Getting Stuck In Infidelity Recovery? Check Your Narrative.

In an earlier post on my private practice website, I discuss how couples get into fights through common misunderstandings. This happens when we make false conclusions about our partner with incomplete information. Conclusions like “you don’t care about me” or “I’m not important to you” or “you don’t think I’ll ever get it right.” Have you ever thought this? Or heard your partner say this about you?

What we believe or how we make sense of things changes our experience.

This applies to infidelity recovery, or any sort of healing from loss. Our stories and conclusions can create additional pain...or not. When we take things personally that aren’t personal, we end up suffering. (See the second agreement in The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz).

For example, common reasons betrayed partners suffer in infidelity recovery include when they believe things like, “my partner cheated because I was not enough” or “they lied to me because I’m not that important.” Very personal. Very painful.

Although these beliefs may be conscious, sometimes they are not. The rational brain may say “I know it wasn’t because of me,” but if the body isn’t convinced, the pain will say “I need my partner back or else it means there’s something wrong with me.” The brain might forcefully say “move on, you deserve better,” while the body screams “make her come back, I am nothing without her.”

When we try to understand our partner’s infidelity, and the only conclusion we have is that “it was me,” we will hurt. But this is an incorrect conclusion.

If you don’t know how to make sense of your partner’s infidelity, and have no idea what the other reasons could be (perhaps your partner left, or doesn’t know the answers themselves) then getting professional help may be useful to you.

Two books, Getting Past The Affair and Not Just Friends , look at various factors that contribute to why affairs happen. These can be useful resources to help you create a balanced understanding and change your narrative.

I had to do this by myself, as my partner left without giving me any information. I could only theorize and make educated guesses. But when I could do that with compassion for what his experience may have been, and release myself from the belief that it was my fault, I was able to move forward. I developed a more balanced and realistic perspective of both myself and of him, in my logical mind, and also in my heart.

For more infidelity recovery resources, please see my Infidelity Recovery Resources List