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Fidelity
The Three Phases to Recovering from Infidelity
By Dr. Frank Gunzburg
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Phase I: Individual Healing
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Understanding Personal Healing and Sorting through
Emotional Problems.
Phase I is all about you. And when I say you, I
mean whoever is reading the book. This phase (as well as most of the
book) will focus primarily on the injured because they are the ones
who have the most emotional turmoil to work through.
However, there are specific sections in this phase
for both the injured and the cheater. The cheater will probably
benefit from reading the injured person’s sections and the injured
person will probably benefit from reading the cheater’s section,
although it is not necessary.
When people are affected by infidelity, their
first instincts are to look for reasons that the affairs happened.
They want to know the details of the affairs. They want to know why
their loved ones did what they did. They want to know if they will
ever be able to trust their partners again.
This is what I call “externalizing.” Externalizing
means that people are looking outside of themselves for answers to
emotional issues that are happening within them. When you first
start working on your relationship after an affair, the first thing
you need to do is look within yourself.
You need to stop trying to figure out the other
person; you need to be honest about your own thoughts and feelings
concerning the affair; and you need to shift your perspective from
the outside to the inside, from the external to the internal.
Not only will Phase I help you take a good honest
look at what is going on for you, it also will give you a lot of
concrete strategies that will help you cope with and overcome your
troubling thoughts and feelings.
Rest assured; we will get to the other things you
are worried about. We will look outside as well. We will ask the
hard questions. But first you need to look within. That’s what Phase
I is all about.
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Phase II: Healing As a Couple
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Working Together to Identify and Resolve Key
Issues.
After you do some work on your own reactions to
this difficult experience, you will start to look more closely at
the way you and your partner function as a couple.
In this phase, I will give you a step-by-step
program for effectively communicating with your partner.
This is a critical component in your healing
process. After infidelity, communication becomes incredibly
strained. But if you don’t communicate, you can never heal and you
can never build your relationship into something that is beautiful
and rewarding. Communication is the key to every good relationship.
We will also examine the seven critical dimensions
to a good relationship, and you will be asked to explore how you
might be better fulfilled in each of these dimensions.
Knowing this will set the stage for rebuilding
your relationship into something that is even better than anything
you could have hoped for.
It is also in this phase that we will look at
whether it is important for you to discuss the details of the
affair. You might be surprised to know that this step isn’t always
critical, and unless it is approached properly, it can do more harm
than good. But I will help you navigate those waters successfully.
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Phase III: Negotiating a Renewed Relationship
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Understanding How to Rebuild and Sustain a New,
Trust-filled Partnership.
Once you learn how to talk to one another again,
it is time to actually start doing it. In this last phase of the
book, I will teach you how to renegotiate your relationship.
This means carving out the time you need to spend
with your partner, becoming totally transparent so they can fully
trust you, and ultimately, writing a relationship contract that will
ensure not only that the infidelity will never happen again but that
your relationship will be better than ever.
As I mentioned earlier, this process will take
time and some dedication. But isn’t saving your relationship worth
that investment?
Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in
Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their
marriage for over 30 years.
For more information about restoring the trust
after an affair, please visit:
http://www.marriageadvice.com/recommends/survive
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