The life you built is burning down.
Your spouse is angry and heartbroken. If you’re living together, it’s tense. Conversations about the affair turn into four hour arguments that make you want to scream.
You’re barely sleeping and you can’t focus for more than 20 minutes at work. You feel alone, and there aren’t many people you can open up to. Your friends and family are either shocked or they don’t know what happened.
Underneath it all, you’re realizing you don’t know who you are.
You’ve spent your life trying to be a good person and prioritizing others. You never thought you’d have an affair. You lie awake at night wondering how you let this happen. The trust you had in yourself is gone.
I provide therapy for women after an affair, whatever your life and marriage look like right now.
About Infidelity Therapy
The affair is a symptom.
Let’s address the underlying cause.
Your affair is the symptom of a problem that started long before your marriage.
It started when you were a little girl, and a part of you learned that it’s best to be good and pleasing. Part of you learned to push and white knuckle. To always think about others' needs. And these parts have served you. You’re rewarded at work and people like you.
But as a result, you've abandoned yourself. You were so busy trying to meet everyone else’s needs that you ignored your own. You lived in your head instead of being present in your body.
You kept the disagreeable parts of yourself hidden. Then you felt alone, because no one knew all of you.
Finally, it got to be too much. You were starving for connection and authenticity.
Your affair might have been the first time you rebelled against being a good girl. And the first time you experienced the things you’ve been missing: putting yourself first, feeling alive, and enjoying your body.
I want you to know that you can feel alive without having an affair. You can end the self abandonment and be present in your body.
This is what I help women do.
Let this be your awakening.
It’s time to take accountability- with your spouse and yourself.
Many of the women I work with want to repair their marriage.
Imagine when your spouse tells you how much you hurt them, you don’t get swallowed up by shame and spend the rest of the night hating yourself. You still feel awful, but you’re calm enough to actually listen and engage with them.
Imagine when they ask why, you answer honestly, without blaming them or justifying what you did.
You tell them about the parts of you that learned to be good and achieve. How you masked in your marriage because keeping the peace was more important than being honest. How you pushed and managed your household to get things done, when deep down you wanted your spouse to take care of you. How it left you alone, and resentful.
You’re able to explain to your spouse everything that led to the affair. You explain what was happening in your mind when it started, and as it continued.
You share the context, take responsibility, and fully answer their questions.
Become the type of woman who would never cheat again.
I use Internal Family Systems, often called “parts work."
We get to know the part of you that rebelled and had the affair. The part of you that tried to be good. The high achiever. The part of you that stays in bad situations for too long because sacrificing herself is the norm.
And the parts underneath that. The little girl who was shamed for being mean when she was only trying to be honest. The little girl who worried no one would love her if she didn’t perform. You learn how to love and take care of her.
IFS creates a shift, because when you know your parts, they stop taking control.
Suddenly you have the option to be honest, even when others don’t like it. Stop managing everything, giving others the opportunity to step up. Walk away when something isn’t working, even if it’s painful.
That is true accountability.
Therapy for the unfaithful partner can help you:
Provide a detailed, honest account of your affair to your spouse. It will be painful for both of you, but it’s part of rebuilding trust.
Stop the shame spiral. When your spouse opens up to you about how your affair affected them, you feel guilty, but you stay focused without getting overwhelmed. You listen better, and the shame no longer keeps you up all night.
Speak up and address issues head on. When you're frustrated or want to say "no," you're honest. It’s scary and the conversation is uncomfortable, but you're no longer abandoning yourself.
Be more present in your body. When you're stuck in your head thinking about everyone else, you recognize that your thinking part is taking over. You come back to the present.
Trust yourself. When you feel the urge to text your affair partner, you slow down and check in with yourself. You realize you don't want them, you just want to feel connected and alive. You focus on that instead.
Understand who you are. You stop seeing yourself as good or bad. You reconcile your identity as a complex human who has done good and bad things.