You’ve been betrayed.
The person who was supposed to have your back, love you, and be there for you had an affair.
That’s a huge shock to your system – your mind, your body, your emotional well-being. It’s devastating, it sucks, and it’s hard to find yourself in this space.
At once, you stop seeing the future and all you see is the past.
Feeling sad, disbelief, frustration, and down right anger – that’s all normal.
You ask yourself – “was our entire relationship built on a lie?”
Questions abound. Do I stay? Do I leave? Will I ever trust my partner again? What do I do? All of these are fine.
Give yourself the space and time to process what’s happened for you – physically, mentally, and emotionally – so you can decide what to do, not react to what happened.
What the future holds will look differently based on whether you decide to leave or stay.
If you decide to leave, give yourself space and time to grieve lost hopes and dreams. Learn to trust again, embrace your strengths in new relationships, move forward on your terms. Therapy can help you do that.
If you decide to stay, get into couples therapy to start rebuilding trust between you and your partner. Again, give yourself space and time to grieve.
Identify issues that need to be addressed for the relationship to work going forward. Start building a foundation for a healthy relationship following the affair. Finally, close the book on your “before the affair” relationship – that relationship is gone and will never return. The two of you can start writing a new book about your new relationship.
Not all relationships can be saved after an affair. Those couples who want to try to create a loving, mutually fulfilling relationship after an affair must be determined to heal and willing to work on it.
Whatever the outcome, you will heal.
Couples therapy helps navigate difficult conversations following an affair.