Infidelity, cheating, jealousy, and betrayal are some of the darkest and most hurtful acts a person can experience. These acts not only hurt our relationships with others, they hurt how we see and treat ourselves also. Healing the wounds of betrayal and infidelity is crucial-to healing your mind and spirit, and to having healthy relationships again in the future.
What Is Betrayal?
A betrayal is defined as a “Deliberate act of disloyalty.” We may suffer a number betrayals throughout our lives, betrayals of our senses, our trust, or our love. Children can betray their parents’ trust, and vice-versa; spouses can betray each others’ trust, love, fidelity, kindness; betrayals can happen between friends, family, and business co-workers. People share all types of of bonds between them, and when those bonds are broken, it causes feelings of betrayal in one or both individuals.
Getting Over Family Betrayals
Feelings of betrayal in a family can happen for any number of reasons: new spouses not being accepted into the family (or feeling like they are not accepted), financial issues, family substance abuse issues, codependency, blended family issues, etc.
Getting over family betrayals can take even longer than other forms of betrayal, due to the complex structure of families. Bitterness, hurt feelings, feelings of betrayal and distrust can linger on for years if not resolved properly. Family counselors assist families in getting over betrayal by tackling all of the separate issues one-at-a-time; and by working with the individual family members to resolve any negative feelings that are built-up inside.
Infidelity as Betrayal
Infidelity (or cheating) has been called “the ultimate form of betrayal” and can affect a wider circle than just those in the intimate relationship (marriage, serious relationship, etc.). Infidelity in a marriage can cause feelings of betrayal in the immediate family members, including children, extended family, in-laws, and close friends.
For this reason, it is important for those working through infidelity to consider how it is affecting those around them. Remember that even though an affair may have been a private matter at the time, its repercussions and fallout is affecting more than just the two or more people involved in cheating and infidelity. Many people can feel betrayed by the actions of a few.
Overcoming Blame and Shame
Infidelity and betrayal is a very big hazard blocking the road of life; you MUST get over or around life’s hazards in order to keep moving FORWARD. “Blame” and “Shame” are two actions that will only keep you stuck where you are at and NOT moving forward. It is important to overcome your own negative feelings and not get stuck casting blame or shame about past events.
Shame is a very toxic feeling, and casting shame onto another person (making them feel bad about their past actions) will only poison your relationship. Instead of pointing at the problem in the road of life and telling someone, “This is your fault,” you should instead work together to get around the hazard in the road.
Blame is equally toxic, and weakens the foundations of your relationship. Never blame your problems or issues on one half of the couple; you are parts of the same unit, and you win together and lose together. Its not the fault of the right hand of a player for missing the ball, the player himself missed the ball.
No one is “To blame” for anything negative — Blame is too powerful of a negative action and leaves people feeling deeply bad. It is best to leave the blame out of conversations and arguments, because it only serves to hurt and worsen problems.
Learning to Trust After Past Infidelities
Many good relationships are hurt by just the fear and anxiety about infidelity and betrayal. Jealousy is a hideous feeling and emotion that steals your own happiness away from you. Jealousy issues can ruin relationships even without any cheating or infidelity; jealousy uses the weapons of blame and shame, and casts negativity on yourself and your partner.
Trust issues lay at the heart of jealousy issues; many people get jealous simply from not being able to cope with their own fears and insecurities. They then project those negative feelings onto their partner in the forms of shame, blame, and animosity. Love with trust issues is not true and is not unconditional love, and you have to learn to love in spite of your fears.
Counseling for Trust and Jealousy Issues
It is highly recommended that individuals and couples seek knowledgeable help from a therapist or relationship counselor that understands how couples can overcome serious relationship issues such as jealousy. If you want your relationship to climb to the highest heights of the metaphorical mountain, you need to get over your fear of heights.
Overcoming Chronic Infidelity and Serial Cheating
Serial cheating is unfortunately a real thing, and some people who have cheated in the past will continue to cheat in the future. The problem with serial cheaters lives deep inside their minds, just like those with alcohol and substance use disorders. Serial cheaters continue to cheat because they are simply trying to fix feelings and emotions inside of them.
Some cheat because of their own hateful and negative emotions about the opposite/same sex/gender. Some think that they will take what they want (sexually) and they have a right-to because all (men or women) deserve it. Deep-rooted feelings have caused this thinking, and it is important to find where it started and developed-from. Childhood trauma, or simply feelings of low self-worth could be at the center of the cheating issue; and therefore it is possible to treat chronic infidelity and serial cheating by treating the mental issues at the core.
Treating the Mental Health Issues Caused By Infidelity and Cheating
Likewise, the act of being cheated-on and the betrayal associated with it can cause a person to develop negative mental health issues, negative outlooks on sex and gender, negative thoughts and feelings about sex and sexuality, and negative associations with sex.
It is important for someone who has been cheated-on to healthily recover from the trauma that cheating causes. Infidelity and Betrayal Therapy is recommended for men and women who have been deeply impacted by cheating, betrayal and infidelity.
Relationship Therapy For All Types of Relationships
Relationships are complex. They have their ups and downs, they need maintained, aligned, and fixed from time-to-time — just like machines. And much like machines, you don’t want to wait for the problem to get worse before you take it seriously. Get help for a problem at the earliest sign of one, and it is more likely that that problem can be fixed easily.
Are you ready to fix or maintain your relationship wit your significant other?
