Marriage

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Infidelity
An affair is about secrets and the violation of trust. Discovering betrayal in a significant relationship is an emotionally devastating and traumatic experience. In order for couples or individuals to heal and move through the experience of infidelity each must come to an honest understanding of self and learn from past mistakes. Dr. Janis Abrahams Spring, author of "After the Affair" and a survivor of infidelity, has researched this complex issue for over 21 years. She suggests that after an affair or violation of trust that couples allow for time to feel and process what has happened in order to make a thoughtful decision to recommit or leave, and then formulate strategies to deal with the changes that inevitably will have to be made. Dr. Spring has identified several components necessary to facilitate the decision to leave or recommit:

• Make sense out of romantic love
• Develop a realistic concept of love
• Confront each partner's fears and doubts about recommitting
• Take responsibility for how early experiences shape each partner's ability to be satisfied, intimate and faithful in their adult relationships

When making the decision about the future of the relationship, couples often need professional help to work through these steps. If a decision to recommit is made, then it is necessary to formulate strategies for change. These include:

• Restoring trust
• Creating a ritual to put closure to the relationship with the lover
• Tracing a time-line of contributing factors which led to the affair
• Rekindling sexual intimacy
• Radically reconceptualizing forgiveness
• Handling interpersonal violations

It is obvious that both partners be involved in developing change strategies. Each couple will develop ideas that are unique to their situation. In her research Dr. Spring has discovered that the hurt can be healed, but only the healing process includes three essential ingredients. (1) The unfaithful partner must be willing to hold the pain and understand the depth of the trauma. In order to understand the depth of the pain caused by the unfaithful partner, the partner must pay attention to the pain. The hurt partner cannot move on unless together they move through the pain. For the unfaithful partner to suggest moving on usually ignites a flame of resentment in the hurt partner. (2) The unfaithful partner needs to understand why he/she strayed. If the hurt partner doesn't hear this or see this, how will trust be regained, how will it be known that the unfaithful partner won't stray again. (3) The unfaithful partner has to be willing to earn back the trust through mutually agreed upon trust building activities. No one causes a person to have an affair. However, both partners must take a fair share of responsibility for intimacy problems at home. As with any conflict, when people work together to understand completely what brought about the problem and together work toward the solution, the conflict can be viewed as an opportunity rather than a threat. In the case of infidelity what needs to be explored is what it means to be loved. When working together to answer this question the beginnings of intimacy develop.