Dealing with the Emotions of Infidelity

Coping with infidelity is difficult enough from a relationship standpoint - both you and your cheating spouse have to be willing to face what happened, and to work out a mutually agreeable strategy for ending the affair an rebuilding the relationship.On top of that, though, you have to learn how to cope with the intense emotions that come with betrayal.

For most of us, this is no easy task. After all, if your spouse has cheated on you, you're probably lying awake at night, going back and forth between blaming your spouse, and wondering what you could have done to prevent the affair in the first place.

One of the most important things to remember is that affairs do not usually happen solely because of the actions (or inactions) of just one spouse. There was likely a long standing problem in your marriage that led to the infidelity, and in most cases, both spouses are to blame.

Understanding this can help you release the emotions associated with infidelity. Since both spouses contributed to the problem, each person must bear responsibility for his or her own actions. When you understand that putting a marriage back together after an affair is a joint responsibility, it becomes much easier to let go of anger, blame, and frustration.

The focus moves away from who was right and who was wrong, and toward developing a solution for building a stronger, more trusting marriage.

If you are mired in the emotions that come with coping with infidelity, set aside a short period of time - even a half hour will do in the beginning - to discuss the problems that led to the affair. You will find that both of you contributed to the problems... and since there are opportunities for both of you to change, the negative emotions surrounding the situation will become much less intense.