After you experience infidelity, there’s an endless number of paths you can take. This all starts with one question: do you want to stay together? If the answer is yes, there are a few general types of reconciliation that you can follow from this point on. Read on to learn more about them and how to work through or achieve them.
Types of Reconciliation
Stuck in Damaging Patterns
When your relationship is damaged by infidelity, it’s easy to get wrapped up in bitterness and pain. You might feel resentment for your partner or even crave revenge for what they’ve done to you. Sometimes couples that stay together after infidelity can get stuck in this space for months to years. They focus on the affair to the point where they can’t have a normal relationship with each other afterward. They continue to have the same arguments, and the infidelity keeps getting brought up, even years later. It’s understandable to be hurt like this after being cheated on, but getting stuck in these cycles is not conducive to continuing to have a relationship.
So, while you stay together, you’re both miserable. The betrayed partner will often continue to focus on the cheating partner’s wrongs rather than thinking of any of their possible positive actions, characteristics, or possibilities. The cheating partner can also become stuck in the past, falling into the trap of self-loathing (believing they’re unredeemable) and not seeing room for self-improvement. They could also start resenting their partner for continuing to hold their past mistakes over them.
If you’re in this category and determined to stay together, you should work through past traumas that could be holding you back. If you still need help, you can also try finding a therapist or counselor to help you work through things, either individually or together.
Back to Normal
Sometimes when people decide to stay together after a case of infidelity, it’s for the sake of commitment and family. They want to save and restore the relationship but don’t necessarily want to take the time to improve it. Instead of seeing the affair as something that needs to be addressed in their relationship, they decide to work around it. Maybe it was just a lapse in judgment. Perhaps it was a one-time thing and won’t happen again. Whatever the case, they decide to work around it rather than through it. The couples that choose to go back to normal will often focus on the previous strengths of their relationship without taking the time to work through the root of the problem and the weaknesses in the relationship. This leads to couples becoming stagnant.
If you don’t work through the problems, you’re allowing them to persist and (maybe) even cause more problems in the future. It can also lead to the couple just staying together because it’s comfortable and only working to maintain closeness without taking a moment to restore intimacy and, in turn, authenticity.
With this in mind, if you reconcile for the sake of just maintaining a relationship, that could lead to you neglecting to ask yourself (and your partner) the real questions that could transform your relationship, all in the name of keeping the peace. The moment of infidelity can then continue to quietly loom over the relationship, and you’ll stay stuck in mediocrity.
If you find yourself stuck in this space in your relationship, don’t be afraid to start the conversation and ask yourself (and your partner) the tough questions that could elevate your relationship. If you need help with this, you can always reach out to a therapist or counselor for guidance (and even moderation).
Back and Better than Ever
This group of people will completely transform their relationship after infidelity. While the process will undoubtedly be painful, they will set off on a mission for personal growth and healing. This will lead them to notice issues within the relationship and themselves and work to improve upon them. They will look at the moment of infidelity as a thing that happened in their life and their relationship instead of a defining factor of the relationship. They’ll change their language from being accusatory and one-sided (when you did this to me) to being more open and inclusive (when this happened to us, when we went through this) and view things from a big-picture perspective rather than a closed-minded one. This couple will bend before they break, and even if they do break, they know they’ll heal as individuals and as a couple.
If you want this type of reconciliation, you’ll have to have a few simple things.
- A group of resilient people around you that can help support you and provide direction.
- A positive mindset, so you know that things will get better.
- Humility to understand your shortcomings, be compassionate & empathetic, and unlock the curiosity needed to consider new possibilities and solutions.
- Courage to keep you moving forward, even when it seems impossible.
Couples who experience this type of reconciliation understand that they have room to grow and use infidelity as a catalyst for growth. While they would prefer it hadn’t happened in the first place, they understand that they wouldn’t have the relationship they have now. They take something awful and make something beautiful out of it.
Closing Thoughts
While it can be hard to reconcile after infidelity, it is possible. It can even lead to you having a stronger relationship. If you decide that you need support, we’re here for you. This includes determining what to do with your relationship, working through the emotions that arose from cheating or being cheated on, and putting the relationship back together better than ever. You can find us on our website at https://thattherapyspace.com/, by phone at (509) 800-7129, or by email at [email protected]. We are located in Liberty Lake, Washington, just minutes from Spokane, WA, and Coeur D’ Alene, ID.