After An Affair--Will it Work to Let Go of Infidelity?
Will it Work to Forget About the Infidelity and Work to Repair Your Marriage?
Dear Dr. Gunzburg,
My wife cheated on me. After the affair, my therapist told me to let go of the infidelity and work on repairing the relationship. I want to repair my marriage, but I can't stand letting her get away with what she did. How do I let it go and move on in the relationship?
M
San Francisco, CA
Dear M,
If it were up to me, I would put warning signs over the doors of individual therapists: Caution, individual therapy may be hazardous to your marital health.
Your therapist's recommendation is not unusual, and sometimes it works to get a marriage going again. The problem I find with this advice is that it is not satisfying for the person in your position, and I would question if the cheater has sufficiently repaired her character to avoid temptation in the future.
I find that the cheater's motivation during the early stages after being caught is very high, and she cannot imagine doing anything like this again. The emotional ache of focusing on the infidelity and hearing the injured person's emotional pain is highly motivating to the cheater to be willing to say and do almost anything that will move the process off of the infidelity and onto something else.
Bottom line: After trying different approaches over the years, I have found that avoiding emotional turmoil by not going over the affair leaves the marriage vulnerable. The cheater probably has not done her own character repair, and the injured person doesn't feel safe in the relationship. This comes out of my experience, and is not based on any experimental work. As a guide to counseling, it depends on many more details than we can work through in this question and answer format.
I wish you the strength to get through this difficult time amd work towards a better marriage.
Frank Gunzburg, Ph.D., P.A.
You can reach me at 410-654-1300 in Pikesville, Maryland which is part of Baltimore or toll-free 1-866-654-1300.
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