Can our relationship survive an affair?

Yes, it's not guaranteed, but it is possible.

The fallout from an affair can be intense and long term. It doesn't just go away, and it will continue to fester until all parts are resolved. Lots of people say 'but it was just flirting', or 'it didn't mean anything' or 'it just happened'.

The language used by the unfaithful partner to minimise and shut down the hurt partner can seriously undermine a relationship.

Communication suffers, people withdraw emotionally, and the toxicity gets stuffed deep down into unspoken resentment.

Everything can appear to be ok, you might even be ok, and then something will happen which will trigger an emotional response and you'll be left reeling and wondering what is happening to you. 

Do you find yourself:

• Seething at your partners lack of insight into your pain?

• Wishing your partner would 'build a bridge and get over it'?

• Wishing your partner would find a way to move on, because haven't you apologised enough now? Can't we move on? Do we have to talk about this AGAIN?

• Ruminating and obsessing about everything your partner says and does? 

• Clock watching whenever they are late home?

• Keeping an internal score on your partners honesty and consistency when they tell you things?

• Checking your partners phones, emails and online history, as well as worrying about who they are facebooking with?

• Fretting about the time your partner spends away from you on activities they do, such as exercise, cycling, hobbies, work, etc?

• Listening in on your partners conversations with others in the hope of finding out something?

• Spending enormous energy on trying to figure out if your partner has had an affair or not?

• Becoming hypervigilant to changes in behaviour?

• Lacking interest in any kind of sexual or physical intimacy and find yourself pulling away from anything that requires you to connect to your unfaithful partner?​

• Not talking about things because they are in so much pain and you don't want to make it worse for them?

• Telling yourself that you should be able to just move on and let it go?

• Always bringing things up, and it always ends up in fights.

• stuck in that place betwen biding your time and hoping things will get better.

• Feeling confused because you are getting mixed messages all the time?

• Thinking you deserve everything because of past life choices you may have made?

• Shutting down so neither of you rocks the boat?

• ​​Feeling manipulated by your unfaithful partner because they say they have stopped, but continue the same actions and conduct as if they are still engaged in inappropriate behaviour? Is it becoming about you not trusting them, leaving you feeling as if you  should be able to get over it and trust him/her, no matter what is in front of you?

• Getting along ok, but becoming more and more intolerant of each other, with little things taking on what can feel like irrational and overwhelming importance?

• ​feeling as if you just have to shut up and hang in there until you are strong enough to leave?

• Worrying that you'll never be able to rebuild trust and you'll always be blamed and held to account?

• Feeling as if your actions will never be forgiven, and why bother if it's never going to get any better?

• Wondering if this is as good as it's ever going to get...and should you just end it and move on?

 

If any of this sounds like you, or your relationship, then there is assistance.

 

When emotions don't get processed from intense trauma, it becomes ongoing emotional responses and reactions that can become overwhelming and end up driving our everyday actions and interactions.

You, the hurt partner, think about THE AFFAIR all the time! You obsess about it, you question, you get suspicious, and you wonder about the little inconsistencies, the times your partner was late home, those phone calls, text messages and on it goes.

It can seem as if you are going crazy if you are the hurt partner, but you aren't; you are just in a heightened state of tension, pain, vigilance and unresolved conflict, which is a perfectly normal state to be in when everything is taken into account.

How do you deal with it? You talk, talk and talk some more. You find a way to communicate what is happening for you to your partner, each of you, and this is how I can help you.

Heart Healing is a about helping you communicate with each other in a new and respectful way.

It's about learning what you need to do in order to help your hurt partner heal.

It's about the hurt partner speaking their truth and finding validation in the speaking.

It's about the unfaithful partner acknowledging the hurt they have caused and listening, really listening, and being present to their partners pain and anger...yes, especially the anger.

It's about supporting you through this time of talking, reconnecting and negotiating a new relationship out of the old one.

And, importantly, it's about honouring each of you in a non-judgmental way, giving you the tools and support necessary to work on building a new life together, while integrating the pain of the affair into an appropriate state within each of you, allowing it to become part of the relationship, without overwhelming it.

A relationship doesn't have to end because of an affair, it can grow stronger and deeper if we learn how to open up and be honest.

Even if your relationship has ended, you can still recover your life and move on. We think we deal with things because we 'don't go there' or 'that's in the past'.  The truth is, no matter how long ago the affair was, the impact of it continues to reverberate, like the ripples on a pond after a stone has been thrown in it.

Whether you were the unfaithful, or the hurt partner, you can recover from the hurt, pain, anger and grief that ensued and still lingers. 

I know this, because it's our journey too...we get you, we hear you and we understand you.

If you'd like to experience someone 'getting you', we invite you to send us a message or give either of us a call - we know how tough it is to have a safe place in which to talk and be heard. 

www.loving-therapy.com

My own journey of recovery

A bit of my story...

When I first found out about my husbands affair I did everything to prove it hadn't happened. We were going on our honeymoon in 8 days and this couldn't possibly have been real.

I spent those 8 days frantically searching for the "truth" and hating the woman who had brought this into my life. I was confronted with text messages, phone bills and a whole lot of other stuff that made it impossible to disprove, yet what did I do? I shunted it out of the way and carried on my life as if nothing had happened.

I now know that I knew the real truth and what I was experiencing was cognitive dissonance; that state where the reality intrudes on the internal story and the internal conflict becomes too great to bear so we hide from the truth and deny it.

As I denied the truth I dissociated from it and denied it any space within my heart or head, but that only worked for so long.

It would be two years before I found the courage within me to confront my husband with the truth; two years of intense pain, shame, humiliation, anxiety and complex PTSD symptoms as I bore the brunt of his own toxic shame as he blamed me for the behaviours I was exhibiting: suspicion, jealousy, possessiveness and so on.

It wasn't until we experienced an event so damaging to my psyche that I physically ran away in fear that we were able to begin moving forward.

Coming back from that brink of raw fear and pain was the most excruciating thing I have ever done in my life. I had to finally confront my own demons and recognise that my flight or fight response was always locked into flight mode and if I didn't take a stand for myself, then I'd always stay in flight mode whenever I experienced emotional pain.

This was a breakthrough and was the moment I started to understand how to come back from the brink and reclaim me.

I continue to do that and it's an ongoing process.


We hear you and don't judge.

What is a relationship?

What is a relationship?

Before we get too much further into what listening is, let’s look at what a relationship is.

Everyone is in a relationship of some kind, whether it’s with the local doctor, your children, your boss, the next door neighbour or your partner or spouse. No matter what the nature of the interaction, it’s still a relationship.

When we talk about a relationship in this book, we are generally talking about the kind of relationship you have with a loved one, your wife/husband/partner or significant other. The things you will discover about listening apply to any relationship, but to make it easy, we are referring to your primary intimate relationship.

Now let’s unpack that intimate relationship a bit more.

What makes up a relationship? Sure, we all know that two people make a relationship, but what is it that actually makes the relationship? Is it just two people living together? Is it marriage that makes a relationship? Is it the commitment? Is it children? Isn’t that an interesting and challenging set of questions…’what actually makes the relationship’?

For clarity, and ease of understanding, we are going to define a relationship as a triangle: You, Me, The Relationship. If we were to see it visually, you and your partner would be at the bottom, and the relationship would be at the top. Why? Well, for us, a relationship is more than just two people in an intimate dynamic. For us, a relationship is made up of three parts, and each part must work on itself and the other parts for the relationship to work effectively.

Imagine this: you go to counselling to work on developing your own self awareness, and your partner doesn’t. If you don’t know how to work on more than yourself, your relationship will, over time, wither from lack of support and care. If you are the only one listening in a relationship, doesn’t it become one-sided, and if it does become one-sided how can the other parts survive and grow?

The answer is, they can’t. It takes the both of you in that intimate dynamic we call a relationship to actually make the relationship work. Without both of you working at keeping the relationship alive and flourishing, nurtured and growing, nothing will keep your relationship alive over time.


www.loving-therapy.com

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