When you come to know about the betrayal of your partner, the news hits you like nothing else in the world. You fell into despair all of a sudden and you are not even sure if you want to be better. You don’t even know how to deal with your husband or wife when you find out that they are cheating on you. The feeling of being lost is completely justified and fine.
Sooner or later you have to realise that you out to survive infidelity. This is not how you want to spend the rest of your life, crying over your partner who betrayed you. So, here are some tips that you can use for surviving infidelity:
1. Don’t underestimate the shock
There is a lot of difference between having suspicious and knowing for sure. There is a belief in every relationship that betrayal cannot happen to you given that you are the kindest one. This belief can leave you in denial and make the survival worst.
The shock of being betrayed is a big deal. Your world turns upside down and you doubt yourself. It is normal to feel panicky, stressed, and enraged. Accept that it has happened to you and get it all out.
2. Take a deep breath
It seems absurd, but yes, you need to take a long breath. Slowly taking deep breaths can help in calming down and controlling the anxiety attacks. Your nervous system is being bombarded with stress, panic, and anxiety. You need to relax your nervous system by relaxing yourself. Breathing slowly sends the signals to the hypothalamus where the relaxation response is induced.
3. Expect a Tsunami of Emotions
You just have been betrayed, expect a pool of strong emotions flooding out of you. Those emotions will be disorienting and confusing. It might be a mix up of rage, confusion, sadness, insecurity, grief, insecurity, and fear. Allow these emotions to be felt and don’t try to avoid them. Don’t rush through the process of surviving infidelity.
4. Seek Support
You cannot do this on your own. For once, you might be all ready to handle your current situation, but soon you will lose control and get back to the dark side of your room. For this not to happen, seek support from a reliable friend, a counsellor, minister, or teacher. There are a lot of people around you who have can support you, but be selective when choosing the one. They should be someone who could protect your confidentiality, listen to you and keep your secret. It is a big step towards the healing process.
5. Control the fire of revenge
Along with the feelings of anger and rage, you might feel a strong urge to take revenge. These feelings force people to do things that they will revenge later. Your impulse to hurt your partner is instinctive and you might also want to call their parents, friends, colleagues and tell them what type of person your partner turned out to be.While these actions might give you immediate gratification but later you are going to regret these actions. So, it is better to stop right now and think that the fight is among you two and no one else.
6. Involving The Family
Remember families will always support their loved ones. Your family is loyal to you and they will say anything they can to make sure you feel good. They will blame your partner for everything and take your side. While these are the good things to listen to, but you will be taken to the land of self-pity because of this. And, belief or not, no one can solve your issues for you. So, think a lot before involving the family.
7. No Time to Big Decisions
This is the time when you will want to make big decisions, but all of these decisions will be based on emotions like rage and anger. You might not be able to even think rationally let alone make wise decisions.
So, it is better to keep the changes to your life in that phase to a minimum. Stay in your home, don’t make any decisions related to business, your profession, or any personal matter.
8. Don’t involve the kids
This is all between you and your spouse. If you have kids, they shouldn’t be involved in all of this. Their childhood can be destroyed with a single wrong step you take at the moment. Remember that both of you will always be their parents. So, it is better to shield them from any adult matters you are having in between you. Don’t even try to make them understand the issue because their brains are not ready for it yet.
9. Grieve is the only option
Elizabeth Kubler Ross defined five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This is the pattern that people experience when they are facing something equivalent to imminent death. Researches have shown that people who lose a loved one, have gone through a divorce, or some fatal disease also faces the same stages of grief.
The grief period is different for different people. Some go through all these stages, some skip one or two. Whatever it is for you, stick to it and don’t try to skip the grief process. You owe it to yourself.
10. It takes Time
You need to have complete faith in recovery. Nothing happens overnight. Your partner has just cheated on you, betrayed you after a long successful relationship. Getting yourself out it also takes a lot of time. But, you have to be patient with the process. The more consistent you are, the better will be the result.
Once you have gone through the process and have made it out of infidelity successfully, you will feel proud of yourself. All the time when you stopped yourself from doing anything wrong, didn’t make any wrong decisions, didn’t do anything out of revenge, will feel like a victory for you.