Need Counseling for Cheating Husband? Don’t Fall Into This Trap

When counseling for cheating treats a husband’s betrayal as a marriage issue instead of focusing on his pattern of lying, it can be a soul crushing realization for his wife. Women who’ve been betrayed by their husbands need support that personally understands this truth, like the Betrayal Trauma Recovery groups.

Here are five things a therapist or counselor may ask you to do, that you’re probably already doing.

5 THINGS A THERAPIST MIGHT SUGGEST IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING, THAT YOU’RE PROBABLY ALREADY DOING

1. YOU SHOULD BE MORE SELF-REFLECTIVE

Women who enter into counseling for cheating after discovery of their husband’s betrayal, often say that they’ve spent years wrestling with questions about their own expectations or behaviors in the marriage. Many of them have already been asking if they were “too critical or sensitive,” or how they could have “communicated better.”

Husbands who have a pattern of manipulation and lying often use their wife’s willingness to look at her own “faults” as a way to distract her and the therapist from seeing the truth.

2. YOUR MARRIAGE CAN’T HEAL IF YOU KEEP BRINGING UP THE PAST

Betrayed wives often want to know more details about their husband’s betrayal or his patterns of behavior after they’ve discovered he has been lying to them and living a double life. It’s a natural part of the healing process. What’s not natural or healthy is for a counselor or a husband to tell a betrayed partner that she needs to “put it in the past” in order for the relationship to move forward.

Men who have lived double lives have already benefitted from their wife’s integrity and her decision to give him the benefit of the doubt over and over again. If he wants to move forward in a healed relationship, he should take responsibility for his deception and be willing to answer questions.

3. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS YOU LOOK FOR SOLUTIONS “TOGETHER”

Many wives are already the solution-focused, repair department of the family.

When there is confusion, they look for a book, a podcast, or a therapist that might help them understand what’s really happening and how to fix it. They’ll schedule the date nights, pray the prayers, make the apologies, and have the conversations with a softer approach.