Re-establishing Safety before Trust

Trust has to be earned and Re-establishing Safety. This is not an overnight process. Just as the involved partner cannot flick a switch to turn off all feelings for the lover, the noninvolved partner cannot shift from betrayal to unquestioning trust in an instant.

Each of these common situations carries with it a different flavor of insecurity:

  • He says they’re “just friends” again, and he shouldn’t have to cut off all contact.
  • If the contact continues, the threat continues. It’s like a recovering alcoholic who continues to go to happy hour after work every Friday, or an Internet infidel who continues to use the computer at home in the evenings.
  • She hasn’t made up her mind whether she’s going to stay or leave.
  • You feel like a displaced person. Your home as you’ve known it has been destroyed, and you don’t know where you will be or who you will be with from day to day.
  • He says he’s stopped, and I should trust him, but I can’t.
  • You’re paranoid if you don’t trust him, but you violate your own gut feelings if you do.
  • He’s more sympathetic to her than he is to me.
  • The other woman rants and raves and screams and yells, and the husband feels sorry for her. But when the spouse gets upset, he thinks, “What a bitch. No wonder I had an affair.” If this attitude persists, it’s an indication that there may not be enough empathy for the injured partner to allow healing in the marriage.

In each of the preceding situations, uncertainty about commitment to work on the marriage or uncertainty that the affair is over keeps the betrayed partner off balance.

If you are certain that the affair is over and there is no contact with the affair partner, recovery is straightforward, although still difficult.

The threat has ended, and you can proceed to work through what happened and the meaning of what happened. However, additional incidents of deception are retraumatizing and set the recovery process back to zero.

[box type=”warning”] If the involved partner is ambivalent for too long or continues secret contact with the affair partner, the continuing retraumatization and deception will make healing difficult, whether or not the marriage continues.[/box]

Depending on how emotionally involved the affair has been, ending it may happen over a long period of time or very quickly.

Women are more likely than men to have a prolonged period of letting go; men (and less commonly women), who compartmentalize their primarily sexual affairs, can move on very quickly.

Sometimes, in fact, the involved partner dismisses the affair so easily that it’s hard for the hurt partner to believe it’s really over.

Certainty comes through concrete demonstrations of openness and proof that any contact with the affair partner has been cut off.

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