Steps For Moving Past An Affair. So your husband cheated. You found out due to discovery, not by his disclosure which makes it even worse. If you hadn’t found out would he ever have told you? Now you think you can’t ever trust him. hings were pretty normal in your routine so you feel blindsided. For many couples an affair feels like the absolute end of the committed relationship or marriage. And for some it is. An affair can be the end if it is used as a means to an end or the Exit Plan. But for others, it can be the beginning of a stronger and more viable union.
Steps for moving past an affair:
1. Feel your feelings. You’ll experience a range of emotions – sad, angry, scared, numb. Normalizing the emotions is a good start.
2. Concentrate on yourself. Especially if you were the one who got cheated on. Think about your own needs. Be selfish for once and treat yourself to something nice that will raise your confidence and self-esteem. Feeling better about yourself helps while you undergo the process of healing.
3. Exercise Empathy instead of hurrying the process of Forgiveness. Forgiveness will come in time but the affair will never be forgotten. With empathy, along with compassion and understanding, the memory should bring about positive change in both partners whether the decision is to stay together or move on.
4. Go on a Date with your partner. As the affair conversation becomes a daily part of your life, you are going to need to talk about something else. Don’t talk about who cheated and why, or how many times. Instead, talk about neutral topics.
5. Work on Erotic Recovery. This begins when you choose to begin the recovery from the affair. Talk about what you each want in your sex life going forward. Don’t focus on what’s not working or how you’ve been disappointed in the past.
6. Start creating a Vision of your New Life together. What do you want in your new life together? That old marriage is over. Once one of you cheated, it was the end of the vision you had of your committed, monogamous partnership. But this marriage is yours to create and begin anew.
7. Create a New Monogamy Agreement (The New Monogamy). A contract created by the two of you with specific wants and don’t wants for moving forward addressing implicit and explicit expectations.
8. Go to a Couples Counselor who specializes in Infidelity and Affair Recovery.
Many couples who come into see me for Couples Counseling find that their relationship doesn’t necessarily have to end in divorce or separation. What they learn through the process has helped create an even stronger relationship where some couples say the affair may have been the best thing that could have happened to them.
For more information on Affair Recovery and how to move past an Infidelity please contact me at (858) 735-1139 or email me at CouplesCounselorSanDiego.com