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How Do You Mentally Recover From an Affair?

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Can you ever fully recover from an affair? Does the pain of infidelity ever go away? These questions and more are likely racing through your mind as you and your partner attempt to move past infidelity and start anew. These questions also come up for those wanting to heal as a single individual, and healing in both cases is absolutely possible. 

After experiencing such an intense betrayal, it’s natural to feel a wide range of emotions. Feelings of anger, fear, humiliation, sadness, and despair can often seem permanent. But no feeling is final, and it is possible to fully recover from the trauma of infidelity and go on to have a happy relationship in the future. If you’re wanting to save your marriage or relationship after an affair, it’s possible So as long as you and your partner put your minds and hearts to the task., your bond can be healed and made stronger than ever before. Alternatively, your relationship with yourself can also come out on the other side healthier and more vibrant. 

However, you both will likely need some help along the way. Whether you decide to stay and create a healthier, stronger relationship together or decide to part ways, there is hope for dealing with the fallout, including damaged self-esteem, trauma, PTSD, obsessive overthinking, shame, and more.

That’s where we come in!. To start you and your partner off on the right path, Well Marriage Center put together this quick guide to offer a bird’s eye view of the affair recovery process and explain what to expect as you begin to rebuild your relationship. 

What Are the Stages of Healing After an Affair?

The road to recovery after infidelity is paved with many challenges, and no two situations are the same. However, there are three common stages that all couples must navigate: 

  • Discovery: In affair recovery, the first step is to allow the person who was cheated on to express their perspective and emotions. Confusion, embarrassment, anger, hurt—people obviously feel many emotions when they discover their partner has cheated on them, but a trained counselor will help them navigate and express those feelings in a healthy manner. Additionally, a counselor will help the person who cheated process their partner’s feelings without resentment and learn how to move on from the mistakes they made. 
  • Processing: After the first phase is complete, it’s time for the couple to evaluate what led up to the affair. Ideally, this is where both people take responsibility for the underlying issues in their relationship. Of course, nothing excuses such a significant breach of trust as infidelity, but in order to move past infidelity, both partners must communicate honestly about what happened to their relationship. This will help the couple evaluate the reasons that led to one person stepping out and improve their communication moving forward. This is a very delicate process and takes a lot of time and effort to work through.
  • Reconciliation: Here is where you begin to build trust again. After the main pain points and issues surrounding your relationship have been identified, you and your partner can work together to reconcile and move forward with your relationship. This takes time and patience. If you and your partner are truly willing to give things another chance, it’s entirely possible that you will achieve and maintain a deeply intimate and strong relationship, even after such a traumatic event

How Long Does Infidelity Trauma Last?

Infidelity recovery is not a linear process, and the effects of betrayal on the brain can produce life-altering changes. Oftentimes, couples take two steps forward and one step back. Although it is completely natural to feel impatient, you must give yourselves time to heal. 

Understanding how you both got into this situation and taking steps to reconcile intense emotions takes time and determination. However, neither of you should dwell on resentment and allow yourselves to become stuck. 

Working with a counselor can help you both stay on track and make consistent progress while ensuring the healing process of both parties is respected. At Well Marriage Center, our counselors will work with you on your own terms and on your own time. We believe that you and your partner should resist the urge to put a strict timeline on things. Ultimately, how you heal is far more important than how quick the process is. 

Your Healing Journey Starts Here

 

Working with a skilled therapist who specializes in relationships – and all they entail, including trust, trauma, communication, intimacy, and forgiveness – has multiple benefits for couples and individuals after an affair. The trying times can be processed with a guide in a compassionate way that promotes healing. Having an objective expert voice to gently help unravel the pain and disappointments can make a huge difference in how you process and move forward, even if ultimately you decide to separate post discovery. Many couples, however, do find success after infidelity; we’ve seen it happen.

Willingness to seek help and admit wrongdoing are some of the main signs your marriage will survive infidelity. At Well Marriage Center, our team of professionally licensed counselors have years of training and experience in helping all types of couples navigate infidelity. Our expert team is committed to being “relationship friendly.” This means our goal is to help you and your partner build trust in one another and rekindle the loving relationship you once had without advocating for separation or divorce. If you and your partner are willing to put in the work, Well Marriage can help you pick up the pieces and trust each other again. Schedule your appointment today or read more on our blog.

 

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How Long Does It Take To Forgive an Affair?

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According to the Infidelity Institute, it takes around 18 months to recover from an affair. But this is merely a standard industry answer. In reality, the road to reconciliation is different for every couple and timelines for effective affair recovery vary greatly. 

But how do you forgive someone you love for hurting you? To truly heal together after an affair, couples must understand two important concepts: 

  1. Infidelity leaves deep, painful, emotional and psychological scars that take time and dedication to work through.
  2. Forgiveness isn’t straightforward, and learning how to heal from infidelity trauma as a couple demands a lot of self-restraint and patience. 

We want to make sure that any couple who has experienced such a painful event has the resources they need. Nobody should have to carry the pain and trauma their entire lives or let it identify them forever. Let’s take a look at and elaborate on each of these points to explain how a couple can move past an affair and, surprisingly, build a stronger bond. 

Why Does Infidelity Hurt So Much?

The main reason an affair causes so much pain is because infidelity has a lasting impact on a person’s psyche. To illustrate, here are a few of the most common long term infidelity effects:

  • For the person who was cheated on, an affair can cause chronic anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. Some studies have even suggested that infidelity may produce PTSD symptoms at a relatively high rate. These feelings can last long after the infidelity is discovered and are often challenging to process and move past without professional help.
  • Infidelity can make it more difficult to fall back in love. Our brains naturally generate more oxytocin and dopamine when we are in love. But when we experience infidelity, the pathways our brain uses to release these chemicals become disrupted, which impacts an individual’s ability to love themselves and others, again. 
  • Affairs make it harder for people to trust themselves, their partners, and also cause many to develop a general mistrust of others—including family, friends, and coworkers. In reference to trust issues, Psychologist Steven Stonsy states, “Just as the harm of a gunshot wound threatens the general health of the body, intimate betrayal goes well beyond issues of trust and love to infect the way we make sense of our lives in general.” For many couples in affair recovery, learning to trust again is their most significant challenge. 

Can You Truly Forgive an Affair? 

The short and quick answer is yes; it is possible to truly forgive an affair. But short and quick solutions are not the most helpful when it comes to affair recovery. In truth, the path to forgiveness is paved with patience. Both partners in the relationship must be patient with themselves and with each other as they navigate difficult topics and heal their wounds. Ultimately, it’s best to avoid putting a timeline on your recovery process. Another point to recognize is that couples do not have to recover on their own. 

With the guidance of a licensed, specialized counselor, healing a relationship after infidelity is a much more peaceful and effective process. Throughout recovery, it’s often difficult for individuals to learn how to describe the pain of infidelity and express its impact on their personal well being. A counselor can help both parties express their feelings and unique perspectives in a healthy and productive way. They can also help you uncover reasons not to divorce after infidelity.

At Well Marriage Center, our counselors will work with you and your partner to examine the dynamics that lead to infidelity, and explore your relationship to develop a healthy solution for both partners. Our ultimate goal is to help you forgive and better understand one another so you both can achieve a higher level of relational health and forge a secure and loving relationship.

If you’re ready to begin again, take the first step and schedule your appointment today.

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Forgiveness in Relationships

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It’s been said that in forgiving others we give ourselves permission to move forward with our own lives, and there’s some truth to that. Hitting the same road block, going back emotionally to the same thing over and over, puts a huge strain on us physically and stunts our relationships with ourselves and others. It damages our hearts and our bodies to carry such stress around each day. Forgiving your partner, when you choose to, has many benefits.

On Forgiveness

Whether the harm was intentional or not, it takes both people in the relationship or marriage working together to move to a place of forgiveness. If you were the one who “messed up,” for example, you will need to hear your partner’s deepest feelings, work with them on what they need to forgive, and accept boundaries that make them feel safe enough to trust again. You will also need to explain your position and the “why” of it all. If you are the partner who wants to forgive, you will have to be very vulnerable and put into words the reasons why you are stuck at this point and can’t move forward. You’ll have to really hear and understand your partner’s position. You’ll both need to be prepared to work with your therapist and try the skills and tools they present.

We mention therapists here because the art of forgiveness between couples is further complicated by other baggage we carry—childhood traumas and the subsequent protective walls we put up, our inability to communicate, our fear and confusion, our mistrust of the situation and our partners. Typically, if someone is really struggling to forgive, even though they want to forgive, there are deeper elements at play in the relationship and a specialist can help you both navigate the situation in a healthy and productive manner.

The Silver Lining

Whatever caused your unique need for forgiveness  (we all know it’s not always infidelity that creates rifts between couples)  it is possible to forgive and move forward again.

A truly inspiring element of the human condition is that as we work through these issues in healthy ways, we come out on the other side closer, more loving, and with a real understanding and compassion that we often lacked before. This can be so beneficial for a couple.

To get started, reach out to our intake coordinator Melinda. She’ll make sure you get placed with a skilled therapist that deeply cares about saving your situation.

 

Success Stories: Karen and Peter

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On the vulnerability of sharing success stories:

Sometimes a couple wants to share their story. We’re really appreciative of the vulnerability and trust such a feat takes, and we hope you appreciate these stories as well.

(Names have been changed to preserve the author’s privacy.)

If your relationship is struggling, or if you feel empowered to take preventative steps to keep your relationship in a good place, we’re here to work with all couples who are willing to put in the effort.

Great relationships can be built, rebuilt, and sustained.

Karen and Peter:

I know that we’re not the only couple to experience an affair.  I know it happens to people more frequently than you would think. But it had never happened to any of my friends or family, so when I found out about it, I was completely devastated. I would never blame anyone for being done with their cheating partner, but too often I think people believe that’s their only choice.

We don’t hear about couples who survive affairs, and it does happen.  I’m living proof that you can survive an affair and still be married to the same guy.

I wanted a female counselor, which is one of the reasons I found Mary. I’m really glad it was Mary. She certainly gave me time and space to talk about what it was like to be cheated on, how I felt, how angry I was, and how hurt I was. But the bigger thing she did was help me (and us) understand the affair as a symptom of bigger problems we didn’t know how to fix. It was my choice to stay and work on it. It was also his choice to stay and work on things. Now we are working on understanding what was unhealthy about our relationship and we’re working on making it better. It takes some time. It also takes working on yourself.

I wish we could have done this years ago because I definitely think it might have prevented all this.

What I’ve learned is after an affair, you cannot stay the same in your relationship. You cannot stay the same in life. You have to decide and then change. Whatever you decide, don’t carry the hurt and pain without talking to someone. Don’t do that to yourself.  If you decide to work through it, give Mary a call.  You and your husband will feel comfortable with her.  We’re really glad we did.

 

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