Surviving the Affair

In the many years that I have been a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, providing marriage counseling and couples therapy in my offices in Encino and Sherman Oaks, I have seen very many couples where one spouse or both have had extramarital affairs during the course of their marriage. Often when couples enter my office they are feeling depressed, angry and overwhelmed.

Finding that you've been cheated on by your spouse can turn your world upside down. The ground has disappeared from under you. You may feel as if you've been stabbed in the back, battered and bruised. You are a mass of painful and crazy feelings all mixed together: shock, disgust, devastation, anger, grief, denial, fear and uncertainty.

Marriage counseling or individual psychotherapy can make it possible for you to survive the affair and save your relationship by helping you to:

• Identify patterns that explain why it happened in order to prevent future occurrences. Learn how to talk about the affair.
• Rebuild feelings of trust, self confidence and respect. Learn how to deal with your feelings and fears.
• Discover what was missing in your relationship and how to create that now.
• Learn how to talk and listen to each other in new and better ways.

Your spouse had an affair because they were seeking something they thought they couldn't have with you. There were other choices that they could have made and it's not your fault that this happened. Although everyone has made mistakes and done some wrong things in a relationship, cheating is a choice. It's not the fault of the partner who has been betrayed.

Both of you may be asking why this happened and what to do now. You may be unsure whether or not you want to save your marriage, or if broken trust can ever be rebuilt. Is it worth the effort? These are important questions to be explored and therapy can help. It is possible for both partners to emerge feeling more loving and caring, wiser about themselves and the other and with the tools to make their relationship much better.

We all deserve to feel safe and secure in a love relationship, to be with someone who makes us feel loved and cared about, and who is happy to be with us. This is not an unrealistic expectation. We all deserve that experience. Discover whether you and your partner can experience it together.

Encino Family Therapist