Are you experiencing heartache due to an emotional affair? If so, you may be wondering how you’ll heal and move forward. While it is possible, restoring trust is often a difficult challenge to overcome.
Overcoming the pain and heartache from your partner’s emotional affair can be complicated. For example, both of you are likely experiencing negative emotions, although for very different reasons. As a result, each of you has a different path to take in order to heal. However, you’ll need each other’s help to get there. As a result, negative emotions can collide, and moving forward can come to a screeching halt.
An emotional affair is difficult to move past. The sense of betrayal and loss of trust can be difficult to repair alone. However, therapy may be the key to your success. Having someone to help mediate conversations may open the door to healthy communication. Likewise, they can create an environment where you can ask all your questions and where your spouse feels safe to answer them.
Let’s talk about why therapy may be the best way to recover from an emotional affair and repair your relationship. We’ll also provide 5 tips to help your relationship heal after an affair.
Addressing the Pain of an Emotional Affair in Therapy
It can be extremely difficult for both of you to manage your feelings after an emotional affair. Examples of these negative emotions include feelings of shame, guilt, anger, shock, and fear.
As you begin to work toward healing after an affair, you may run into a variety of issues. For example, you likely have questions you need answers to. However, your partner may feel reluctant to answer them because of the intense guilt and shame they feel. As a result, you may get a short one or two-word answer or an outburst of anger. You may be met with resistance and asked why you keep bringing it up. Although difficult to face, receiving answers to your questions is vital to the healing process.
Another common scenario is when you feel so overwhelmed with hurt and anger that you can’t tolerate being in the same room together. Likewise, you may struggle to have a discussion that doesn’t erupt with emotion. As a result, bringing up the emotional affair can cause an explosion of anger. For example, out of frustration, or other emotions, you may be told to, “Just get over it!”
So, what can you do to begin the healing process after an emotional affair? For many couples, success comes through therapy. Therapy can provide a place for you to discuss your feelings and the situation in a safe environment. Together you can learn or refine your communication skills. Over time, you’ll be able to learn how to manage the negative emotions that begin to boil at the very thought of the affair.
Therapy can also be a place where you learn how to heal and rebuild trust within your relationship.
5 Tips to Keep Your Relationship Moving in the Right Direction After an Emotional Affair
As you begin therapy, you can also try these 5 tips to keep your relationship moving in the right direction after an emotional affair.
- Find a support person. It can be difficult, daunting, and frustrating to repair a relationship after an emotional affair. For example, your efforts to make things better may be rejected or criticized by your spouse. Having someone to talk to may help you sort through your emotions.
- Be flexible with what your partner needs. Both of you are dealing with the aftermath of the emotional affair. As a result, what you need, and what your partner needs can vary day by day. Being willing to adapt to the change in each other’s needs can help the process seem more manageable.
- Help your spouse understand what comfort looks and feels like to you. After a violation of trust, what used to calm you down may now infuriate you. Therefore, offer clear communication of how your partner can comfort you.
- Express a willingness to do whatever it takes. Committing to each other that you’ll do whatever it takes to heal after an emotional affair can make a huge difference in how you get through it.
- Open up. Expressing your feelings and showing vulnerabilities may be the opposite of what you want to do right now. However, as both
Life After an Affair
No one can tell you what your life will look like after you heal. In fact, the outcome of your healing process may look different than you ever imagined. Although an emotional affair inflicts a devastating blow to the trust within your relationship, it doesn’t mean healing isn’t possible. Many couples repair and rebuild trust. If that’s what the both of you want, there is a path forward.
Bloom for Women offers a safe haven for you to discover you’re not alone in your journey. The betrayal of an emotional affair can affect everyone differently. However, having someone to relate to may bring a sense of peace and validation to your heart. Likewise, you deserve to feel supported as you try and process all of your emotions. You can find individual, couples, and group therapy options that may help you heal after an emotional affair on our website.