in-depth work on themselves so that they may gain self-awareness of the factors within themselves that contributed to their straying. There is no magic number of months or years that I can suggest because recovery time is unique to each couple and each infidelity.
In Conclusion
Surviving infidelity is difficult, yes, but not impossible. It is certainly the harder road, and it may ultimately be the road that is most worthwhile. If you are looking for some good material to read individually or together as a couple, I recommend checking out How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Infidelity.
This book does a fantastic job of connecting with both halves of the couple , and it is written to connect with the couple as a unit . This is a quick read, and it’s quite relatable.
Tell me in the comments if these tips for surviving infidelity are helpful to you, and don’t forget to subscribe by filling out the form below to get weekly updates when a new article is posted. If you found this post beneficial and are seeking treatment to repair your relationship after discovering an infidelity, book an appointment here or by sending an email to bracechris3@gmail.com or call/text the number listed at the top of the page.
