Therapy for Infidelity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

another horrible betrayal will happen the next time any sort of strain arises in the marriage

Op - it's not about circumstance. It's about character.

Yes but it’s also my sanity. Each time I get weaker and weaker.

[Anonymous]

Get a divorce and a new therapist for yourself.

[Anonymous]

#1. They have to want to change. Sincerely. This can’t be a case of I got caught, I’ll appease and play along for awhile.

And, if they sincerely no longer want to be a dirtball, they have to believe you will divorce them in a second if there is even a hint of lying/unfaithfulness ever again.

Many therapists advise kicking them out initially when you find out. They have to really fear they are losing everything—you, kids, home, etc.

They also should be willing to offer up anything if they want to stay in the marriage: high stakes to make you feel comfortable in case they slide. This can be a post-nuptial agreement, etc. If I were female and done having children, a vasectomy would also be required. A cheater wouldn’t balk at any of this if he was truly remorseful.

Individual therapy for a long, long time for the cheater. They also need to cut off any enabling friends—-bros or hos that cheat on their spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends....bye, bye. They can’t be around low moral people anymore. Who you associate with says a lot about you and what you will do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He needs regular IC and so do you. After he has done some real work on himself, then it’s time for marriage therapy with a therapist experienced with infidelity. Your therapist now sounds terrible. Also, your DH needs to be doing the heavy lifting to repair your marriage. Read on survivinginfidelity.com.

Betrayed wives club is better for women than surviving infidelity. Read the comments under blog posts and go to the forums.

[Anonymous]

Having been through this, I can say that what worked for us is recognizing and walking through the pain together. That doesn’t negate trying to have fun and romantic times but it takes acknowledging and feeling the pain of the betrayed spouse over and over and over again until they are at least okay. Your therapist is doing little to help you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Geeez, get out of the marriage already! Like yesterday. Adultry = divorce. Always.

Why?

Because YOU say so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having been through this, I can say that what worked for us is recognizing and walking through the pain together. That doesn’t negate trying to have fun and romantic times but it takes acknowledging and feeling the pain of the betrayed spouse over and over and over again until they are at least okay. Your therapist is doing little to help you.

Are you the betrayed spouse? Or the cheater?

Was it ever totally okay again? Or is that niggling doubt always in the recess of your/their mind?

[Anonymous]

OP here again. It also makes me nervous that I might feel betrayed for years to come. Both for me and my husband. That’s kind of why I wanted to deal with it in a deep way and get it into our past. But I guess it doesn’t work that way and we need to find someone to help us peel back the onion. Since therapists are virtual now, any recommendations are helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No.way.in.hell.

Couples therapy for infidelity is mostly bullsh@t. It usually doesn’t even scratch the surface and it always holds both parties responsible for the marriage trouble.

My spouse had deep seated personal issues that caused the acting out sexually: child abandonment in childhood, alcoholic, abusive father (died of alcoholism) and a mother that only looked out for herself and left the 2 kids by themselves a lot.

Yet- first marriage counselor was like “try threesomes and adventure”, talk more. Not once did he delve into the psychology behind the cheating. He also deemed us “cured” because we always got along really well, rarely fought and had a healthy sex life.

So much couples therapy discounts the fact that often it is one individual’s problem. It is an addiction to numb oneself in some situations.

He is doing twice a week individual therapy for this and this therapist agrees he needs this before he can begin. To work to repair the damage his affair caused.

Therapy is not good to the victims of the abuse most of the time. They erroneously try to label the betrayed spouse as co-dependent or some other bullsh@t.

You have a shitty therapist. He/she is merely rug sweeping and not digging deep to address his faults that drove him to lie and cheat.

He needs to address his own issues before he can fully participate in couples therapy and you need your own therapist to address the damage his abuse (cheating is abuse) caused.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's been over a year of infidelity with various promises and relapses in between and my husband still will not say why he did this. He says he doesn't know and is getting help. Which with his therapist first includes dealing with a host of mental things and other questions and monitoring apparently before they also get down together and discover why this happened. Which makes me feel like it will be another year before he "knows" why he did this. Uggh. It's just that it's exhausting and it leaves me completely in limbo. He says I should just wait and obviously he cares because he's getting help.

Another post had these four rules for their own mental health dealing with trauma and I'm trying to get there and forget about dealing with the reason infidelity for now but it's really hard. It makes me feel like I'm not living an honest life.
1. Establishing and maintaining appropriate boundaries
2. Accepting reality/knowing that I am unable to affect change in him
3. Being present in my day to day life; not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future
4. Taking responsibility for my own mental health and needs - this is largely a self-care thing

I was just curious if this is a typical tactic of therapists to just move forward and not really dwell on the why of what happened. If there are therapists who do discuss this, I'd love recommendations and/or how they went about transitioning to this type of discussion.

Have you read any of Paula Hall's books? The book for partners is excellent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:#1. They have to want to change. Sincerely. This can’t be a case of I got caught, I’ll appease and play along for awhile.

And, if they sincerely no longer want to be a dirtball, they have to believe you will divorce them in a second if there is even a hint of lying/unfaithfulness ever again.

Many therapists advise kicking them out initially when you find out. They have to really fear they are losing everything—you, kids, home, etc.

They also should be willing to offer up anything if they want to stay in the marriage: high stakes to make you feel comfortable in case they slide. This can be a post-nuptial agreement, etc. If I were female and done having children, a vasectomy would also be required. A cheater wouldn’t balk at any of this if he was truly remorseful.

Individual therapy for a long, long time for the cheater. They also need to cut off any enabling friends—-bros or hos that cheat on their spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends....bye, bye. They can’t be around low moral people anymore. Who you associate with says a lot about you and what you will do.

+1

Look for a CSAT therapist.

And, prepare yourself for the reality that they may not want to change (no matter how much they say they 'do' want ____________)

[Anonymous]

After a month of therapy, it clearly appears that your present therapist has dropped the proverbial ball.

It doesn’t seem like the deep AND personal issues are being addressed at all in your sessions.

Sounds like your therapist just wants to ignore the elephant in the room & instead focus on unicorns 🦄.
Without addressing the infidelity issue at all - that elephant is just going to keep growing + growing.....

You most definitely need to switch to a better therapist.
The one you are currently seeing sounds like they live in “LaLa Land.”
Your sessions are simply a waste of time to everyone and no real work is being done to resolve the issues at hand.

So sorry.
Good luck‼️

[Anonymous]

A one night stand is a lapse of judgement and likely can be worked through if both parties want.

But this...be was engaging with multiple women in sex chat groups and trying to meet up with at least one of them. That is a very deliberate and probably went on for some time- gross and a HUGE character problem you can't therapy away.

Divorce.

[Anonymous]

It’s OK to leave your husband at any time in this process. The truth is that what you want is completely reasonable - a sense of remorse for the hurt he’s caused you as opposed to the hurt he’s experienced as a result of his own actions, some sense that he knows why he did it so he knows how not to do it again, transparency about the past and in the future, a sincere apology, and a long periods of acts on his part that show he is rebuilding and re-earning your trust in him.

But, the truth is that the same character qualities that lead a partner to cheat also lead a partner to be unable to do any of the above.

Add to that that individual counseling or psychotherapy in this issue (infidelity) is generally of very poor quality, well, the odds are extremely slim that your relationship will come back to a healthy place.

I’m sorry. Please get yourself an individual counselor who understands PTSD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A one night stand is a lapse of judgement and likely can be worked through if both parties want.

But this...be was engaging with multiple women in sex chat groups and trying to meet up with at least one of them. That is a very deliberate and probably went on for some time- gross and a HUGE character problem you can't therapy away.

Divorce.

OP. He definitely has issues with sex, yes that have manifested itself in different ways throughout the marriage. And he has an issue with lying which is mental health related. They are likely both mental health related. He wasn't looking for a relationship, just sex. As far as I know nothing ever actually happened. He just fantasized about it. It's a type of addiction to porn as I understand it. It's related to depression I've been told. So the talking about fun things is actually helpful, but it needs to be part of a bigger treatment that involves dealing with more difficult issues. IMO.