When couples come to therapy to explore whether they can restore their relationship after an affair, it is not uncommon for the betrayed partner to experience trauma features and responses. These features might include obsessive rumination about the affair, difficulty sleeping, intrusive thoughts and dreams of the lies and secrets, the moment of the disclosure or uncovering, and sexual images of the affair. These thoughts can be highly consuming for the betrayed partner. Flashbacks can also be cued through anniversary dates, music that references 'cheating', area of town, TV shows or movies. Emotional and sexual intimacy may also trigger flashbacks in the betrayed partner. Flashbacks have the potential of extending up to a year. Trauma can be characterized with having feelings of 'hypervigilance'. Hypervigilance is a term used to describe feelings of elevated fear in response to a perceived lack of safety or trust. When the betrayed partner begins to search for more 'clues', becomes overly suspicious or jealousy, hypervigilance is evident. As you can see, there are many significant difficulties that the betrayed partner goes through as a result of the affair. Juxtaposed is the other partner who now is potentially feeling in crisis as a result of the affair being uncovered. Their crisis is best described as 'what do I need to do to fix this....to be able to save our marriage'. Often times the partner who had the extramarital relationship want the process of therapy to move at a far quicker pace than what the betrayed partner is able to manage. When it come to this type of therapy, you can not move faster than the slowest person in the room. In this case, it will be the traumatized betrayed partner.
Before, any trauma work can be started, it is critical to begin establishing 'safety' and 'hope'. Initially, safety is established by contracting with both parties to agree to attend 6-12 counselling sessions. At times, couples struggle with this especially if one person is ambivalent. In order to establish 'safety', the involved partner MUST STOP and terminate all verbal and physical contact with the affair partner. Then all unavoidable communication or interactions with the past affair partner must be 'shared' openly with the betrayed spouse. In short, a reverse must happen by which the betrayed partner is now on the inside and the affair partner clearly and evidently is placed on the outside of the relationship. The process of recovery cannot begin until the extramarital relationship is clearly terminate and no longer a threat.
In the restoration and rebuilding phase, the couple need to be encouraged to understanding that 'time' and 'energy' into the marriage are critical to reexperiencing their bond. Emotionally, it can be very difficult for a couple to feel motivated in doing things together again. I encourage couples to start doing the behaviours that they want your emotions to become in reestablishing this bond.
In the early phases of therapy, emotions cycle. Having the couple reflect on establishing 'Caring Behaviours' and behavioural expectations is important upfront in therapy despite the underlying anger, mistrust and pain. Generally I will ask couples 'what caring did you receive in the past week' from each partner. Sometimes partners are too implicated and depleted to respond to the notion of 'caring'. In this case, I try to have the couple focus on being 'considerate' and 'respect'. Partners who are hostile and angry might be remind to treat each other as appropriately and respectfully as they would treat a stranger.
In the next blog, I will begin to share the 'telling the story of the affair' process.
No comments:
Post a Comment