Affair Coping Skills

Healing from infidelity is something that is possible for you to do. If you have just discovered that your partner is having or had an affair, it can feel as if your world has been shattered. The trauma of infidelity is commonly known as relationship trauma or betrayal trauma. Betrayal trauma is one of the hardest traumas to overcome but can be healed. Developing affair coping skills is going to be a key step in healing from the affair. 

Understanding Infidelity Trauma Symptoms. 

Betrayal trauma comes out of our flight, flight or freeze reflex that is not turning off. That why these betrayal trauma symptoms do not just go away. The brain is not wired to forget trauma.

Common Symptoms Of Betrayal Trauma

• Mood swings (from fearing your partner will do it again, to anger at your partner, to self-self-doubt on what part you played) 
• Depression
• Rage
• Denial 
• Anxiety 
• Sleeplessness
• Reliving the event

Betrayal trauma is not about facts. This is why telling yourself your being “crazy” does nothing to help relieve the betrayal trauma symptoms.  For your relationship to heal, as the hurt partner, you will have to learn to manage these symptoms to be able to reprogram your brain. 

1st Step In Healing From Infidelity

You will need to grab a journal or notebook and start to figure out the different complex emotions that you are feeling. On the top of each page of write down one emotion that you are feeling and do this with as many different emotions that you might be experiencing during this process. You will keep adding to these pages, and in doing so, you will notice different emotions coming up. If you are struggling to label or know what your feeling outside of pain, hurt, anxiety, and anger, contact a therapist or click here to schedule a session with us. 

Once you list the emotions on each page, draw a line down the center of each page, label one side how to release them, and on the other side list ways to distract yourself from these feelings. You will want to write down as many different activities in each of these categories as you can. For every different emotion, you listed you will want to repeat this action. 

For Anger 

Releasing

•  Go to a cardio kickboxing class 
• Close your eyes and breathe out the anger

Distracting 

• Do the weekly shopping early 
• Do a craft project

For Sadness 

Releasing 

• Watch a sad movie that makes you cry 
• Listen to a sad playlist you created

Distracting 

• Take the dog for a walk 
• Go to the gym

These are just some small examples and will change from emotion to emotion. Notice that for anger working out with kickboxing is a release but going to the gym in sadness is a distraction. There is no right or wrong way to deal with the complex emotions that you are feeling.

Those are just some of the affair coping skills that you can use. If you are finding it hard to deal with the anxiety that comes from finding out about the affair, please check out 15 quick ways to lower anxiety, or how does anxiety affect my body. Part of how to recover from an affair will be learning to balance your everyday life by taking care of yourself. You can read more about how to take care of yourself in my artical self-care toolkit. 

If you live in the Las Vegas area and you are struggling with dealing with the affair, please contact us today to schedule a session for yourself or as a couple so you can start the healing process or click below to request an appointment today.