Okay, so let’s talk about this whole affair recovery counseling thing. When everything first blew up, man, it was just chaos. Like a bomb went off in our living room. We were spinning, hurt, angry, confused – all of it. For a while, we just existed in this fog of pain. Didn’t know up from down. Talking? More like yelling or stony silence. We knew we couldn’t keep going like that. Either split up or try to figure something out. We decided, maybe hesitantly, to try and figure it out. That’s when counseling came up.
Finding someone wasn’t exactly fun. Felt vulnerable, kinda shameful, making those calls. We searched online, looked for people specializing in this mess. Some felt too… clinical? Like reading from a textbook. We wanted someone who felt human. We ended up doing a couple of intro calls. Talked to a few folks. Finally found someone who just seemed to get it without judgment. Seemed practical. We booked the first session. Walking into that office felt incredibly heavy.
Getting Started
Those first few sessions were rough. Really rough. Lots of raw emotion spilling out. Tears, shouting matches, long periods where neither of us could even look at the other. The counselor mostly just navigated it. Kept it from going completely off the rails. Made us actually talk to each other, face to face, instead of just venting into the void. It was awkward. Painful. Felt like pulling teeth sometimes.
The counselor gave us ground rules for talking. Like, actually listening instead of just waiting to talk. Using “I feel” statements – sounds cheesy, I know, but it kinda forced us to own our feelings instead of just pointing fingers. We had to talk about the affair itself. No rug-sweeping. That part sucked. Facing the details, the lies, the impact. Brutal honesty, they called it. And it was brutal.
The Actual Work
It wasn’t just talking in the sessions. We got homework. Sounds weird, right? Homework for our marriage. Things like:
- Setting aside time to talk without distractions.
- Practicing active listening (harder than it sounds!).
- Writing down feelings separately then sharing them.
- Identifying triggers and how we react.
Some weeks we did okay. Other weeks, we failed miserably. Argued right after trying an exercise. Felt like one step forward, two steps back sometimes. The therapist helped us see patterns we were stuck in, things that went way back before the affair even happened. It wasn’t just about the cheating; it was about why our relationship got to a place where that could happen.
We had to learn to rebuild trust. That’s the mountain, right? It wasn’t a sudden moment. It was tiny things, day after day. Being consistent. Being transparent. Showing up. Answering hard questions, even when I didn’t want to. My partner had to learn to manage the anxiety, the triggers, the fear. It was work for both of us, just different kinds of work. Constant effort.
Where We Landed
So, where are we now? It’s not like the movies. No magic fix. The scar is still there. But the wound isn’t raw anymore. We communicate way better. We actually hear each other more often than not. We learned how to handle conflict without destroying each other. The trust is… rebuilding. Slowly. It’s a conscious choice every day to keep doing the work.
The counseling gave us the tools, a framework. It didn’t make us fix things, but it showed us a path and helped us walk it. We don’t go every week anymore, but we do check-ins now and then, like maintenance. It’s an ongoing process. It changed us, fundamentally. Not back to how we were, but hopefully into something stronger, definitely something more honest.
