Tag: better relationship

How to Recover after Infidelity

Being the Best Client During Treatment

How you recover after infidelity depends almost entirely on being the right kind of client during treatment. I’ll explain what I mean.

This quote applies: “Your wound is probably not your fault; but your healing is your responsibility.”

Especially after infidelity, this concept can be a tough one to grasp. But it’s true for BOTH of you, no matter if you’re the offender or the betrayed partner. Recovery is going to require that you take responsibility for your own healing.

Do this to Recover after Infidelity

Taking responsibility for your own healing is the FIRST step toward growth.

It means you stop blaming other people or expecting them to change.

Take a minute right now and think of your own situation. In what ways have you been hoping, maybe for years, that your partner would change, do things differently, think differently, even treat you differently? What ways do you think they want YOU to change and do things differently or treat them differently?

It might sound strange coming from a therapist, but expecting change is a recipe for disaster in any relationship.

I know it especially sounds strange to say this is an unrealistic expectation when INFIDELITY has been revealed. It sounds counterintuitive, right? But changing the other person is the LAST thing you want to focus on right now.

Number One Reason to Focus on Yourself

If you’ve discovered a partner has betrayed you, focusing on them and waiting for them to “do the right thing” or to respond the “right way” is a waste of your time and energy for a number of reasons:

First, your idea of how they should respond is not the point. Expecting other people to be a certain way was never reasonable or healthy for your relationship. Expectations are different from having “standards.” Of course you ought to have personal standards for what you experience in relationship. And yes, infidelity probably doesn’t meet that standard at all. But having expectations is destructive to any relationship and it will disappoint you every time.

Secondly, it rarely (if ever) works to wait for the other person to do the “right thing”. No matter which side of the infidelity equation you’re on (offender or betrayed) actually getting another human to behave “correctly” (aka how you want them to behave) doesn’t ever work. You cannot control another human being. And if you’re hoping to influence, coerce, or manipulate them, that’s just a really unhealthy relationship tactic.

Besides, trying to get someone else to “do the right thing” takes a tremendous amount of energy. That’s energy you can focus toward something you can succeed at: doing your own healing.

But the number one reason to take complete responsibility for your self and your own healing is because it’s empowering to do so. There’s no reason on the planet you should be giving your power (your agency, your energy, your strength) to someone else. And especially you should not be giving it away when you’ve experienced a disorienting and painful heart wound like infidelity. You need that agency, energy, and strength to focus on actually healing.

If you’re going to Recover After Infidelity

Get specialized help that does NOT focus on answering why this happened and what’s wrong with the relationship. Truly helpful therapists will invite you to focus on taking responsibility for yourself. Especially in the context of couples counseling. They’ll provide effective methods- things you’ll practice in and between sessions and cognitive adjustments you can make during session and regular life- to help you weather your own pain, prevent further damage, stay focused on your actions, and allow your heart to heal.

Recovery after infidelity is not about skipping ahead and trying to make the relationship better.

So often, if that “college try” doesn’t pan out, people call it quits, invite an additional wave of upheaval and pain when they end the relationship, then feel quite justified that at least they “made an effort.”

In truth, if they’d gotten the right support to recover after infidelity, including the right approach to real healing, they’d have saved themselves a ton of suffering…and probably the relationship.

Moving on without real Recovery

Moving on is not real recovery. It doesn’t heal the wound. Yet, people do it all the time. They might even stay together.

But when there’s not real recovery and the wound is not actually healed, it affects people for the rest of their lives. A scar forms. Things change forever. After all, trust IS difficult to repair. The offender cannot make up for the transgression. The betrayed partner can’t seem to “get over” the transgression.

It either affects this current relationship for the rest of life or it affects the next one (when people are “brave” enough to try again.) Maybe, after spending time, energy, and money seeking counseling, people part ways and give up on committed relationship altogether, “content” to focus on platonic friendships for the rest of life.

No matter how you slice it, it’s still a mess.

Ready to Recover After Infidelity

Maybe you didn’t expect this enormous pain. You probably could not have imagined this would happen. Maybe you can’t believe you “did this” or “let it happen.”

Of course, ultimately the offender made a choice to go outside the relationship. No matter what, BOTH of you are in pain and the choice to truly heal lies with YOU alone, not your partner.

Remember “the wound is probably not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility.”

The key is to be the best kind of client, ready to do your work.

Show up to couples counseling ready to be responsible for yourself. That’s the first, most important hurdle right now. Trust me, if you can do that, you are going to recover completely. And you will do it much more quickly than the usual timeline suggests.

And if it’s hard for your to do this, I can help with that too.

I invite clients to recover after infidelity in a way that serves them for the rest of life, no matter what happens to the relationship. We look at what it means for you to fully function as a whole human being. Taking responsibility for yourself- especially now- is the first step toward freedom.

Soon you’ll be able to show up in a healthy, happy state and engage in and enjoy loving relationship. It’s your birthright. I’ll show you how to get there.

Reach out below and let’s schedule a consultation call.

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Getting Needs Met

Whether in life generally or in relationship specifically, getting your needs met can be tricky. Some people go about this by being demanding. (Aggressive.) Others are quiet. (Passive.) Some pretend to be content while there’s seething anger and resentment below the surface. (Passive Aggressive.) Sometimes others just “take the bull by the horns” and go get what they want because they believe things like “no one else is gonna help.” Still others become “needless and wantless” so there is no risk.

But what is healthy?

People taught us what to believe

Sometimes our caregivers taught us not to ask. Others of us were shamed whenever we asked for what we needed. We may have been scolded or mocked (by parents or by siblings.) Some of us adopted the belief “it doesn’t help to ask; I never get what I want anyway.” Or “it’s too much trouble to ask for what I need.”

Caregivers taught some of us to get louder. Our requests escalated until someone heard them. We learned that eventually we got something, even if it was after great effort. Maybe we came to believe “I have to be loud and demanding in order to get anyone to listen.” Or “raising my voice is the only way anyone pays attention.” We might even believe “I have to work really hard to get anything I want.”

Still others had an experience where they made their needs known and only sometimes got what they needed. Other times, caregivers ignored them completely. This kind of instability can have people believing “I can’t really trust my instincts and cues.” After all, as children, they could not make sense of which needs mattered. They may have started to believe “my needs aren’t that important. It’s more important that others have what they need.” Still another belief that might arise is something like “it’s not safe to have needs and wants. It’s definitely not safe to express them.”

How do you get your needs met?

The way we go about getting our needs met says a lot about how we’re made and how we move through the world. If you’ve been around much, you know I talk about this a lot. It’s because I’m a personality psychologist- which just means I’m one of those people who believes personality is in our DNA just as much as eye color or body composition. (And we personality psychologists also value studying how these traits and tendencies inform psychological health.)

We form beliefs and patterns around needs and wants based on HOW early caregivers acknowledged and satisfied our needs and wants. Of course, that personal history occurred when we were pre-verbal, so it’s not always easy to “remember.” But there IS evidence.

Sadly, some caregivers completely ignored us and left us alone to cry it out. It’s easy to identify patterns that emerged because of that. We truly became despondent about asking for what we need. Learned helplessness took deep roots. It can be hard to speak up as adults.

More often, parents left us alone sometimes. Other times they provided what we needed. Many caregivers supplied what we needed to survive, but we had few wants and desires acknowledged or fulfilled. Maybe you learned not to complain, to “take what you get and don’t get upset.” Or you were told to “be grateful for what you have. Others have it worse.” As adults, it might all seem like a crap shoot. You can feel guilty for wanting something different or better.

Profound confusion about getting your needs (much less wants) met follows. You might question: How do I do that? Is it right to ask for what I need? Is it okay to ask for what I want? Sometimes, we think “hell, yeah, I have a right! I demand to be heard!”

People often vacillate.

Many of my clients do this. They vacillate between NOT asking for what they need and DEMANDING that others meet their needs. Or, they secretly hope and expect others to read their minds. Others should “just know” what the client needs, wants, and expects to be done. These are Losing Strategies. In life, in business, in friendships, parenting, even in intimate partnerships.

To be clear, Losing Strategies do not work. They waste time and energy. They create and sustain problems. Eventually, Losing Strategies will have such costly consequences, you won’t be able to ignore them any longer. That’s a good thing.

Acknowledging Losing Strategies is the first step. People can struggle identifying these earliest patterns and beliefs for very good reason. Our brain schema cements them. Experience underscores the belief. Before we know it, they simply become “the water we swim in.” So questioning those beliefs is a strong first step toward having more of our needs and wants met.

But it is not enough simply to acknowledge the beliefs and then determine to change them. Thankfully, there are methods.

Neuroscience and Getting Needs Met

Luckily, we can use brain science to help us alter faulty beliefs around getting our needs and wants met.

First, we must clearly root out what are those beliefs.

Next, How are they showing up and costing us?

If we know these things, we can face them head-on. Do a little thinking about this. Maybe a little journaling even. Consider where the beliefs came from. Can you trace their origins? In my groups and courses, we have modules for what to DO with these revelations. We use neuroscience and evidenced-based techniques for processing them.

But for now, 1. simply record them. Then, 2. observe in real life how they are playing out. Are you expecting others to read your mind, know what you want, and give it to you? Do you keep quiet and then get irritated that you don’t have what you want? Do you move through life demanding others see, hear, and reward your requests?

Next, 3. write down what has been the damage because of this tendency. How has it cost you? What business consequences? How about in community? What about in your personal relationships?

Finally, 4. what would you rather experience? How would you rather show up in work, life, and personal friendships and intimate relationship?

Getting crystal clear about all of this is gigantic for making progress.

Keep in mind that the desire to experience something different requires DOING things differently. If you need help with that, I am here for that very thing. Do your preliminary work and then bring it to individual sessions or to the women’s group, SSS Life. Then we’ll apply some pretty cool neuroscience to help you get more of what you need and want.

Staying Motivated

There IS a secret to staying motivated and it is completely within your control. That’s the good news. Putting the secret to work to benefit you takes just a little conscious effort on your part. (For you super-lazy people, that’s the bad news.)

For the rest of us, staying motivated is actually easier than you think right now. And sure, some of your “anchor” reminders or aspirational images truly may help you focus on where you’re going. I won’t say that’s complete hogwash. After all, I am often caught saying “we have in our lives exactly what we believe we deserve.” And I stand by that. So those anchors and aspirational images actually do help you envision what you deserve…as long as they are not accompanied by an inner dialogue that completely negates everything they stand for.

If you look at that anchor photo of the beautiful house you will afford, or the lovey-dovey couple joyously cavorting on the beach in their elder years, or the svelte model in the exact jumpsuit you have hanging in your closet waiting for you to drop 15 pounds…and you say to yourself “fat chance, sucker, who do you think you are? That’s not you; you’ll never get there…”

…well, it’s not the image or anchor that needs to change. It’s your inner dialogue that needs to adjust so your motivation has some staying power! And the key to staying motivated is shifting your inner dialogue.

Shift the Inner Dialogue to stay motivated

Psychology Today did an article on Silencing your Inner Critic several months ago. Since I keep the magazine in my lobby at Luwandi Counseling and Coaching here in Cincinnati, I observe what people pick up. Other issues have been recycled, but reprints of that one article has been requested more than any other.

Maybe part of the reason is that I talk about this in sessions. It relates to being gentle, (a theme song everyone who knows me hears over and over) and it’s one of the best ways to stay motivated when the rest of therapy (or life) is a struggle.

Why on earth are we hard on ourselves?

Many of us think it’s what actually gets us motivated and moving. That’s rarely authentically true. Usually there is fear under the harshness and well, fear just is NOT as good as faith (or love and respect.) Ask any kid who ever had a harsh parent.

Did that harshness really engender respect and make any child a better person? I have met adults who heard that harshness and gritted their teeth and vowed to prove that parent, coach, or teacher wrong! But it was anger that motivated, not the harshness itself.

Sure, I’ve had clients who internalized the harshness and passed that harshness, critical, and bitter bile onto their children, hurting the generation to follow. But no one was better for it.

And yes, fear keeps us running for a while. All of us have imagined wolves or rabid dogs (of some sort) chasing and nipping at our heels and it DID keep us moving and striving. But it’s exhausting after a bit. It’s super exhausting after years… or decades.

It’s time you put down the harshness and fear and realized it just does not serve you anymore.

There is a better way!

Shift your inner dialogue from harsh to caring (not permissive or anything goes, don’t worry!) I know at first it can feel like you’re hiking cliff-side without guard rails, but You have Got this! (I say that even though I secretly think that phrase is so overused!)

But seriously… get a hold of yourself, keep your eyes in front of you. Resist the fear and just proceed one step after the other.

Notice when your inner dialogue gets harsh. It happens any time you call yourself names, when you disparage your efforts, or label your behavior as worthy of disdain. First notice, and then replace it with something you can believe.

Replace the inner critic with a Cheerleader

I’m talking the kind of cheerleader you can believe. Which means you don’t go from zero to a thousand if your mind is just going to laugh at you. Begin in gentle increments. But begin.

You’re not an idiot. You’re not a slob or gross or a klutz or hopeless. Start with easy phrases like “you got this” if you can believe it. Encourage yourself with soothing, encouraging phrases you might tell a small child. Cheer yourself with things you’d say to a very dearest friend. Be GOOD to you.

Just a note

Yes, being good to you IS different than being indulgent. In my office, I like to talk about waking up your true self, the “Gentle, Benevolent Observer” who is really your higher self, your higher consciousness, the higher self, your functional adult…all the same part of each of us as humans. You’ll recognize her when she acts like her name. You’ll know him when he shows up performing the duties his name describes. Get in touch with THAT part of you. It’s the YOU who prevails, succeeds, breaks habits, makes new ones, and reaches the goals your heart desires.

Need help with that? Of course, reach out. Shoot me a message on the contact page or JOIN the Insider’s Club and get my Love Letters.