You’re having an Affair - What can you do next?

You might find yourself in a hole you can’t climb out of without seriously damaging others around you.  The shame might feel crippling, leaving you in one of the darkest places you have ever experienced and left thinking ‘I don’t even know me, how did I even get here, this isn’t who I am.’ The amount of lying you have participated in might leave you feeling like you don’t even know what’s up from down within yourself.  If you come clean, your partner or spouse might leave, rip you a new one, or just collapse from the heartache.  If you keep it in and try to let this blow by, your partner/spouse might just find out on their own at some point.  How will the kids be impacted? How will they see me? On top of it all, depending on the kind of relationship you have with your affair partner, you also might hold concerns on what the ramifications might be for that person or how they might respond if you break it off.  At the same time, your heart may have grown attached to your affair partner and the idea of ending things also hurts your own heart.  

Reading this you might find yourself at a crossroads on what to do next.  Or even how to understand yourself in this season of your life.  Maybe the part of you capable of lying, hiding and betraying is a part of you that even scares you.  You might not even know this part of you or where it comes from and so you try to box it up, but as hard as you work to box it away it just seems to keep oozing out. 

While the steps to becoming free from this place are not easy, they are fulfilling.  The steps might feel exposing, vulnerable and grueling, but these important steps also bring hope, freedom, and fulfillment to who you are as a person.  Just like getting into good physical health requires letting go of unhealthy diets and physical habits that can feel difficult and uncomfortable, recovering after being the one to betray can feel similar.  It requires commitment to choose to do the next right thing in each moment that brings you closer to embodying the values you hold. This will require letting go of certain things that bring temporary pleasure and stepping into healthy habits that might feel uncomfortable and require consistent repetition to reap the benefits from.  The process will require you to step into honest sanity (while not aligning with your shame) for the gravity of what you have done, where you’ve been hurting and how you’ve hurt others. But remember, these end up being the places that when tended to, springs you back up (almost like a trampoline) into newer heights of healing.     

Before I jump into the next part of my blog I want to make it loud and clear: 

THERE IS HOPE.  YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOUR SHAME SPEAKS OVER YOU.  

In this blog I will share some ideas of what to do next if you have had an affair and are trying to recover who you are. 

1. Evaluate your values and who you want to be as a person.  Setting aside the negative messages about yourself that shame might be carrying for you, create a list of who you have been that you are most proud of.  What values do you want to embody and carry as a person? Are there certain belief systems and/or faith basis that you feel you need to reconnect with?  Having a foundation and clear view of the kind of character you want to embody and the values you want to uphold is critical to moving forward.  Your values act as your anchor, so when recovery feels difficult, your values can steady you and help you push through the hard moments, knowing you are developing character that upholds your values.  One way to look at this is to think about what kind of legacy you want to build.  While this might feel like a morbid exercise, it can be helpful writing out how you would want those most important to you, to remember you as.  Who do you want to be known for being? 

   
   

2. Become Transparent, not just honest.  Transparency provides your raw and honest truth, not just the bare minimum truth that sometimes honesty without transparency can lead to.  I would encourage you, if you have not disclosed your affair to your partner or spouse yet, to do so earlier than later.  If a part of you has any desire to try to work on your present relationship, waiting longer to disclose or until it is discovered will not make it easier.  Early and voluntary disclosure is helpful for trust building.  If you are afraid that your partner/spouse might leave you in response to sharing, then I would share that true intimate and bonded relationships can only thrive with safety and trust.  By not disclosing, while it may prevent your partner/spouse from leaving for a time, the relationship itself will continue to be an unsafe and untrustworthy space.  It also leaves your partner/spouse in a position where they are consenting to be in a relationship that they can’t make a fully informed decision about being in, because they don’t know what’s fully happening.  Part of having a truly intimate, safe, loving and secure relationship is when two people choose to be with each other with every part of them visibly on the table, rather than being convinced to stay through deception, hiding and lack of transparency.  I don’t share this to place more shame upon you, but I share this because these parts of you that hurt and step out of the relationship need someone who can also hold a secure and safe space for as well.  This does not excuse the betrayal, but to heal the pain occurring behind the act of stepping out of significant relationships you need people who can witness these places within you with safe eyes.  If you are to be in a healthy significant relationship, you need someone who can enter the pits of your heart with you and hold love and unconditional regard for you in those spaces as well, that to be honest, have probably been left isolated and alone for a very long time.  Part of freedom and healing is being seen with safe eyes.  If your current partner/spouse chooses to leave, that is their right based on an informed decision you are giving them through voluntary disclosure.  If they choose to leave then they might not be the person who is able to see these painful places in you with safe eyes and that is okay.  Painful yes, but it’s information you need to know and have clarity on so you can continue in your healing.  In voluntary disclosure your partner/spouse might also choose to stay and work on the relationship.  There will be a road ahead in recovering together, however, if both people are committed to doing the hard and beautiful work together, the relationship often ends up becoming deeper, safer and more secure because now vulnerability and truly knowing each other is no longer negotiable in the relationship.  It becomes critical for the relationship in being able to heal, survive and thrive. Healing doesn’t just happen in the relationship, but deep healing occurs in each individual. 

   
   

3. Don’t just desire trust, become trustworthy.  Trust takes a lot of time and work to be built, but it can be shattered in seconds.  If others in your life have found out about the affair or you have disclosed your affair it is understandable that you will want others to trust you.  Rebuilt trust takes the pain out of the shame.  It can affirm that others don’t see you for what you did anymore.  Naturally you’re going to want trust from others restored quickly.  However, instead of viewing trust being earned through initial disclosures, and expressed desires for what you do and don’t want to do again in the future, view trust building as taking every opportunity to consistently show your behaviors are trustworthy.  Becoming trustworthy doesn’t just mean how you operate around the logistics of your day, but it also entails becoming a trustworthy person in how you show up for the emotional experiences of your partner/spouse after the affair is known. 

   
   

4. End the Affair.  I know this can be easier said than done. If you are wanting an opportunity to stay in the relationship with your present partner/spouse then the relationship with the affair partner needs to end. It needs to end entirely.  You may experience grief during this season and I would encourage seeking individual therapy so you have a space to process the ending of that relationship and gain a deeper understanding for yourself and the parts of you that grieve during this time. This grieving season might also provide a deeper opportunity to really understand what the function of the affair was for hurting parts of yourself and learn ways to tend directly with this internal pain through healthy means rather than through distractions like an affair that end in pulling you away from the values you want to embody. 

   
   

5. Seek Support.  Having healthy support systems is so important during this time.  Seek individual therapy and if you are working on your current relationship, seek couples therapy.   Both individual therapy and couples therapy in conjunction is incredibly beneficial to personal and relational healing during this time.  Therapy can help you understand yourself and any defenses that show up during this time as you enter into the painful places that are hard to look at and tend to.  If you and your partner/spouse are working on the relationship together, it is important to discuss who within your friends and family you both feel comfortable going to for additional support.  If it seems that stepping into affairs feels more addictive, discuss this with your individual counselor.  In these circumstances approaching the affair(s) as an addiction may be a helpful way to engage with this.  Some may even utilize AA meetings and seek a sponsor for this reason, even though they may not be addicted to alcohol, the concepts and support provided in AA groups may be helpful for recovering from sexual addiction. 

I want to reiterate.  THERE IS HOPE.  YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOUR SHAME SPEAKS OVER YOU.  

Will you need to work on becoming trustworthy, yes.  

Will you need to face and directly tend to parts of yourself that are hurting or even scare you, yes.  

However, the work is fulfilling, healing and brings you into alignment with the values you want to embody and helps you build the legacy you want to build; a legacy that can provide hope for your family and future generations to know that it is possible to change, heal and thrive.  That their shame doesn’t have to dictate their lives and that they are never too far gone. 

You do not need to do this work alone.  If you find yourself in this place today, I would be happy to work alongside you individually or in your relationship and meet you in the places that maybe you have felt alone in for a long time.  I would love to help you build confidence to know and experience that you can encounter and successfully tend to the places within yourself that you might hide from.  Feel free to schedule a free consultation call to see if I would be a good fit for you.