Benefits of Marriage Counseling After Infidelity
Being cheated on is probably one of the worst things that could ever happen in a marriage. It does not matter if you have been married for months or years, but when your spouse committed infidelity, it becomes a defining point between you and your significant other. You will find yourself at a crossroads, where you need to choose between forgiving and moving on or letting go and starting a new life.
How An Extra-Marital Affair Can Impact Your Life
Infidelity can leave your soul crushed and your heart shattered. It can potentially dismantle marriages and break families apart. Infidelity or extra-marital affair can have different devastating effects on your married life.
How do you recognize them? How do you deal with them? How will it affect your life?
Here’s how your life will change after infidelity
- Your Self-Esteem and Self-Perception – Infidelity often has a more significant impact on the cheated party. After discovering the infidelity of your spouse, you may find questioning yourself, “Was I enough?” or “Where did I go wrong?”
Cheating is a major blow to the person who has been cheated on. While the decision to cheat does not fall on the victims of the extra-marital affair, they often blame themselves. Also, low self-esteem can have a significant change in their perception of their future relationships.
- Trust Issues – Loss of trust often arises after the discovery of infidelity. The cheated party will find it difficult to trust his/her spouse. He/she may be plagued with insecurities and suspicions. Even if he/she ends the relationship and enters another, the emotional and mental baggage of infidelity will follow. This will seriously affect his/her judgment of others.
- Emotional Instability – Infidelity can turn your world upside down. Your sense of security starts to shatter, which results in emotional instability. The secretive nature of infidelity will have yourself question your judgment and the life you built with your partner.
- Roller-Coaster of Emotions – Infidelity can mess up your emotions. It feels difficult to handle all the different emotions. However, it is normal for the victim of the affair to feel a myriad of emotions.
People committing infidelity usually do not give much thought about their actions or takes into consideration the effects on their partners. The devastating effects typically take a long time to get over and work through. You do not have to suffer the consequences of infidelity by yourself. Your family and friends can be your support network to help you get through and move on to a better future.
How Couples Benefit from Marriage Counselling
Infidelity can rock your marriage to its core. While it can be a painful experience, your behaviour after the discovery of unfaithfulness is a huge factor that will determine the recovery or dissolution of your marriage.
However, many married couples still choose to work out and save their marriage. While the journey to recovery can be a bumpy ride, it can transform your lives for the better — even if you both choose to continue or end your married lives. Thankfully, a good marriage therapist can help you survive the effects of an extra-marital affair.
Marriage counselling or couples therapy helps couples understand each other, resolve conflicts, and enhance the overall relationship. With the help and expertise of a licensed therapist, couples can open their line of communication better, overcome differences, argue in healthier ways, and build trust and understanding.
This makes marriage counselling an effective solution to married couples who are suffering from the aftermath of infidelity. It has been a blessing for many couples. With the intervention of a licensed counsellor, married couples can endure and overcome the effects of infidelity, rebuild trust, and increase understanding and intimacy in the relationship.
Reasons why you and your spouse should seek marriage counselling:
- It helps you understand how it happened.
Seeking couples therapy allows you to be heard and validated, allowing your partner to acknowledge your feelings in a way that makes sense, without blaming and shaming one another.
- It promotes a better understanding between you and your spouse.
Many marital issues remained unresolved because couples do not know how to communicate effectively. Communication gap often results in arguments and misunderstanding. However, a skilled couple therapist can teach you how to communicate with your spouse better to resolve the issue peacefully. When you can communicate, it enables a better understanding between you and your partner.
- It allows you to work together to rebuild trust and a better relationship.
Professional counselling helps many couples recommit and be better versions of themselves. Working together is essential in surviving an affair and help couples move forward, create new boundaries, and deeper connection that eventually rebuilds trust and improves their overall relationship.
Although marriage counselling cannot save all marriages, it helps couples find a solution to work on the problems resulting from the affair and continue a stronger and more communicative relationship. Couples therapy also guides couples in making a more informed decision in case marriage needs to end. Either way, this makes them feel more secure knowing that they have made the right decision.
If you and your spouse feel disconnected after an affair, marriage counselling in Windsor is an excellent resource to help troubled couples overcome the most difficult challenges in marriage. Depression & Relationship Counselling Services offers marriage counselling sessions that will help couples address marital issues both separately and together to repair and strengthen the relationship.
Call us at (519) 253-1519 to book a day or evening appointment with Wendy Limarzi.