Healing Your Relationship After an Affair


Mental Health Blog / Saturday, June 1st, 2019

Hurt is synonymous with affairs, whether emotional or physical.

Most people don’t start affairs because their partners are lacking something; but rather because they experience fundamental unhappiness. This may be an unconscious expression of an unhealthy relationship with love. Often partners who cheat experience some unresolved hurt.  Sometimes an affair provides an adequate distraction and offers an escape from the painful reality of life.

Contrary to modern myth; unhappiness, feeling unloved, and sexual attraction are rarely the catalysts that cause people to cheat. What often lures people to have affairs is the opportunity to start again. This provides freedom to cross boundaries and try out different roles than they would have with their partner.

But what happens to their current partner, whom they supposedly still love, should they find out?

The partner tends to blame themselves.

The first question that enters the minds of people who have been cheated on is, “What’s wrong with me”?.

They will look inside themselves in an attempt to discover what makes them so unlovable that their partner would choose to go elsewhere.

They lose faith in the cheater.

Whether they choose to stay in the relationship or not, the person that’s been cheated on will struggle to fully trust their cheating partner again. The relationship has been shattered, causing words and actions to be questioned; sometimes relentlessly.

They’re likely to be on an emotional rollercoaster for a while.

Everything they believed about their relationship has been compromised; their emotions may flow uncontrollably between acceptance, hurt, outrage, and even hate.

If you’re considering cheating, possibly you’re in the middle of, or the victim of an affair; counselling can help you come to terms with your relationship and help you find an internal solution.  Through counselling, I can help you find the right answers for you.

Sources:

https://www.liveabout.com/major-effects-of-extra-marital-affairs-1102857
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201004/having-affair-there-are-six-different-kinds
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-houghton/affair_b_1408048.html
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/03/esther-perel-on-affairs-spouses-in-happy-marriages-cheat-and-americans-dont-understand-infidelity.html
http://time.com/4994199/esther-perel-cheating-infidelity-relationships-marriage/

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