Stigma and shame surround infidelity. Ideas abound: if you stay with someone who was unfaithful you are weak, there is something wrong with you; if you were the unfaithful party there is something wrong with you, once a cheater always a cheater, and the list goes on. When you have experienced infidelity in your relationship, not only are these ideas useless and not factual, but they are harmful for the relationship and for the individuals within the relationship. These blanket judgements create shame and get in the way of understanding what happened, which is the only way to heal, re-build trust, and figure out how to prevent this from happening again.
I am organizing an anonymous therapy group for people who have been unfaithful with their partner. The group will be 8-weeks in length and include weekly 50-minute individual therapy with me (in person or virtual) and weekly writing prompts and questions to total 75-minutes of therapy weekly (for extended health and budgeting purposes). Once all participants have responded to the prompts, I compile the responses and send an email (no names are included) to the group.
If you are interested or have questions, please email me at deb@coastalnarrative.com. If this doesn’t apply to you but you know someone it does apply to and think they may be interested, please forward this message along.
A great book on this topic is A State of Affairs by Esther Perel.
In solidarity with kicking shame out the door,
Deb
