the crisis of an affair
The crisis that an affair, like many other life crises, propels us into the essence of things. It’s often the first time that couples broach conversations they’ve avoided for years. Conversations about unmet needs, longings, frustrations, and loneliness that in hindsight, people wish they had engaged in much earlier in their relationships. As tempting as it is to reduce affairs to sex and lies, I prefer to use infidelity as a portal into the complex landscape of relationships and the boundaries we draw to bind them. I urge you to engage in these important conversations, regardless of where you are in the journey of your relationship.
NonJUDGEMENTAL COMMUNICATION
When there is an affair, it is as if a bomb explodes in that realm of communication. There are pieces scattered everywhere that make clear and nonjudgmental communication close to impossible. There typically is only hurt, blame, mistrust, and anger.
How might trust be rebuilt once the affair is over?
Once the affair is over, the couple needs to learn new communication skills. They need to backtrack and look clearly at the path that both of them have walked up until this point in time. The hardest part of this journey will be to stop blaming or to stop feeling guilty for any part so that the focus can be put onto healing the relationship. Trust is built after an affair by working on developing a strong sense of self and a strong sense of self-value, by identifying and changing mistaken beliefs about each other. It is about developing a new level of understanding that did not exist before and being able to safely communicate.
