Healing from Infidelity
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IT’S happened. The last thing either you or your spouse could ever have imagined. One of you had an affair.

Perhaps you just discovered that your spouse has been unfaithful. Maybe you’ve been suspecting it for a while, but now you know for sure. You may have been innocently looking through some of your mate’s belongings and found information that sent you reeling in shock and broke your heart. Or you might have been snooping for evidence because you’ve noticed some personality changes in your spouse. You’ve heard more excuses for being gone. And you’ve realized that he or she frequently leaves the room to check phone messages.

It’s possible that your spouse finally decided to tell you about his or her actions because living a double life, the lying to you, the loss of integrity... has become too painful to bear. Or, perhaps someone else- a friend, an anonymous person, a family member, or even the affair partner, spilled the beans. In any case, the truth is out; your spouse has broken your marital vows and you can hardly breathe. The pain is unspeakable. You don’t know which end is up.

No matter how suspicious you’ve been about the possibility that your partner may be straying, when suspicions of unfaithfulness are confirmed – it can send you reeling. Something deep inside you wants to believe that your spouse could never really, actually, break the sacred vow between you. Intimacy with anyone else? Unreal. Unthinkable.

Or perhaps you’ve discovered the truth, but your mind simply can’t process what’s happened. You feel like a person caught in a flood, your brain clinging to the driftwood of denial to avoid drowning in the rushing river of pain that comes with facing new and excruciating realities. “This can’t possibly be happening to me. It can’t be real. There must be some mistake. Maybe I’m reading too much into what I’ve discovered, and I’m allowing my imagination to run wild.” But deep down inside, you know the truth. And now you have to deal with it. You feel caught in a nightmare from which you want to wake up. But it’s not a nightmare. It’s real. And it’s really devastating. You’re not sure what you want to do next. You’re not even sure you can go on. For that matter, you’re not sure about anything at all at the moment.

Or perhaps you’re someone who found out about the infidelity a while ago and though the initial shock of discovery has passed, you feel like you’re not functioning well. You’re obsessed with thinking about the affair. “How could he do this to me,?” “Doesn’t she know that this is the one thing I could never accept, that this is a deal breaker?” “Was the other woman a better lover than I am?” “How could my wife love me and still sleep with another man?” The questions persist. In spite of all your best efforts to move on, you feel no sense of peace or calm. You wish you could just turn back time and go back to the old you, the one who actually had a life. You can’t believe you’re still feeling so bad and so confused after all this time. You want help but you don’t know where to turn.

At times, you want your spouse to comfort you. But often, when she or he does, you feel resentful, angry and distraught. You don’t want to be close. You can’t act as though everything’s okay when it’s not. Your insides feel as though they’ve been whirled in a blender, and sometimes the emotional pain is so bad it physically hurts. By now, you thought you would be feeling better, but you’re not. Shock may have turned to despair and what feels like chronic, low grade depression.

If this happens, it feels like you’re stuck in a rut, or worse - a dark hole that often feels more like a grave. You just want to feel better! But you’re losing hope that feeling normal and happy will ever be possible again. In short, my friend, you are grieving. Only there is no physical body to bury, no time-honored period of mourning, and no funeral. Something very precious and real has died; and yet you and your mate are still alive, breathing, moving through the days.

Whether you found out about the affair five minutes or a year ago, you may have a roller coaster of ambivalent feelings about whether or not to stay in your marriage. There are days when you are ready to call it quits and get an attorney, believing this might put an end to your misery. But when you think about what divorce really entails: ending your marriage, breaking up the family, splitting your finances, living alone, starting over from scratch—- it gives you pause. You are living “in between trapezes,” when life feels on hold, or suspended in mid-air between the Life You Knew and the Life to Come. This emotional space, between a rock and a hard place, is not only disorienting and sometimes crazy-making, it can hurt like hell.

Or perhaps you’re the person who had the affair. The temptation was so great, the pull of secrecy so sensual – almost like a drug – that it may have felt impossible to resist. You didn’t think beyond the thrill at hand. Your affair may have been an exciting break from a life you’d allowed to spiral into a boring routine. You wanted to feel the old spark, and to have an adventure, to feel alive. Or perhaps you were having marital problems, feeling discouraged, disillusioned and even feeling unheard or unseen, so you sought solace from someone other than your mate. It felt comforting and confirming. Or, your marriage may have been on firm ground, but the impulsive draw of doing something new, something fun or illicit in the moment, overwhelmed common sense and commitment.

But now your spouse knows about the affair, and all hell has broken loose. The last thing you wanted was to hurt your spouse. And you certainly don’t want a divorce. You had no idea that the fallout of your decision to be unfaithful would be so devastating. You have tried to help your spouse feel better, to provide assurance that what happened is over and in the past, but nothing you say seems to comfort your spouse for long. There is endless anger and hurt. Your whole relationship is focused on the infidelity. You understand why your spouse is in pain, but you could never have predicted that life as you knew it would be suspended; you never talk about anything else, you don’t do anything fun together, there’s always an undercurrent of anger or hurt. Your spouse’s mood swings are palpable. You don’t know what to do. It’s not that you’re unwilling to be supportive; it’s just that anything you’ve tried doesn’t seem to be effective.

You love your spouse and you want your marriage to work, but you are also beginning to wonder if she or he will ever be able to forgive you for straying. And although you understand this, you worry that you’ll spend the rest of your life repenting for your sins. When will it truly be “over,” so you can live together in love and trust, the way it used to be, again? You don’t want to spend the rest of your life and marriage in some emotional waiting room. You don’t want to end your marriage, but you’re really at a loss. You wish there were a road map to help the two of you out of this adultery abyss.

Well, the good news is that there is a road map to help you both recover from infidelity and heal your marriage. And you happen to be listening to this roadmap right now.

My name is Michele Weiner-Davis. I am the Founder of the Divorce Busting® Center in Boulder, Colorado and the website, www.healingfrominfidelity.com. I am also the best-selling author of seven other books including DIVORCE BUSTING and THE SEX-STARVED MARRIAGE. For nearly 4 decades, I have been specializing in work with couples who are teetering on the brink of divorce.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Before my book, DIVORCE BUSTING was published, I was doing family therapy with adolescents and their families. During that time, I observed the toll that divorce took on the lives of families. It became obvious to me that, except in the most severe cases such as ongoing physical abuse or addiction, divorce created more problems than it solved. The ripple effect was devastating. I knew I had to do something about it.

I decided to write a book to help couples avoid divorce and keep their families together. When DIVORCE BUSTING was published, I was a lone voice; therapists are supposed to be neutral. The standard protocol was that a therapist should suspend any personal biases about the choices couples make to leave or stay in their marriages. A therapist should not voice his or her opinion, but rather draw out and support whatever the people involved in the marriage really wanted.

Without belaboring this issue, the truth is, when you go to a therapist, there is no way for that therapist’s personal biases to be checked at the door. A therapist’s values, beliefs and opinions about marriage and divorce always guide the sessions. So, in reality, there is no such thing as value-free therapy!

And since all therapy is value-laden, I felt the urgency to take a stand. I wanted to help couples find solutions to the problems they were facing so I decided to be bold and shout my decidedly biased “pro-marriage” opinion from the rooftops.

When the media learned about my counter-cultural and controversial book, I was invited to appear on every talk and news show imaginable including Oprah, The Today Show, 48 Hours, Good Morning America, 20/20, The Bill O’Reilly Show, and so on. My work was showcased in nearly every prominent newspaper and magazine as well. DIVORCE BUSTING became a best-seller.

As a result, requests for marital help came rolling in. I was so busy, I had to quit doing family therapy and narrow my focus to marriage-saving instead. This decision became a labor of love, a choice leading to what felt more like a meaningful, joyful calling than a job. The couples in my practice were learning relationship skills, putting aside their differences and reconciling their marriages. I was ecstatic.

During the last few decades where I’ve specialized in working with couples, I’ve learned an enormous amount about what it takes to make a marriage thrive. I’ve also learned a lot about what stressors place marriage at risk of divorce. And without question, I can tell you that infidelity is on top of a very short list of risk factors when it comes to rebuilding and sustaining loving, healthy marriages.

In my practice, I offer couples two-day intensives. They fly in from all over the world to work with me. And I would estimate that 85-90% of the couples in my practice are dealing with infidelity. I have been in the trenches with people whose lives have been turned upside down because of affairs. Because I’m determined to help people make their marriages work, I have developed a specific, doable and successful program for helping couples heal from infidelity and make their marriages strong again. In fact, once couples work through the pain of the affair and rebuild trust, their marriages are often much stronger than prior to the betrayal.

That said, healing from infidelity isn’t easy. It’s not for sissies. It’s hard work. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to turn things around. Sometimes, people have plenty of motivation to work on the relationship and to make things better but they just don’t know how, they’ve no clue where to begin. And when what they’ve been doing isn’t working, they feel like giving up, and throwing in the towel. Totally understandable. Look, if you haven’t healed from infidelity before, how can you know what to do? Where do you start? Finding a path out of the dark woods of despair feels daunting.

That’s where I come in. I have written this book because I want to walk you, both of you, step-by-step down the path to feeling better and more connected to each other. I want to help you put the infidelity in the past. I want to guide you toward rebuilding trust and confidence in one another and in your marriage. I want to share everything I’ve learned in the last few decades about how to navigate from the crisis of betrayal, to loving each other completely again. I’ve done it for countless other couples over the years and now I want to do it for you. I’ll coach you as if you were sitting in my therapy office!

Another reason I felt compelled to write this book is that there is so much bad advice about the possibilities of healing from infidelity. If you have scoured the internet you already know this! Article after article, blog after blog, video after video urge you to end your marriage if someone has cheated. If you don’t, you’ll be warned that you will sign up for a lifetime of misery.

And then, if you have enough good sense to stop reading or watching the depressing, ill-informed, so-called experts dispensing advice without even knowing you or your partner, you turn to the real experts- therapists who claim to know how to help couples mend their relationships following affairs.

But what you quickly discover is that, despite the fact that you have never felt more lost in your life, your therapist rarely offers concrete suggestions or homework assignments and spends far too much time simply asking one question, “How do you feel about that?” You begin to notice that only talking about feelings has you going in circles.

And then your therapist tells you that infidelity is just a symptom of marital problems. And while an unhappy spouse may feel that the affair happened because a void in the marriage, focusing on issues other than the betrayal early in the healing process when you are in the middle of a crisis, is a major misstep, one that happens in therapy far too often.

To make matters worse, because you’ve gotten no clear instruction about how to move forward and feel better, not surprisingly, nothing changes in your marriage. Therapists often assume that when people fail to move beyond impasses, their marriages are permanently broken, and separation or divorce become the inevitable recommendation. Yet, despite the pain, something inside tells you this isn’t what you want to do.

Trust your instincts, my friend. You know yourself, your partner and your life better than anyone else. If there is even a little fight in you to see whether or not your love, trust and connection can be repaired, don’t allow anyone to tell you otherwise. This book will give you the tools you need to make your own decisions about your life and be your own expert.

So, about this book.

This book is written for both you and your spouse. Although things between you are probably quite rough right now, I’m assuming that if you’re listening, you’re both committed to or seriously considering working things out. I envision you working as a team and listening to this book together. As you do, you’ll notice that the book is organized in such a way that there are separate chapters for you and for your spouse. That said, I still want you to listen to each other’s chapters. It’s important that you both listen to the whole book so you can grasp the big picture, and get a vision of where we’re going. Then you can go back and carefully listen again to the sections that are targeted to you, and apply the suggestions.

So, why are there separate chapters for each of you? Well, here’s one of the tricky parts about recovery from an affair. Typically, each spouse is in a very different emotional place when seeking help. The person who has come clean about the affair usually is finally feeling better about being truthful and stepping into the light. In fact, they’re feeling very relieved. They are ready to do the work. They just want me to tell them what to do.

On the other hand, what feels like “old news” to the spouse who had the affair, is very much “new news” to the betrayed partner and in fact, most feel they are at the lowest point in their lives when they come into my office. One person feels relieved and the other, devastated. Therefore, your journeys to feeling better are very different and require different interventions. Hence, the different chapters. But again, it’s essential that you read each other’s sections because there is information that will relate to you, and also help you both be on the same page regarding your recovery process. Okay?

If, at the moment, your spouse is less committed than you to work on your marriage, I’ve devoted two chapters to help you figure out what you need to do to improve things singlehandedly. Eventually, you will need each other’s support to truly heal from betrayal. But in the meantime, there are things you can do- or stop doing- to enhance the chances of a positive outcome for your relationship.

Here’s something else you should know before you get started. No matter how badly you might be feeling now, I promise your feelings will change. When you’re going through a tough time, it’s hard to imagine that you’re ever going to feel better, but you will. If you follow the steps outlined in this book, bit by bit, little by little, you will begin to feel lighter and more optimistic about the future. Here’s what one client had to say about my program for helping couples heal from infidelity:

After I found out about my husband’s affair, I wanted to walk away. We tried years of “traditional” therapy and still, we were going nowhere. I thought I was ready to give up and move on, but I knew deep down inside it wasn’t what I really wanted for myself, or my family.

Then we decided to see Michele to give it one last ditch effort. Addiction, infidelity, and zero trust were the core ingredients that made up our recipe for disaster.

We focused on what we needed to do to move forward, and learned how to effectively communicate. Wow, what a transformation! Not only did we not divorce, but we have been “honeymooning” since. That was several years ago. The word “divorce” has never been spoken in our household again! Thank you, Michele, for the direction and focus to put our lives back together!

Here’s what another client said about my method of helping couples heal from infidelity:

Our marriage was shattered by an affair. My wife and I decided immediately after the discovery of the affair that we both wanted to try to save the marriage.

Unfortunately, neither one of us really knew what to do next. We did what most people do. We hired a ‘marriage counselor’ in our hometown. While I am sure that there are some great local marriage counselors out there, our experience with our local counselor nearly destroyed our already fragile marriage.

Here we were doing everything our counselor was telling us to do, yet nothing was getting better at home. We were talking about the marriage and our problems a lot; but nothing changed. It was starting to feel as if our marriage couldn’t be saved. Our counselor finally advised that we needed to face the possibility that divorce may be the best option. It was devastating.

Michele was our last hope. I found Michele on the internet during a ‘this can’t be over’ search for help. I was skeptical that anything or anyone could help but I couldn’t give up. I didn’t want to give up.

My wife and I spent two days with Michele in October. She helped us make a tangible, solution-focused plan to save our marriage. We did the work and I can honestly say that our marriage is better than it has been except for maybe the honeymoon phase we enjoyed 17 years ago. I will forever be grateful to Michele.

The shrapnel from the affair isn’t gone. We still both hurt and will be dealing with the scars of the affair for a long time; but we have hope. We have confidence. We have each other. Michele helped us change the course of our marriage and because of that, she also changed our future, our two daughters’ futures, and hopefully many generations to follow futures. My heartfelt prayer for you if you’re reading this, is that your future can be changed too.

A ‘thank you’ to Michele feels so inadequate. I can only hope that these words will help you open your heart to believe that Michele can help you too.

So, now it’s your turn. You don’t have to struggle any longer. I am here to lead the way. I’ll take the mystery out of putting the pain in the past. I will teach you what you need to know to create a new, more loving marriage with each other. Care to join me? Here’s a sneak preview of what’s to come.

In Chapter 2, “Boosting Your Infidelity I.Q.,” - you will get answers to the most commonly asked questions about affairs such as, “My spouse and I disagree about the meaning of betrayal. So, what is betrayal,?” “How long does it take to heal,?” “Should we talk about the affair or not,?” “Should I discuss the affair with friends and family,?” and “What if I feel hopeless about my marriage,?” and many more questions as well.

Chapter 3, “Tasks for the Betrayed Spouse,” outlines the preliminary steps to get your life on an even keel. Your whole world has been turned upside down and you need compassionate, honest direction and support to begin feeling better. This chapter will teach you specific, doable tasks and skills that will relieve much of your grief and pain. You’ll learn how to decide whether or not to ask detailed questions about the affair. You’ll learn how to help your spouse understand the depth of your despair. You’ll put an end to destructive ways of interacting about what happened. You’ll discover methods for coping with intense mood swings.

Chapter 4, “The Unfaithful Spouse’s Tasks,” offers concrete suggestions for the partner who had the affair. It describes the important initial steps you need to take to begin to heal, and also help your husband or wife to heal as well.

You are undoubtedly hurting too. You may feel lost and overwhelmed. Even with the best of intentions, your efforts to repair your marriage and feel better may be failing miserably. If you haven’t yet ended the affair, you’ll be given specific feedback about how exactly to say goodbye. And if you’ve had a difficult time dealing with your own moods, you’ll better understand why this is happening. I’ll help you figure out what you should or shouldn’t share with your spouse about the betrayal. You will learn the best ways to be emotionally available to your spouse, even when it is hard. You’ll receive tools to help you demonstrate the sincere remorse and regret you feel that will really make a difference to your partner. And finally, you’ll gain some insight into the possible reasons you’ve strayed so you can avoid any temptation in the future.

Chapter 5, “Rebuilding: More Tasks for the Betrayed Spouse,” outlines what you need to do when the worst of the initial crisis period is over. Although things are a bit better, the information in this chapter will help you feel more trusting and emotionally connected to your spouse.

In this chapter, you will also get help identifying exactly what changes need to be made in your marriage to get it on solid, “affair- proof ” ground. You’ll get tips on how to better communicate your needs to your partner and learn what it means to do real giving in your relationship.

Additionally, you’ll discover the power of positive reinforcement and the importance of empathy. Looping, intrusive thoughts usually go along with discovering an affair and each time you go down the same mental path, it hurts and slows down healing. I’ll share a helpful strategy for eliminating those intrusive, obsessive thoughts that can so easily sabotage a good day and forward progress. Finally, healing involves personal work: steps you must take on your own to restore your self-esteem and belief in yourself. I’ll help you do that.

In Chapter 6, “Rebuilding: More Tasks for the Unfaithful Spouse,” you will identify specifically, how you’d like your marriage to be different. You’ll investigate what, for example, would make you feel happier and more alive? I’ll help you create a vision for a new, improved and healthier marriage. Also, I’ll offer tools for avoiding triggers that might lead to unhealthy choices down the road. You’ll be encouraged to talk with your spouse in ways that will inspire confidence in a brighter future. If you have lingering sadness or grief about the affair, I’ll offer tips for working through this stage. Lastly, because you deserve it, if you haven’t already done this, I will walk you down a path to forgiving and loving yourself.

Chapter 7, “Becoming Sexual Again,” will offer you both guidelines for revitalizing this very important part of your relationship. Sometimes people start having sex right after the discovery of infidelity and other times, it feels nearly impossible to break the ice and be intimate again. This chapter will help you figure out what you need to do to feel sensually and sexually connected again. And if you’re still having trouble dealing with the demons in your head, you’ll learn some ways to work through this together.

Chapter 8, “When Your Spouse Won’t End the Affair,” is designed to give you a plan to save your marriage even though your partner may be ambivalent or unwilling to end the affair. If your spouse is not committed to working on the marriage, many of the strategies outlined in this book need to be tweaked, and I’ll share which ones, and how to apply them in your particular situation. You’ll need to be strategic in how you approach him or her. You’ll also need emotional support because of the huge amount of patience that’s required while your spouse sorts things out. This chapter will offer you that support.

In Chapter 9, “When Your Betrayed Spouse Wants Out,” you’ll discover some of the primary reasons a partner may feel they want to end the marriage during this process. But more importantly, you’ll receive concrete suggestions for ways to approach your spouse to increase the odds that he or she will reconsider and reconcile.

Unfortunately, many of the things people do (often called, “what comes naturally”) when their spouses are threatening to leave only make matters worse. I’ll pinpoint these unhelpful actions and tell you what to do instead- actions that will serve you and your goals much better. I’ve developed a program called, The Last Resort Technique that will help you turn things around, even in the 11th hour.

Chapter 10, “Ten Tips for Affair Proofing your Marriage,” will outline field tested strategies for strengthening your marriage and providing “love insurance” for the future. You’ll learn 10 tips to insure that your marriage will stay strong, and that you’re both “all in” and fully committed to a future together.

In Chapter 11, “Parting Thoughts,” you’ll read my final reflections about our journey together.

So, let’s get started! I’m thrilled you’re on the path to healing. I’m delighted to be walking with you down this road. Take your time. Go slowly. Take my advice to heart because I know it works. Countless others before you have moved from pain to loving again. I know you can do it too. I’ll show you the way.