Unsuccessful rebuilders frequently minimize their partner’s pain and are impatient with the recovery process. They are preoccupied with their own feelings and remain clueless about the devastation they’ve caused their families.
Some betrayed spouses describe it this way, “It’s as if he threw a grenade through our living room windows and blew our house to smithereens. Yet he stands outside complaining that we are crying too much, scoffs at our missing limbs, and ignores the blood all over our clothes.”If you wish to avoid such damaging mistakes, read on.
Successful rebuilders are patient with the hurt partner’s emotions and the time needed to recover.
After disclosure and the betrayer is “done” with the affair, the offender often experience relief while the hurt partner is just beginning to deal with the pain. This difference in timing creates a lot of havoc. The unfaithful spouse usually doesn’t want to talk about it any more. He or she wishes to erase the mistakes made and move forward. Once betrayers see the look of horror in their spouses’ eyes and view their devastating behaviors in the light of day, they often feel awash in shame, sadness, and disappointment in themselves. It is normal for them to want to avoid these unpleasant feelings and find a way to fast-track through the healing process.
However, Successful Rebuilders realize that what is old news for them is still raw news for a faithful spouse. While it is natural for the betrayer to want to look forward, it is also natural for the betrayed person to be stuck in the past until healing occurs. The only way the hurt spouse can recover is if the betraying partner patiently rewinds the tape and lovingly processes the damage of the affair with the hurt spouse, over and over, one step at a time.
Rebuilders sensitively stop and listen to their spouses. They validate their partners’ pain (instead of deny or minimize). They hold their partners when they cry. They respect the faithful spouse’s right to have sad and angry feelings about the affair. They recognize the trauma. They do not pressure the faithful spouse to resume sex.
Rebuilders recognize the harm they have caused and accept the partner’s timetable for healing — whatever it takes — rather than trying to impose their own timetables. They know that healing will only occur by facing and dealing with the partner’s pain, rather than avoiding it.
Smart Rebuilders Never say:
“You should be over this by now!”
“Why can’t you move on?”
“Oh, brother! That again?”
“Why do you keep browbeating me with this?”
“What’s your problem? I said I was sorry!”
“It’s over. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
“well, you did to me.”
“God has forgiven me. Why can’t you?”
“Why can’t you just forgive and forget?”
“You’re just bitter and vindictive.”
“Well, you’ve hurt me too!”
Such phrases undermine any progress toward healing.
Successful Rebuilders seek to understand their partners’ pain.
Most strayers have difficulty digesting the damage they have caused. They are either too elated from the flattery of their affairs, too buried with regret, or too relived their secret life is finnally over to truly understand their injured spouses’ emotional reality.
Since empathy is difficult to fake, I encourage Rebuilders to give their hurt partners lots of room to ven tand greive in their presence. Witnessing a faithful partner’s emotional devastation brings the betrayer out of the fog of illicit romance and into the jarring truth of what he/she has done.
Such receptivity on the part of the strayer has a double benefit of helping the spouse to heal and the betrayer to have a more profound change of heart. I observe the greatest healing for couples when the betrayer hubly submits him or her to a process of nondefensive listening and validating the hurt partner’s feelings, as long as the injured spouse feels is necessary.
Some betrayers fear that honoring the spouse’s timetable for recovery means subjecting themselves to years of endless torture, but this is not true. The more you resist participating in the hurt spouse’s healing process, the longer it will take.
When an unfaithful spouse acts defensive, avoids the topic, and works hard to protect him or herself, he/she ends up prolonging the agony and reducing the cange for repair. The more the straying spouse tries to suppress or avoid the betrayed partner’s expressions of pain, the more the wound stays open, oozing like an infected sore.
On the other hand, Successful Rebuilders listen attentively to their spouses’ hurts. They show immense sorrow for their partners’ injuries and seek to comfort their partner’s distress. They realize that patient, caring responses actually shorten the recovery time and are among the biggest keys for success.
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