Affair Recovery

Your life and relationship will NEVER BE THE SAME.

Your soul feels crushed.

Trust is gone!

Or maybe you’re the one who broke the trust.

Can you heal? Will You EVER heal?

Can your relationship survive?

Yes, YES, YES.

You can heal, and the two of you may be able to restore the lost trust.

What did you feel the moment you found out?

You either found out because the betrayal was discovered or disclosed. Did time stand still for unnatural and awful moments? Then a thousand incoming chaotic thoughts?

Did the anger and rage come out? How. Could. You!!!!

As the injured partner, it is crushing; you fear abandonment, angry, raging, or overwhelmed. You feel the loss.

Or… if you’re the injuring partner, you’re defensive, uncertain, feeling guilt and shame, or maybe relief.

An affair shatters your assumptions about yourself, your partner, and your togetherness.

The revealing or discovery can be traumatic for both of you. It’s one thing to drop THE BOMB of a one-night-stand, then admit it with genuine tears and remorse.

It’s a different thing to be told you’re crazy for thinking or feeling what you’ve been thinking and feeling for the past 6 months then learn, yes, there is an affair.

“Argh” doesn’t come to close to what you’re feeling!!!

Deception crushes trust.

A part of the trust recovery process happens when both partners have a rationale for how the affair occurred.

If you don’t, then you cannot predict when it might occur again.

It would naturally be tough for anyone to begin to trust the other or even themselves again.

Affairs can destroy relationships…

…but not always.

There’s real help to sort out what you want.

Perhaps the affair created such a dramatically pain-filled trauma that you now can save your relationship? Maybe you can have more of the relationship (with each other) that you both longed for but couldn’t achieve on your own.

Don’t get me wrong! I would never suggest having an affair with anyone.

But, I can help the two of you become incredibly clear in your hearts as to what you want.

With your permission, in session, I’ll parachute right into your pain and work to help both of you in your agony.

Both of you are hurting.

My work occurs with the two of you.

Your coping strategies may not be working right now.

You can stop the relationship crash, understand the affair, and build trust with your partner again.

Phase 1: Relationship Crash – Stop the Bleeding!

Your hurt probably presents itself differently in both of you. It would be easy to believe the other is not hurting because the hurt is different. I trust your hurt is there and fully alive with pain. For both of you.

You’ll likely experience distressing flashbacks and will need to build some clear boundaries necessary to protect the relationship from the former affair partner. I suspect the relationship between you is full of powerful emotions or avoiding intense emotions.

Things get intense and strained between you. I can imagine negative emotions flying all over both of you. Defensiveness, contempt, anger, frustration, shaming, and blaming to name a few.

I help couples begin to make sense of their responses to each other and as that happens, many times the couple begins to slow down their negative interactions.

Phase 2: Understanding the Affair

The immediate pain of the affair is waning, but understandably trust has not returned. Trust may be growing. But the intense emotional pain still pops up; maybe like you are “being tackled by your feelings.”

As you allow me, I come alongside the relationship and help you navigate talking about the affair without causing additional damage.

There is a map to exploring relationship hurt(s). I’ll help you navigate the map. When couples gain insight into themselves and each other, they become clearer about what happened and maybe even why.

From this new and different place, you could move more quickly through the healing process.

Phase 3: Building Trust

The process of affair recovery can gather momentum as the relationship is changing. Over time, both of you have gained a shared understanding of how the affair happened.

At this phase, the two of you are much softer and more engaged than in the past. Older, negative patterns of relating still pop up but are becoming a distant memory.

You can talk about what sucks in the relationship, and nobody dies.

As the injuring partner takes responsibility for the betrayal and other offending actions that wounded trust, the door of renewing trust can open. As renewing trust emerges, the two of you move closer towards each other.

Safety becomes more real for the two of you. As the relationship experiences new and different safety, intimacy can emerge. When safety and intimacy become more commonplace, playfulness shows up.

The two of you can become much softer and more engaged than you were in the past. The bond, the connection that you thought was lost, never to be found again is growing stronger.

Relationship recovery promises do not exist.

Some couples can successfully reclaim their relationship. But some of my couples divorce, and there are a thousand good reasons for separation or divorce.

If you’re contemplating separation or divorce, I suggest you check out my Divorce Options Conversation. If you’re at all unsure, you owe it to yourself and your partner to experience each other in this hosted conversation.

Don’t navigate uncertain waters alone.

Call me for a free 20-minute consultation.

I will not blame you or shame you, no matter what you say. I can help you and your partner navigate treacherous and uncertain waters so that you arrive at the best conclusions for you.

Call today! Why wait? (501) 205-4570

I used to look in the mirror and see myself looking back. Now all I see is shattered glass.
– James Furrow Ph.D., EFT Trainer