​When a couple is facing relationship repair following the discovery of infidelity or sex addition betrayal, defensiveness and anger outbursts can be extremely damaging to the couple’s healing. The betrayed spouse will need to ask questions in order to try to understand what has been happening or what is currently happening in the relationship. It is normal to ask the same question several times over an extended period. The betrayed spouse is seeking emotional safety where he/she thought they were safe, but found out that they were not.
When a betrayed spouse approaches to ask questions, the worst thing that can happen is to be met with defensiveness, shouting or anger outbursts. This will shut down communication and halter the healing process. For the relationship survival, it is a good sign when the betrayed spouse wants to engage and discuss. It is not a good sign when they become numb, checked out or really does not care anymore.
I often remind people of the saying, “Those who have nothing to defend, defend nothing.” Defensiveness only make people look like there is something hidden, that they are doing something wrong, and it creates further doubt.
Couples who do the best in the recovery process are the couples who can talk, share their feelings, take accountability for their own wrong doings, continue to talk and continue to answer questions as they may arise.
 
Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

You may have been keeping a secret from your spouse for a long time. There may have been times in the past when you wanted to disclose the secret, but the fears of the unknown reactions kept you from saying anything.  Maybe you had no desire to share the secret, but it was accidentally discovered. Anyhow, when secrets come out, the relationship will be rocky for a while. 

Once the secret is out, you may have thought that your spouse would be mad and hurt for a couple of weeks, then get over it. That is probably not the case. Whether the secret involves infidelity, compulsive pornography use, drug use or other acting out behaviors, you spouse is likely to be in pure
disbelief at first. Then there may be anger, confusion and pain. There is no time limit on how long the healing process takes as it’s a very individualized.

Your spouse will need time to heal, recover and eventually learn to trust you again in order for the relationship to survive. Going forward, you will need to practice rigorous honesty. You will need to be sensitive to your spouse’s needs and understand that the pain of the secret keeping will take time to heal. There may be times when the relationship seems to be worse as you go through the healing process. The relationship is actually not worse. The relationship has now become honest and sometimes honesty really hurts.  Many things that have not been talked about in the past will now need to be addressed. There will be feelings that need to be processed in order to move forward. It will be uncomfortable and painful at times.  

You can apologize for the pain you have caused, but you can’t go back and have a redo. What you can do is to stay in the present. Listen to your spouse and ask what you can do to help. Do not tell your spouse how they should or should not feel.  Do not get angry or defensive.  Research shows that couples who are able to keep the communication open and honest are able to heal faster. If you feel like you can’t talk about it and just want to “hurry up and get over it,” you will only prolong the recovery process. There is no way around or a quick fix.You will need to answer questions, display complete transparency and implement boundaries for yourself and the relationship. It is hard work, but it is doable. Many people report feeling stronger and more confident is their relationship following all the work that both parties need to invest in  in order to restore the relationship.

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples
heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

When infidelity spreads its toxins upon a marriage, the betrayed partner wants to know WHY. Often, the betrayed spouse reports that there were no obvious disconnections in the marriage and the disclosure of infidelity came as a shock. The most common question asked is: “Why did this happen?” The reason why someone chooses to be unfaithful differs and sometimes it is difficult to identify why the infidelity happened in the first place. 

Sometimes infidelity occurs because there are people who are opportunists.  They cheat simply because they had the opportunity to do so. Sometimes infidelity occurs because there are friendships that cross the line into sexual and emotional affairs. Sometimes the reason may be that the cheating person is sexually addicted. There are times when infidelity occurs because of unaddressed unhappiness in the marriage. Sometimes infidelity occurs because the betrayer thought that they would never get caught and that there would be no consequences. Whatever the reasons are, infidelity causes extreme pain, anxiety and disrupts all trust in the relationship. The “why” needs to be identified and explored.

Infidelity recovery requires a lot of healing time and work. The involved partner needs to figure out why it happened. Finding out why it happened provides an aspect of insight, and an avenue to work on, in order to prevent it from happening again. The betrayed spouse will be experiencing a lot of anxiety and doubt. The betrayed spouse will wonder if this will happen again. The “why’s” are important to identify for the healing of the relationship , emotional safety of the betrayed spouse and can serve as an identifier to build up more “infidelity proofing” in the marriage. 

The betrayed spouse will need clarity, accountability, honesty and a plan to work on the marriage. It will take at least a solid year to heal from the damages of infidelity. It may take longer. In order to restore the damages created, measurable steps may be needed, such as willingness to participate in couples counseling, taking a therapeutic polygraph test, investing in practicing emotional intimacy exercises at home and a large dose of empathy for the betrayed spouse.

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, SRT, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling and Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco,
Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

If you are in recovery for sexual addiction and you are in a relationship, you have learned that not only do you need to keep your own recovery in check; you will also need to consider your partner’s recovery. The same goes for relationships healing from infidelity.  There are certain things that you want to avoid, so that your spouse is not triggered again. 

Following disclosure, a triggering moment would be if you become defensive when asked about your progress in recovery/therapy. When you become defensive, it may signal that you have something to hide.  If you allow defensiveness and irritation to seep through because you have repeatedly been asked about the same thing and you feel like that topic has been covered, you need to put yourself in her shoes. Your spouse will ask about your recovery or progress as many times as she needs to. Your spouse may be asking you these questions for the purpose of seeking some kind of emotional safety in a relationship where she may not have had any for some time.

When your partner asks you about your progress, she is not attempting to be controlling or nosy. Her world has been turned upside down and she is still trying to seek safety in the relationship. She still wants to stand by you. When asking about your recovery, she needs to know that you are also taking the relationship repair seriously. She feels like you are holding her heart in your hands. You have hurt her and she knows that the chance of getting hurt again is a possibility. She is afraid and she asks for confirmation of safety.

When you become defensive, irritable and angry in response, you have threatened her security of safety in the relationship. She has now become triggered and doesn’t know if she is emotionally safe with you. She may think that you have something to hide and that you are still lying and manipulating. Rebuilding trust and healing the relationship will take complete openness,honesty and a belief in the behaviors that you are displaying. 

Instead of her having to ask you about your recovery, willingly share it. You are not asked to share all your personal notes about recovery, but share how many meetings you have attended, share what step you are on or what general exercise you are currently working on. This allows more stability and relieves anxiety and irritation. When you have seen your therapist, share in general terms about what you discovered or learned. You do not have to share details. This allows for your spouse to see that the recoveryof the relationship is also important to you and that she is not alone in working towards rebuilding the relationship. 

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, SRT, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling & Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco,
Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

If you have recently found out that your spouse has been unfaithful, you may be tempted to find out every single, gritty detail about the affair. You are in a state of shock and disbelief that you spouse would betray you in this most intimate way. In an attempt to find safety in the midst of the turmoil, you may be tempted to ask about everything regarding the affair and the affair partner. Open communication is crucial in repairing a relationship, but be careful of what you ask.

Relationships are more likely to make it through and heal following infidelity when communication is transparent and all questions are honestly answered. You have the right to know the truth and the nature of your spouse’s betrayal, yet you may be tempted to ask questions that will only hurt you more in the long run. Each couple will need to determine how much is shared about the affair. Communication and the need to know is healing when the information is provided, yet obsessiveness can be retraumatizing.  The balance can be tricky because the need to know every detail is very strong especially early on when emotions are
raw.

You may be tempted to ask questions about sexual acts or wanting to read love letters, but these types of graphic information may only add to your own trauma and may become intrusive thoughts that keep reoccurring in your mind. Sometimes people retraumatize themselves by pushing for more and more
details that become additional triggers and sources of pain. The key is finding the balance between what too much information is and what you need to know in order to heal.

If you are unsure of what is too much information, write down the questions on a piece of paper and check back in a week, a couple of weeks or a month. Once the time has passed, evaluate what unanswered questions are still important for you to have answered. Be gentle with yourself. There is no time table to be followed in healing from infidelity. You cannot rush the healing process. 

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, SRT, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling & Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

Couples are sometimes uncertain of where to draw the line between appropriate behavior and behaviors that may be considered cheating.  Some define cheating as having sexual contact outside the marriage. Some people define cheating as
anything that is done in secret that would not be approved upon if the other spouse had knowledge of the behavior.  So where should the line be drawn?  Would an emotional affair be considered cheating if there was no sexual contact? What about the secret use of pornography?

Some people are confused about whether they have the “right”to be angry with their spouse when faced with any kind of betrayal, because they are unsure if the behavior has crossed the line to be considered
“cheating”. The definition for the word cheating is “to deceive or trick.”  Cheating has occurred in the relationship when boundaries have been disrespected. Every relationship is defined by the boundaries that have been established to protect the relationship. Once the boundaries of the relationship have been crossed, the result is broken trust. 

If a person thinks that the actions that their spouse engaged in are defined as cheating, then it is. A person can feel it when they have been betrayed by a loved one.  They will feel it by the anxiety, mistrust and anger that build up towards the betrayer. Intuition usually tells a person that something is not right in the relationship. Cheating and betrayal are detrimental to the relationship.  The foundation of the relationship has been ripped away. The foundation of any relationship is trust, and once trust has been broken, it will take a long time to rebuild. People know that betrayal has occurred because they will no longer feel the unconditional trust. They will start to second guess and question if their spouse is actually truthful

A spouse has cheated and betrayed the marriage when there has been an emotional affair, secret viewing of pornography, planning of an encounter- or whatever it may have been, when it is done outside of what is
considered appropriate in the relationship. It is pointless to try to convince someone that certain behaviors are not considered cheating because the damage has already been done. The repair work will still need to be done in order for the relationship to survive. The relationship has been put in danger and iwill take significant time to rebuild the trust. The foundation of the relationship will be wobbly until trust is restored. 
 
Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, SRT, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling & Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

The TV stories about the celebrity relationships ending due to
betrayal are quite frequent these days. Many people also have family members or friends who share their devastation and pain relating to infidelity or deceit in their relationships. Other than the obvious: infidelity, sex addiction, physical
and emotional abuse, there are many other betrayal areas that may also play out in a marriage. According to Dr. John Gottman, there are some main areas of betrayal that may play out in relationships that can be devastating to the
marriage.

1.  Conditional Commitment- This is the kind of relationship where everything is “well” until the next best thing comes around. It is a shallow relationship where either one, or both, people are not truly invested in
deepening the commitment. Deep issues are not discussed. This may be the couple who married because they felt pressured or felt like they “should” instead of wanting to. 

2.  A Nonsexual Affair/ Emotional Affair- The marriage may be in trouble when there is a “work wife” or “work husband” involved. This work confidant is someone outside of the marriage who has been told a lot of private information about the marriage and is described as “just a friend” from work. Having close friends is fine, but if intimate information is shared that may make the other spouse uncomfortable should they know, the line may be crossed from a friendship onto the side of a nonsexual/emotional affair. 
 
3.  Lying-Some couples may lie to each other as an attempt to avoid tension and conflict in the relationship. As a result, there is a breach of trust. Secrets keeping is harmful to the relationship, but it can be worked through, unless one person is a chronic liar. Chronic lying is a pattern established in childhood and that pattern may have additional challenges to be worked through. Regardless, lies and secret keeping in marriage is destructive. 
 
4.  Forming a Coalition Against the Partner- This is the “ganging up” tactic used against one spouse. Maybe it is the husband who gangs up on this wife by having his mother as his ally, or it is the wife who colludes with her mother to gang up on the husband.  Either way, it is destructive to the marriage. Boundaries need to be established around how much is shared with others who may interfere in the relationship.

 Dr. John Gottman also identifies several other betrayal areas in marriage, such as: coldness, withdrawal of sexual interest, and disrespect. This list is not all inclusive and there are many other areas to explore. If you
identify with an area, it does not mean that your marriage is doomed. It simply means that there are areas of concern that you need to work on in order to make the marriage stronger. 

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, SRT, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling & Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

Anger alerts us to the fact that something is wrong. We need to stop and figure out
what is beneath the anger. Is it that we have been betrayed, disrespected or
that we feel fearful and unimportant? On the surface, we fume and show our anger, but within we may feel wounded.

 If you have been betrayed by your spouse due to lies, infidelity or sex addiction,
then you are probably on an emotional roller coaster. You may be experiencing
rage, despair, numbness and shock. There are days when you allow the tears and the feelings of pain to sink in, and there may be days where you fight off the feelings of pain. Instead of showing the pain, your body oozes of anger and resentment.

Anger is normal. Anger can also be toxic. If you stay in a state of anger and resentment, your world becomes small and dark. Not only have you been betrayed by someone you thought you could count on, but you may now be abandoning yourself by succumbing to the darkness of anger to rule your life.

At first, your anger is 100 percent legitimate. However, if you are still consumed by anger and resentment months following disclosure, then it is time to get to work to spew out the anger that holds you trapped. If you stay in this world, you will not be able to be your best self as a parent, friend, spouse or sibling. 
 
Try to analyze your anger: what specifically are you angry about? What fears are involved in the anger? Write an anger letter where you write down everything that you feel and think. DO NOT send this letter or allow the person whom you are addressing in the letter to see this letter. This is a private “spew your anger” moment. Read it out loud to yourself several times, then do something to release the built up anger. Some people prefer to hit a pillow, some need to go for a run and some prefer to throw ice cubes to release the built up anger. Do what works best for you. Find a therapist who has training in healing from betrayal, and allow yourself to be guided and encouraged as you work through
what is keeping you trapped.   
 
Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling & Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Dallas and Sherman area.

“Your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what you say”- Source Unknown

Once trust has been broken in a relationship, it is very difficult to restore. It takes time and a consistent show of certain behaviors to rebuild trust. It is a process that has no quick fix. Trust can be broken in relationships due to infidelity, addictions or due to other lies and deception. Whatever the reason, once trust has been broken, the relationship is in a state of crisis.

One aspect of rebuilding trust is to stop listening to the words spoken and watch for consistent behaviors over time. Listening and believing words spoken by a person who has been proven to be an unreliable source only creates additional anxiety and can be crazy making in itself. An addict often lies to protect the addiction, an unfaithful spouse lies to protect the secret relationship, and some people lie to avoid true intimacy in a relationship. Sometimes, there are so many lies told that it is impossible to sort out what is true and what is not.

Do not spend time engaged in head games. Attention should be paid to observable behaviors. If the unreliable person is actually in recovery, then the behaviors that back that up would be seeing them reading recovery materials, attending groups, participating in therapy and utilizing new coping skills. If the not so truthful person has engaged in infidelity, then the behaviors that may support an end to the illicit relationship could be complete transparency with phone and email accounts, the end to unexplained absences, and show of empathy and regret for the pain they have caused.  

Broken trust produces pain, fear and anxiety. There is no quick fix to this issue. Often people will report that their intuition had been telling them all along what the truth is; however, often this was ignored in place of believing the words spoken by the deceiver. If finding out that a person has broken trust, believe behaviors, focus on your own well-being and allow time to provide all the answers that you need.


Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC-Intern, NCC, therapist at McKinney Counseling and Recovery, specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. McKinney Counseling & Recovery serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Dallas and Sherman area.