The article delves into the intricate process of navigating emotional triggers and fostering empathy after infidelity in couples therapy.

Key themes include managing triggers, understanding the complexities of empathy and emotional connections, and the significance of rebuilding trust and intimacy post-affair. It highlights the role of science-based couples therapy in aiding couples to recover and rediscover emotional ties, fostering stronger connections and deeper meaning in the aftermath of infidelity.

After the affair: The process of healing

People new to couples therapy often feel uneasy when a couple seeks help after an affair has been revealed. A tumultuous time for most couples, and especially for the newbie couples therapist. The betrayed partner may be uncertain about whether they want to save the relationship. Partners feel the job of rebuilding trust is an overwhelming one.

You need a skilled couples therapist now, as they'll have to handle many challenges simultaneously.

Challenges like managing fear, rage and soul-shaking grief. For your marriage to last, your therapist should be comfortable handling these emotions and skilled at helping you manage them.

Here are some ideas on what to expect if you decide to get science-based couples therapy. Be sure to discuss these science-based ideas with any therapist you are interviewing.

  • You must be comfortable dealing with incredibly overwhelming emotions. And you’ll need a therapist who isn’t unsettled by them.
  • After the affair, primitive and primal feelings are aroused, often dredging up old wounds from childhood into the mix .
  • A common mistake is to hyper-focus on the Hurt Partner. I’ve seen equally devastated Involved Partners as well.
  • The Hurt Partner shows their pain more openly, but the Involved Partner's toxic shame can make them avoid healing.
  • Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is the presenting task. A lot of pain is all around.
  • The presenting Hurt Partner often looks traumatized because they are. Their world has just been upended. Racing thoughts (we call it rumination), depression, rage attacks, sleepless nights, compulsive thinking, emotional lability, nightmares, are typical.

A good therapist will normalize the abnormal. Most importantly, a good couples therapist will describe the journey of recovery accurately and offer realistic hope. It hurts badly at first, but most couples make it through to the other side.

Marriages can recover and flourish after an affair, despite the painful and difficult healing process.

Being in it to win it

You’ve got to be in it to win it. Coupes wanting to save their marriage need to be fierce and stubbornly committed to the therapeutic process. The process is to atone, attune and attach once more.

When a partner has been unfaithful, it can take two years or more to restore trust and rebuild their relationship. You’ll be invited to look at yourselves, your marriage in a profoundly different way.

If you’re on your way out, an Affair Recovery Intensive will be a waste of your time and money. A commitment to healing is essential if you are both intend to have your marriage survive.

If the affair is still ongoing, Discernment Counseling.is the only approach in science-based couples therapy. Assurances are needed from the Involved Partner that the affair is over.

Any contact with the affair partner, no matter how small, deeply upsets the Hurt Partner. The Involved Partner needs to formally stop talking to the Hurt partner, whether in person, by phone, or email.

Couples therapy can only happen after the affair and not during.

Couples therapy after cheating: Grief and healing

The grief of the Involved Partner is often a taboo subject. But refusing to discuss its existence is a mistake. After the affair ends, Involved Partners may grieve but often feel their grief is not valid.

A skilled couples therapist will go directly to the question of grief during their private session with the involved partner.

Normalizing this grief allows all the Involved Partner's emotional card to be on the table. Understanding about limerence, dopamine, and the forces that draw Involved Partners into emotional and sexual affairs is important.

Trust is the first casualty of an affair. Involved Partners often become weary of the repeated suspicions of the Hurt Partner. Affair recovery work teaches the couple how to handle the hyper-vigilant Hurt Partner.

Healing for the Hurt Partner requires a time-limited focus on this hyper-vigilance. The Involved Partner needs to hear how vital transparency and honesty is to the healing process.

A common mistake in couples therapy is encouraging complete honesty without discussing the risks involved.

Normalizing this grief allows all the Involved Partner's emotional card to be on the table. Understanding about limerence, dopamine, and the forces that draw Involved Partners into emotional and sexual affairs is important.

Trust is the first casualty of an affair. Involved Partners often become weary of the repeated suspicions of the Hurt Partner. Affair recovery work teaches the couple how to handle the hyper-vigilant Hurt Partner.

Healing for the Hurt Partner requires a time-limited focus on this hyper-vigilance. The Involved Partner needs to hear how vital transparency and honesty is to the healing process.

A common mistake in couples therapy is encouraging complete honesty without discussing the risks involved.

Managing triggers after the affair

One of the critical tasks of Hurt Partner stabilization is the mapping of triggers. When some questions are answered, they become new triggers. These are then released into the Hurt Partner's already tormented mind.

Hurt Partners need help and guidance with their line of inquiry, and a competent couples therapist will help them in this process. They will be carefully guided in the process.

In the Epiphany Phase, it is a mistake for the novice therapist to hyper-focus on forgiveness. Forgiveness is important, but comes the end of the process. Work on empathy first.

Often the Hurt Partner will be resistant to any display of genuine empathy. Empathy creates emotional connections, and sometimes these types of connections feel too intimate.

Building empathy entails understanding and connecting with another person's emotions on a deep level. This level of connection often feels intimate, sometimes uncomfortably so for the Hurt Partner. Mirroring happens when the Involved Partner entering into the Hurt Partner's emotional world, grasping their experiences, and genuinely feeling their pain or joy.

However, this depth of emotional connection can feel intrusive or too personal, creating a sense of vulnerability or unease. The Hurt Partner might imagine this closeness existed between their spouse and the affair partner.

Individuals may find it challenging to embrace this closeness, especially when it brushes against sensitive areas or triggers past discomfort. Balancing the creation of these deep connections while honoring personal boundaries becomes crucial in fostering genuine empathy without causing discomfort.

A story needs to be told about how, from the Involved Partner's perspective, the couple's intimacy began to fade. Genuine curiosity is essential, because understanding how the relationship became vulnerable is good inoculation for the future.

A couples therapist assists the couple in dealing with their emotions following the affair. They also teach them the necessary skills for improved communication.

Affairs happen because partners turn away from each other instead of turning toward. Failure to establish boundaries, and a lack of awareness as to how human intimacy develops are substantial contributing factors.

Our goal is to help a couple practice keeping their marriage vibrant and communicative. The stranger is less attractive when their marriage is vibrant.

Stronger in the broken places

Affairs are dramatic, but need not be fatal to a marriage. With science-based couples therapy, a couple can recover. A couple may not grasp that this recovery can result in a complete rebuilding and rediscovery of emotional ties. What united them in the first place now reappears stronger than before.

After the affair, many couples are genuinely engaged. They ask each other and ask “how did this happen to us?” And with this question they embark on an adventure into deeper meaning.

The article highlights the complex process of healing after an affair in couples therapy. Couples seeking help post-infidelity often face a tumultuous period, especially for therapists new to handling such situations. A skilled therapist navigates various challenges simultaneously, managing emotions like fear, rage, and profound grief.

Understanding the impact of cultural differences, the therapist creates a safe space for discussing overwhelming emotions, including trauma-like experiences in the aftermath of infidelity. The recovery journey involves acknowledging and handling intense emotions while rebuilding trust and addressing old wounds.

Key themes include the importance of commitment to the healing process, the significance of addressing grief in both partners, managing triggers and the hurt partner's hyper-vigilance, and fostering empathy and communication. The article emphasizes the transformative potential of science-based couples therapy, allowing couples to emerge stronger and more connected post-affair.

Originally published May 8, 2018

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Dr. Kathy McMahon


Dr. Kathy McMahon (Dr. K) is a clinical psychologist and sex therapist. She is also the founder and president of Couples Therapy Inc. Dr. K feels passionate about couples therapy and sex therapy and holds a deep respect towards those who invest in making their relationship better. She is currently conducting online and in person private couples retreats.

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  1. My husband and I have been struggling with ongoing fighting due to I fidelity and loss of trust now living apart but we want our marriage back and to figure out how to move forward or if we even could so we can move forward with life . Please help

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