How To Move Past Someone Cheating | From A Sex Therapist & Intimacy Coach Near Me
How To Move Past Someone Cheating
Hey shameless squad! Sex therapist and intimacy coach Jackie here, blogging in from my beautiful backyard in Minneapolis, MN. It is absolutely gorgeous out this June, and what’s not so gorgeous, is cheating boo! Let’s get into a few quick tips on how to move past cheating in a relationship, marriage, partnership, or polyamorous relationship.
Tip #1: Seek sex therapy near you immediately. According to various research, affairs or healing from infidelity can take anywhere from 1-3 years in consistent couples sex therapy, relationship therapy, an infidelity therapist near you, couples counseling, or marriage therapy.
Tip #2: Understand if you want the relationship or marriage to work. If the answer is no, then you can skip step one when it comes to seeking sex therapy, marriage counseling, couples sex therapy, or couples counseling. I highly recommend seeking therapy for grief and loss purposes regarding breakups and ambiguous loss. Don’t bypass this work.
Tip #3: Make sure you have a healthy support system around you. If you don’t, work on building this boo!!
Tip #4: Explore more on how your partner(s)/spouse can re-establish trust. **Warning: Best to do so again, in couples counseling, sex therapy, marriage therapy, or online therapy that helps support relationships.
Tip #5: Feel your fucking feelings! Cry, let it out, don’t shame yourself for having emotions and being human. Allow yourself and give yourself to be shamelessly vulnerable and sit with them.
Let’s dive deeper into these tips and discuss more on how to move past someone cheating.
What To Expect In Couples Therapy After Infidelity…
As a sex therapist, I see individuals and couples in therapy for different things. I love working with couples who’ve asked the following questions…
What’s the percentage of relationships that work after cheating? How to stop overthinking after being cheated on? What are my feelings after being cheated on? How to get over someone who cheated and lied? How to move past cheating in a marriage?
That may sound odd, but as a sex therapist, I love doing this work because it shows that people who’ve been cheated on in a marriage or relationship may still care to put in the effort. I’ve been trained in a very intensive, directive, approach that is specifically on helping couples heal from cheating or infidelity. I like this work because the therapy tools and interventions for couples counseling are so specific to help those move past cheating.
In therapy with me, you can expect a direct approach to healing from infidelity. Fuck no do we rush the process, it takes time. Whether you are seeking sex therapy, couples counseling, marriage therapy, or couples sex therapy for healing from infidelity, the process in the first three sessions is the same. I meet with you for a sex therapy intake and have you complete my shame questionnaire. If coupled, I meet with one partner for the second session for therapy, and then for the third, I meet with the other partner for therapy. This is to help build rapport, safety and trust in our therapeutic relationship. With the betrayed and betrayer partners I asked what happened and if there are any other secrets that need to be discussed in couples therapy. I also share I am not their secret keeper and encourage them if there are secrets to share them at the next session as a trust exercise. I will also assess the betrayed partner for PTSD related symptoms and complex PTSD. I will also do psychoeducation with the betrayer partner to discuss how research has shown brain scans of PTSD symptoms that can be present in the betrayed partner’s brain. By session four, we come up with specific goals and may get to a therapy exercise. Again, like I said, you cannot rush the therapy process. For healing from infidelity specifically, I give the betrayed partner a list of trust exercises, high and low cost, which they have to complete. These are nonnegotiable for the betrayer to comply with. This is so the trust can be built and start to be restablished. From here we have additional exercises we have to process weekly in therapy. One exercise can sometimes take 1-3 sessions to talk about. I also incorporate my shameless communication skills and self-soothing skills to regulate our emotions in session. If a couple isn’t ready to soothe any difficult emotions, we pause couples therapy work, I meet them individually, and we practice these skills until they are ready to show up in a healthy way in session. We have to learn how to tolerate when we communicate.
Let’s dive deep into the tips I shared above.
1. Seek therapy for you as a couple and individually. This needs to be with a therapist who has had training in healing from infidelity and can share specific therapeutic tools and interventions in those sessions. If a therapist doesn't have this type of training, it can do more harm than good when working with the couple. It is important because there have been studies that show brain scans after an affair from the betrayed partner can develop similar symptoms to PTSD or complex trauma. Everyone needs an outlet for this work; having a therapist for the couple and individually is important. Don't triangulate your friends or family in this situation, that is not helpful when it comes to healing after an affair and this needs to be individual and couples work, not other's work. Don’t go to sex therapy, marriage counseling, or explore ethical nonmonogamy right before you are going to get married as a last-ditch effort to save your relationship. Pause the fucking wedding or engagement, and take time to pour into seeing if this relationship can work. Weddings are expensive, and there is a 50-50 chance your marriage will work.
How much does divorce cost in Minnesota? On average this is $10,000-$20,000 if the process is quick, swift, and you’re not tied up in court. It can also be upwards of $100,000. How much does the average wedding cost in Minnesota? According to Google, it is $33,900, and a wedding planner alone can be $10,000. Investing in therapy, sex therapy, couples sex therapy, marriage counseling, premarital counseling, or healing from infidelity counseling is going to be worth the cost. Create a therapy budget for sex therapy or marriage counseling boo! You’ll thank me once you do!
2. Individually, discern if you want to work on the relationship and/or marriage. If you don't that's a clear sign more individual work is needed with the support of a therapist. There is a lot of ambiguous loss that happens when cheating occurs. This relates to attachment wounds, and complex trauma, which then could lead to depression, anxiety, or adjustment disorder diagnoses. Not to mention, the multiple layers of grief. You’re not just losing that partner when you break up, you’re losing more. The layers of grief and loss can look like an additional salary to pay bills, friendships, family members, community groups, emotional support, physical support around the house or regarding home tasks. This list is endless and is a lot to process. Not to mention triggers at family events, people asking you, and learning how to shamelessly navigate those comments boo! It’s a lot for damn sure. Therapists may suggest keeping your daily routine and self care habits. Make sure you don't lose what keeps you grounded, take care of your sleep, eating habits, water, and routines.
3. Make sure you have social support around you. Again, don't triangulate and put people in the middle, but plan joy and pleasure into your schedule. Have nights after work where you can look forward to things that you like doing. It is also important to be around healthy friendships and relationships, along with building community support. When a friend or family member goes through a breakup ask them what they need for support, rather than assume, or make a shaming comment boo!
4. Reestablish trust, if there's something the betrayed partner needs and/or wants to try to rebuild trust, try it and see how it works. Again, therapy is recommended with this to have someone who is trained to help in this area of expertise, for support. Ask that therapist, sex therapist, couples counselor, or marriage therapist, what their training is specifically with healing from infidelity. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people who seek marriage counseling for this and their marriage and family therapist does not have extensive CEU training, read books, or built knowledge in this area. Therapists have power in what they say to clients, therapists also are not perfect and need to stay within their scope of practice. If they don’t it can do more harm than good.
5. Feel your feelings! Feeling is healing. Honestly, don't stuff your emotions. Don’t use maladaptive coping mechanisms, defense mechanisms, or excuse yourself because you went through this with shame responses and project that onto others. Not being and doing this work, can affect other relationships in your life without even realizing it. It is when we slow down, get quiet, cry, feel, think, and heal is when we realize how things are still affecting us, and others, and what we can do about it at the end of the day. The more you avoid the affair, the harder it will be to deal with in the future.
Additional thoughts on affairs when it comes to being a sex therapist who also does premarital counseling…
Due to symptoms being resurfaced and reprocessed, there could be triggers that can't be avoided, or come up out of nowhere, and this is important to work on individually and together as a couple. It is also important to understand why the affair happened, occurred, and what type of affair it is. As a sex therapist, I think a lot of times people look at the betrayer as if they're an awful person. If they've gone to premarital counseling without any questions about sex and a person is pansexual and their spouse says sure we can explore that later, then doesn't, well one heterosexual (any one type of sexual attraction) person cannot meet that other person's needs. If the other partner agrees to this as well and lies to that person prior to marriage about a pretty big thing, then it also shows a relationship red flag is present too. Sexuality is also fluid and it is important to have this conversation not only for couples going to premarital counseling, those who are married, but even the ones who are committed to a partnership and how to navigate if and when this changes in the future. You also need to advocate for your sexuality, speak the fuck up, and decide, whether that person or the relationship with yourself is more important. #shamelesstruth I know that’s rough and if that person truly loves you, they’ll understand that your sexual needs (aka sexuality) have changed and they will do everything they can to explore that with you. If they don’t, then maybe they’re not the right person for you anymore or other relationship red flags might be present. Some people are in our lives for a season and that’s the reason. Same with marriage, relationships, partnerships, hook ups, fuck buddies, FWB, etc. What is it you can learn from those relationships and apply to your current one or the one with yourself in the future?
What Do Therapists Say About Affairs?
A lot! How much time you got? ;) It does take time, energy, and investment on your and your partner(s)/spouse’s behalf if you are going to seek therapy for infidelity. It is not a one-and-done session, in sex therapy or couples therapy work. HELL NO!! That is a last-ditch effort to think we can suck it up, get over it, or push through it, when those are all inner shame narratives, that we know deep down inside, subconsciously, won’t work. Again, it takes anywhere from 1-3 years with consistent weekly therapy to heal after infidelity. It cannot be rushed. It is trauma. It is traumatic. This type of complex little t trauma is valid. That’s one reason why it takes so much time. A second reason why is that trust takes time to build back. If the betrayer doesn’t agree to the betrayed partner’s trust exercises, (which are meant to be non-negotiable in the CEU I completed), then that stubbornness isn’t going to move the relationship forward, closer to healing. A third reason is willingness vs. willfulness. In no way am I a DBT therapist, and this concept holds true to relationships and sex therapy. If one partner has the willfulness to not try to heal, repair, or make the relationship better with their partner, then it’s going to be hard for this person to be willing enough to move forward. A fourth reason is that people learn as to whether or not they can forgive that person or if they want to move forward. Honestly, this list can go on and on.
How To Find Peace After Being Cheated On
Relationships ARE WORK and if you’ve experienced cheating, on either side, you’re going to have to put in the work for things to heal and fully be better. The relationship with yourself is the longest one you’ll have. Work on yourself. Work on your mental health. Work on your sexual health. Work on your physical health. Work on your self-worth, values, boundaries, communication skills, and what you don’t tolerate or consent to. You have to learn to find peace within yourself and understand how to not perpetuate any shame, complex trauma, or tactics onto others after experiencing this. If you’ve been cheated on and you haven’t gone to couples counseling, individual therapy, or therapy near you, I highly suggest you do.
Otherwise, your marriage, relationship, partnership, sex life, responsibilities, intimacy, pleasure, family, friendships, mental, sexual, physical health, and the relationship with yourself, are going to suffer.
You’re going to question if you can trust that person.
You could have future trust issues in any type of relationship.
You may not get close to people in life.
You can avoid hard conversations with other people.
You can also do the same thing that person did to you, not accept responsibility for your actions when you’ve hurt somebody.
You may use sex/lack thereof as a weapon.
You may engage in psychological and emotional abuse tactics to get back at the person who hurt you, or worse, this can be displaced and projected onto others too.
You are going to be stuck in a cycle of complex trauma, and shame, and won’t have a place to release it.
The body keeps the score and cheating is an attachment wound. If you put a bandage on a broken arm, it won’t ever get fixed. That’s the same thing when it comes to mental, sexual, and relational health too. This is the shameless truth. If you’ve experienced cheating, I’m so sorry boo, and know that I’m here to help you. If you need help finding therapy near you, reach out to me today. I’m one referral away, reach out to me today!
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