Do you find yourself being retraumatized by your cheating spouse? What do I mean by this?
Well it looks something like this:
The cheating spouse gets annoyed and irritated that you are still upset after an incredibly short period of time, like only weeks from you finding. They actually start to blame you for your feelings and reactions.
The cheating spouse gets angry and annoyed with you that you can’t move on, even after they said they were sorry.
The cheating spouse immediately starts acting like everything is normal and the minute you have a trigger or flashback they blame you for keep bringing this up and keeping them stuck.
The cheating spouse, who is acting like things are normal, starts blaming you for their cheating. Stating you didn’t give them enough: Sex, attention, affection, appreciation. They completely take zero responsibility for their choices, behavior or actions and worse blame you.
The cheating spouse threatens you that if you can’t forgive them and the marriage ends it’ll be your fault, not the cheating spouse’s fault. The cheating spouse expects you to absorb their actions with little or no effort on their part and if you can’t the failing family is 100% your fault. In extreme cases they even recruit extended family members to pressure to forgive and forget.
The cheating spouse says, “it meant nothing, I didn’t even have sex” and they are angry that you can’t just take their word for it. In fact, they blame you for digging and still talking about it.
The cheating spouse actually is blaming you now for the marriage being in a bad state because you can’t just forget this and move on. The cheating spouse will often say things like, I know what I did was wrong, I get it, it won’t happen again, why can’t you let it go.
They’ll get really angry and even verbally and emotionally attack you when you are trying to understand all the past discrepancies and inconsistencies from the cheating spouses behavior. They get angry, defensive and refuse to take responsibility. You have to work really hard to get answer and have to present them with concrete evidence to get them to talk. Then when you do, they are angry at for “trapping them.”
The cheating spouse start blaming you for pointing out their deceitful and lying behavior. They blame you for making this a big deal and dragging this on.
The cheating spouse starts blaming you for not appreciating their effort. In fact, they provide fairly strong threats that you are responsible for motivating them to try and make effort in the marriage. If you get angry or don’t appreciate their effort they may loose motivation. They are not taking responsibility.
These are just some of the common painful and retraumatizing experiences my clients of cheating spouses deal with. Often these types of cheating spouses do not want to attend therapy. This type of cheating spouse is in deep denial of the severity of their behavior. They refuse to look at their behaviors and the consequences. They are often angry, hostile and attacking. They show little to no remorse and often have very little empathy for their betrayed spouse.
Some cheatings spouses in this type of infidelity are not as extreme, but they are in denial. They want to just say sorry and move. They don’t want to examine how this is affecting their spouse or how things will change. They demand, quite strongly, trust immediately. They demand to be taken at their word. They demand a free pass and blame their partner for the now fall of infidelity basically the pain and suffering and loss of harmony at home.
If this is something you are facing, I can help you individually or as a couple. This is a complex issue. It will have several stages:
1. Establishing and agreeing what has happened and why this is such a big deal and so traumatizing
2. What does trust mean, how it works and what will happen
3. An understanding of many existential issues: the death of the marriage as it, the death of the idea of your partner, the death of the status quo
4. An examination of what was the marriage
5. Evaluation to see if there is anything to save
6. What a new marriage within the couple would look like, is it realistic and what are will be required
7. Throughout all this will be addressing the healing and trauma of the gaslighting, lying and deceiving and betrayal.
To learn how I can help you please contact me to schedule an initial appointment. Email tammy@allinthefamilycounselling.comor whatsapp +6590307239