If you are reading this, I’m guessing you are in the hot box. You may be confused as to how to proceed, what to do next. You’ve had an affair, maybe you have already told your partner about it, maybe you haven’t. But either way it’s eating at you.  What does it mean, that You, of all people had an affair? What does this say about you? About your moral character? Can this be fixed? Are you broken? These amongst other feelings are very common in the aftermath. And as you search the web for answers, you are likely inundated with confirmation of your deepest fears. The blogs you are finding is likely reiterating that you are in fact bad, and broken and most of all 100% to blame.

 

I am here to tell you that none of the above is true. You are not broken, you are likely not bad and things can get better. Part of my job as a counselor is to remain neutral enough to understand the patterns of relationships. This helps me to then engage in the pattern and shift relationships into change. And I’ll be honest, as a counselor that works a lot with infidelity, it’s not always easy. Couples come in ready to blame and not take accountability. We are told the cheater is wrong and bad, and the partner of the cheater is right and good. This just simply is not true. It’s not that clear cut. So my hope is that as you are browsing the internet, you will find this blog and others that take don’t take a moral high ground. That provide a fair analysis of the situation and allow you to determine what your next steps are if you in fact were the one that had an affair.

 

There are steps to healing after an affair that are important. And one of them is determining how to disclose to your partner and rebuild trust. But one that is often missed in the blogs and articles is determining why the affair happened to begin with. This isn’t a self loathing journey, but one that really looks at the depth of the relationships and understands that pattern that opened the door for an affair. The couples that are most successful in affair recovery are the ones that are willing to take a painfully honest look at the relationship, take accountability for their individual parts in it, and begin healing from there. Are you ready to begin that journey?