Why Couples Counselling After an Affair Is Crucial for Your Marriage

Typically, couples should be attending counselling sessions even before any irreparable issues have arisen. This is when counselling truly shines and can even become crucial to the growth and development of the relationship. However, many couples seek counselling after they undergo a negative experience that could have shaken the foundations of their relationship, such as infidelity. The question is, is it still effective? The following article focuses on how couples counselling in Cambridge works right after a marriage receives a devastating blow like infidelity.

After the Infidelity

Infidelity or unfaithfulness can severely strain a relationship and the people involved. Oftentimes people might feel devastated, alone, betrayed and confused. The aftermath of such a betrayal can be long and painful, and healing after an affair might seem to be a gruelling task.

Trust is a major foundation of a happy and long-lasting relationship, and once it’s been breached, it’s difficult to gain back that trust again. Difficult, but not impossible.

How Does Couples Counselling Work?

A typical couples therapy or marriage counselling in Cambridge helps couples understand each other, resolve conflicts, and improve the couple’s relationship overall. Counselling teaches you couples to:

• Build Trust and Understanding
• Communicate Better
• Solve Problems
• Argue in Healthier Ways
• Overcome Differences

Marriage counselling is often short-term. Typically, it involves a few sessions to help you and your partner work through a crisis. Counselling works best as a pre-emptive measure against possible issues that a married couple might face. As such, these can also be a very effective way of improving your marriage after infidelity.

Does Couples Counselling Work After an Affair?

The simplest answer here is yes, but only if both parties are determined to do the work.

Counselling after an affair is critical. Without it, there is little to no chance of healing and regaining what was once lost. However, this will take a tremendous amount of time and energy from both parties. Both of you will have to make concessions, put in the work, and open up to each other. It’s not exactly easy, but it can be well worth it.

What you must be prepared for during counselling sessions is that you will be confronted with the truth about all of your issues. Those truths will be difficult and painful, but it is necessary to work through them. The couple must accept the following aspects if you are to triumph over a crisis:

• Learning to understand how it happened
• Learning to communicate rather than just acting out each other’s dissatisfaction
• Learning to work together to rebuild trust and develop a better relationship

Remember, counselling can be a potent and effective tool in mending your relationship, but both of you must be willing to go the distance and do all the work.

Conclusion

Affairs and infidelity create a crisis in a marriage that may or may not cause the relationship to end. People frequently stay stuck in a perpetrator/victim mentality where one is to blame, and the other must remain hurt or angry. It is only through effective counselling that people move through the pain and anger to build a new and improved marriage.

Whenever you need couples counselling in Cambridge, ON, Chettiar Counselling & Associates is here to help. We offer you a non-judgemental space to process painful truths that will ultimately make you a better person and a better couple. With phone consultations and online counselling sessions available, we’ll help tailor a therapy session for you. Book an appointment today.