Affair Recovery

If you really love someone you would never have an affair. True or False?

Most people believe that if you love someone you would never forge a deep connection with someone else. In my experience of working with many couples over the years, I have found that having an affair doesn’t in fact mean that you don’t love your partner. You can love and still form a connection with someone else.

Love. We all have an idea of what it means to love and be loved — a prescribed notion of what we want, need or expect a partnership to feel like. The people we love touch us on so many levels. They can bring out our very best and tap into our absolute worst. Over time, the pressures of life can impose themselves on our relationships, shifting us into complacency and causing us to neglect what is truly important.

No one wants to consider the possibility that the person they love would intimately share themselves with someone else. For some, the betrayal of emotional intimacy feels bigger than the betrayal of “just sex.” For others, physical engagement is the ultimate line-crossing.

Affairs cause pain to everyone involved. What can begin as a simple flirtation — a drink, interest in a colleague, an attraction sparked at the gym or a convention — if not kept in perspective, can easily slide into infidelity. In the beginning, affairs offer excitement. They can provide a respite from the day-to-day challenges of life. An affair can quench the thirst of unmet longings or apply healing balm to a midlife crisis. The rush, though, is temporary. The impact, long-lasting.

When you first engage with someone outside of your marriage, you have no idea how many lives will be affected. Trust me on this: The list is much longer than you would ever anticipate. An affair is a rich fantasy which, like any addiction, develops a life of its own. Once you take the lid off the box, it never quite fits back on the same way.

The aftermath of an affair, if handled with openness and a genuine desire to heal, can provide an opening for cultivating a deeper and more authentic connection with your partner.

In recovery, you can reconnect with the person to whom you have committed. Skillful navigation offers couples the ability to to recover what they fear has been lost, to re-engage in authentic self and relational discovery.

Healing from infidelity is something extremely difficult to tackle on your own. Affairs carry social stigma and, once uncovered, tend to evoke feelings of shame in all parties involved. While many may have an opinion to offer, working with an experienced professional helps you to heal more thoroughly, set better boundaries, and avoid the pitfalls you would encounter on your own.

I am an experienced Infidelity Specialist who teaches couples how to best navigate the tumultuous waters of post affair recovery. I can help you rediscover yourself, rebuild trust, and re-engage with what is truly important in your relationship and your life.

(949) 244-3310