Can You Save Your Marriage After An Affair?
By Donna Platt, LCPC, MA - Level 3 Gottman Method
It feels like an enormous weight on your shoulders. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. You have intrusive thoughts and are easily triggered. Your partner or spouse is accusing you of being unstable and controlling. Of course you are, because you can’t stop reliving the trauma and you have lost all trust in the one person you thought you knew. Yes. I used the word trauma. Because that is what we experience when we find out our partner has been unfaithful.
And what you are experiencing now are symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).
It isn’t just going to magically go away. But it doesn’t have to end here. There is hope. One research study reported that 70% of couples who experience an affair are able to work through the effects successfully. How do they do it? Shirley Glass, PhD, a licensed psychologist, marriage and family therapist who strove to redefine the nature of infidelity, provides guidance in her book “Not Just Friends”. She writes about the difficult process that couples should follow in order to heal from the trauma of an affair and the path forward for rebuilding your marriage.
The First Step Is To Process The Trauma And Rebuild Trust
There are three parts to this process.
Psychoeducation. To process the trauma, I first provide psychoeducation, meaning I educate my clients on what is happening so they can understand the dynamics and the process we are about to embark on.
Disclosure. The next critical step in processing the trauma is to talk about what happened until all the questions are answered including who, what, when, where, and why. It is the first step to rebuilding trust. There were secrets kept and the aggrieved partner needs to uncover the truth so that they can believe in their heart that there are no more secrets to be revealed. I know. You are thinking, “Isn't it just better to put it in the past and move on?” The answer is a resounding NO. Until the secrets have been revealed, the partner will not be able to let go of the questions and worries. Once questions have been answered then the obsessions can begin to subside. (The only questions that are to be avoided are those pertaining to specific sexual acts, because the answers to those questions could further exacerbate the trauma symptoms.)
And the unfaithful partner needs to make space for the hurt they caused. They need to show patience, remorse, and empathy for the hurt. It may be painful, but it is the only way to rebuild trust. By participating in this process and answering questions without anger, defensiveness, or denial, the cheating spouse is signaling that they have no more secrets and they are truly remorseful. .
Boundaries. The final step in processing the trauma and working to reduce triggers is to set boundaries. If your partner wants to check your phone, let them. If they want to tag along on an event that is giving them the jitters due to lack of trust, let them. Glass uses the metaphor of “walls and windows”, which means building a wall around a committed relationship so that an affair partner can’t break their security, and creating a window between spouses in order to facilitate open communication and a united front.
Many clients balk at this. They say they don’t want to have the type of relationship where they’re monitoring or trying to control their partner’s behaviors. I agree, this is not the ideal, and it’s certainly not something anyone wants to sustain long term. However, it is a necessary step towards rebuilding the trust that was broken, so that the aggrieved partner can begin to reestablish their perceived sense of reality.
The success of this phase is not guaranteed. It is not a silver bullet. It is dependent on many factors, including but not limited to:
How much prior trauma the betrayed partner has experienced
The resiliency of the betrayed partner
The speed of the confession. If the cheating partner continues to dodge and lie about what happened, the damage continues.
Both partners’ belief systems
Their commitment level and desire to stay together
The cheating partner’s level of remorse
The emotional intelligence of both parties and/or their ability to build more emotional intelligence
The cheating partner’s ability to tolerate their partner’s triggers and dysregulation.
Note: if there are other clinical issues present, such as a substance abuse disorder, or sex or porn addiction, then individual counseling for the client in question is also recommended.
The Second Step Is To Rebuild The Relationship
The next goal of couples counseling is to then begin the hard work of rebuilding friendship and intimacy, what I call “Marriage 2.0”. It may never be the same as it was. In many ways it may be better because in most cases, before an affair happens, there is unhappiness. One of the parties makes a poor choice to resolve their unhappiness by having an affair. And yes, I used the word “choice”.
The truth is, we always have a choice.
When a person is dissatisfied in their marriage, they have a choice to inform their spouse that they want to work on the marriage, or to ask for a divorce. But ultimately, the worst choice of all is to choose to have an affair. It’s the easy way out and the most damaging.
And guess what? An affair will not resolve your unhappiness.
The excitement of an affair is fleeting, like a beam of light that you can get close to, but never quite capture.
With the choice to stay, you need to face the problems in your relationship by working to resolve the solvable problems and manage the perpetual problems. Couples healing from the pain of infidelity need to gain insight into what went wrong in the relationship without blaming the aggrieved partner.
Critical to this is also rebuilding the friendship and your intimacy, as well as learning effective communication and conflict management skills. John Gottman, PhD., the renowned authority on marriages recommends the following:
Prioritize Quality Time Together: Engage in activities that strengthen your bond and allow for emotional vulnerability.
Practice Active Listening: Validate your partner's feelings and avoid interrupting or dismissing their concerns.
Open Communication About Sex: Discuss your sexual history, fantasies, desires, and what feels good for each other. This can feel awkward at first, but honesty is key.
Focus on Pleasure, Not Performance: Take the pressure off by focusing on enjoying each other's company and exploring what feels good.
Be Patient: Healing and rebuilding intimacy takes time. Don't expect everything to return to normal overnight.
Declare Intentions: As part of a commitment to rebuild the relationship, the couple must be explicit about their intent to reconcile to anyone important who knew there were troubles, including children, parents, or in-laws. This establishes this new relationship as “real” and provides support from those most important to you.
Recovering from an affair is complex and almost always requires an experienced therapist. Being able to express hurt feelings and process the trauma in a safe environment can facilitate healing. At Platt Professional Counseling we have a number of Gottman trained therapists who can help you build your Marriage 2.0 and begin to heal the trauma of an affair.