Alcohol Abuse Advice

Infidelity Recovery – Healing Together After an Affair

If you’ve experienced infidelity, recovery and healing together can seem like an insurmountable task. Cheating puts a great strain on your relationship and drives a wedge between you and your spouse. There are all kinds of negative feelings and emotions being felt that needs to be controlled and work through to survive the affair and repair your marriage.

In the case of infidelity, recovery is going to take a great deal of commitment and hard work but for a couple determined on staying together and making their marriage flourish, it’s more than worth any effort put forth. In most cases, getting over betrayal takes a very long time, so you do need to have realistic expectations and don’t expect too much too soon. If you’re the cheater, don’t expect your spouse to forgive and forget straight away. He or she wants to see concrete evidence that you are no longer sneaking around lying and that you are truly remorseful for all the hurt and pain that you caused. You will have to make huge efforts to earn back the trust and respect of your spouse.

Apart from the lost of trust, there is most likely a break down of communication in your relationship after the affair. So the two of you need to work on strengthening your marriage communication. You need to start practicing being 100 percent honest and transparent or being open and accessible with each other and start sharing your innermost thoughts and fears, that is your life with each other.

One thing that the cheater absolutely must do is to cut off all contact with the other person. Continuing to have any type of contact with your paramour will only serve to undermine the work that you two are trying to do to repair your marriage and heal together.

Healing takes different times for different people when you are recovering from an affair. There’s a whole set of old and new issues that needs to be put to rest once and for all. When dealing with infidelity, recovery is akin to overcoming alcoholism or any other addiction in that you have to set a course and take it day by day. You’ll have your setbacks and disappointments, but if you stick to the course, it will eventually start to get a little better and easier. Many couples do come through this crisis stronger and more committed to each other.