Counselling after cheating or betrayal can be the difference between facing a problem together and fighting each other. Turning towards each other, seeing each other with compassion and showing resilience can mean the difference between relationship breakdown and finding each other through the darkness. Does counselling help after cheating? It depends on how it is approached.
It’s not time that heals wounds, but what you do with that time that matters most.
When you look at how the concept of marriage/relationship has changed, we can see that it has gone from being an economic decision (based on acquisition of land, money or titles) to one of passion, meaning, and connection. This means, when our partner strays from the boundaries we have agreed to, feelings of betrayal, resentment, anger and more come to the surface. Generally, this is someone we have chosen and agreed to spend our life with. This is the person who should feel like the safest space in the world, and vis versa. So why would they cheat?
Isolation, Loneliness and Abandonment
Cheating often occurs when one partner feels they are neglected, are not seen, and are wanting to feel genuine connection to another human. It can truly be a way of reaching out and meeting a basic need, when the perception is that they do not have that at home. Life is complicated; it gets in the way, it keeps us busy, and unresolved issues that seem small when they happen can grow within us without notice. Drifting happens, but maintaining connection to your partner even during chaos is so incredibly important to sustaining a healthy relationship.
Cheating is not a one-size-fits all. It does not generally occur as a single event created in a vacuum. The majority of cheating I see in practise is done by a spouse who feels alone, isolated, and abandoned. Does this excuse the hurt and betrayal? No, absolutely not. But talking through the experience outside of the perpetrator/victim roles can allow understanding and compassion to form in a space that was previously occupied by rage.
Complacency
Or in other words, boredom. Long term relationships become comfortable. Day-to-day becomes repetitive. Life becomes stale. An affair can bring excitement, passion, and colour back into life that seems to be passing by without any vibrancy. Most people refer to this stage as the “mid-life crisis”, but calling it that can deflate the very real feelings that come along with this. As a society we use this as a punch line to almost make fun of people’s dissatisfaction with day-to-day life, which actually alienates people, thereby decreasing the likelihood of them confiding in us. The longer this goes, the more likely they are to cheat, buy a motorcycle or take up skydiving.
The other side to this too, is taking your partner for granted. They have always been there, so they likely always will be. This is sort of like “we hurt the people closest to us the most”. We have a sense of security in knowing that this other person has pledged themselves to us, and it would be harmful to everyone involved in the family if there were ever a separation. You trust their presence in your life so much that it’s difficult to imagine them making a choice to leave. Something that always seems to surprise the betrayer, is when their spouse/partner chooses to leave them.
Roles in Relationship
Perpetrator and Victim
Without counselling or support through the period of time following cheating, people grasp onto blame and play whatever role fits them. Often times, this means one person is to blame, and another person has the freedom to be angry and punish the other. While this is normal and how near every one handles betrayal, after a while it moves past being unhelpful and becomes outright damaging.
Perpetrators are the ones who do the cheating. Something has led them down a road where, more often than not, it seems like the only space where they can feel wanted. Feeling loved looks different for everyone. Victims, by definition, play the role of the powerless. Often this comes out as holding little to no responsibility for the breakdown in relationship and often times see their position as superior. This is a natural occurrence for most and is usually a learned perspective. At the end of the day, the perspective generally is that this was the person who was cheated on and therefore were not part of the breakdown that led to the affair. They have the right to be angry and will hold none of the blame for it. This way of thinking, in the long term, is generally the reason betrayal is not worked through.
Taking your portion of the responsibility for the relationship dynamic before the cheating is one of the most important parts of healing.
Solemate, One-and-Only, My Everything
A major shift in relationships in the last 50-100 years is the distinct change from choosing one out of a few, to one out of everyone. What I mean by this is, we used to have a close community and a lack of connection to the world, and now we have infinite connection but little community. We have open choice in who we choose as a partner (which has it’s pros, too) and have fewer and fewer people in our close circles. What we used to get from multiple people, we now expect from one person. So when this person fails us, the sense of betrayal seems insurmountable.
This sense of being failed can present in an infinite number of ways. The two focused on in this piece are a sense of abandonment and experience of betrayal. Every couple has events that if not dealt with can pile onto each other and lead to resentment. When this happens, a natural pulling away can occur that leaves one person feeling as though they are protecting the self, and leaves the other feeling abandoned or alone. This cycle can continue for years before anyone even really notices it has become the new norm.
How Counselling can Help
First, addressing the emotions coming from betrayal is vital. It might seem odd to say, but the person who did the cheating might not understand the true impact on their partner. Second, determining why the cheating occurred can help move toward solution. Many people are surprised to find out that their partner was cheating for a specific reason, not simply because they don’t care. And finally, working together towards a place where you can both move forward together, whatever that ends up looking like for you.
So, how do we work together to start the healing process? Communication is vital in this stage. I don’t mean simply talking either. You can likely do that at home and talking in a counselling office won’t be much different than at home. It’s how a counsellor challenges what is being said. It is about learning to listen and actually hear each other. Slowing the conversation down, allowing emotions to surface and then working together to move forward can mean every difference. These are skills we are not generally taught, either. When we are in school learning about math and grammar, no one is teaching us how to have meaningful conversations. Specifically not with important people in our life. We don’t know how to be vulnerable and open to being hurt. We’re not taught how to speak up when needs are not being met, or when we are feeling neglected.
Working Through It
One of the easiest things in the world is to shift and place blame on another. At the end of the day, blaming others for where we are in our lives does not help healing. It’s easy to get caught up in the “I did this because you…” line,. It halts the process of looking at our own actions and starting to address how we can be better personally. As stated above, most cheating occurs as a result of something else; a reason, if you will. This means in most cases, it’s not done out of apathy or carelessness.
Communication, while a bit of a buzzword in counselling, is still one of the most important pieces to relationship longevity. Learning how to talk to your partner is the easy part. Learning how to listen is the tricky part. Listening with intention and not with defensiveness is one of the most difficult skills to master. It also takes a lot of mindful effort to achieve. Being able to communicate (both speak and listen) about dissatisfaction can head off betrayal before it even becomes an option.
Where Do We Go Now?
Finally, you must re-build. People see it as failure if they cannot get back to where they used to be. If a relationship cannot be what it felt like before problems started, then we must not be able to fix it I disagree with this. Rebuilding means starting something new. It’s taking what was working , using that as the foundation, then adding new pieces to that. You want something stronger than what you had. Something with more honesty and trust in the other person’s ability and desire to show up when they are needed. This step takes two people to have positive intention. It is difficult work, and can take a long time to implement. If you both want it to work, then you’re already miles ahead of where you have been.