Few things are as disruptive to marriage and partnered relationships as Infidelity. It unearths and extracts all sense of trust and security in our most vulnerable of relationships. Partners can experience real trauma as the result of this rupture. The partner who has been betrayed will be experiencing feelings of grief, sadness, loneliness, betrayal, anger, frustration, and more. The partner who has stepped out of the relationship is often feeling shame, anger, sadness, loneliness and much more. It is complicated because it involves a rupture of intimacy as well as a rupture of trust. You’ll both be wondering how you got here.

If you’ve experienced infidelity in your relationship, you are likely feeling a great deal of pain. You may be hyperfixated on the affair with lots of questions your partner is unwilling or unable to answer. You are likely experiencing a loss of sleep, appetite, or have trouble experiencing or finding joy. You may have conflicting emotions such as contempt for your partner, while also having an increased desire for sex. You may want to be far away from your partner while also craving closeness. You are trying to make sense of something that makes no sense and it is as if your world has been turned upside down, and your fairy tale of happily ever after edited without your consent.

First of all, know that you are not alone, and you are definitely not crazy - although you may be feeling this way. There is a whole range of emotions and thoughts that you are experiencing, and the one person you need to be able to process all this pain with is the person who has hurt you so deeply.

While everything seems hopeless and broken, there is hope, and this can be repaired.

Remarkably very few marriages end in divorce as the result of infidelity. Many couples stay married, but if they don’t do the work of repair, that relationship is overshadowed by the affair, and couples are married in name, but do not restore the intimacy and connection that was breached. This does take both partners working to understand and heal from the breach in the marriage.

This is one life event that you will most likely need the guiding hand of a marriage counselor who is trained in helping couples through this difficult phase. Your counselor can help the betrayed partner understand the reasons why the affair happened, and the path back to trusting again. A good counselor can help the partner who betrayed the marriage stay in accountability without going to shame.

It’s not easy work, but it can be done. This can be the event that is the wake-up call in your relationship that will help you to a level of intimacy that was lacking before the affair.

If this is your experience, please click the button for a free consultation today. It will help you make sense of a senseless world restore trust in yourself and your partner.