Counseling women to get over cheating partner/ marital infidelity - Essay Example

This paper shall discuss the counselling techniques in detail. “Marriage is the best thing in the whole world. It’s knowing that you have found your soulmate and you are forming your lives together.” These lines are from a poem written by Richard Neil Thompson from Canada. It also reflects what I strongly felt and believed through all these years. Little did I know that not everyone’s life has a fairy tale ending of being “Happily Ever After”. It was one fateful night when my whole world came crushing on me and then everything changed.

I was supposed to travel for work that evening and would leave directly from office. However, due to bad weather the flight got cancelled so instead of going to the airport, I headed straight back home thinking of how I can utilize this bonus time with my hubby. Maybe we could watch one of his favorite movies or if my son would still be awake, maybe we could all do something together. I entered the house with my key like I usually do and first thing I see is a ladies handbag on the sofa. Half thinking, half hoping that it would be my sister-in-law (his sister), I go to my room only to find my husband with another woman in my bed.

I can still remember the feeling of going numb at the very sight. It’s amazing how the brain stops functioning at times when you would want it to help you understand something more than what seemed possible. To cut the story short, my husband admitted to having an affair with this lady who worked with him and they told me it has been going on for the last three years. I still couldn’t get it. My husband! MY husband!!! I was hurt, shocked, heartbroken, furious, traumatized, terrified. There cannot be enough words in any language that can describe what all I felt in the next few weeks and months.

I felt betrayed, humiliated and deeply sad. At times I felt suicidal. I had given 9 years and a son to this man. And all of a sudden, this man had become a stranger to me. No matter how much I thought about it, it only made me feel better. When I knew I could not handle so much pain, I began to reason out why he did that to me, or for that matter, why any loving person would start cheating on his/her partner. Maybe while cheating, a person does not think the effects it can have on his/her partner.

Maybe they don’t realize that even if the marriage survives the blow, still the mental images and the knowledge of the details can cause lifelong effects on a person, forcing him/her to never think the same, or worse never be the same, again. Cheating can actually do more damage psychologically on the partner than anything else. There are many ways how cheating or infidelity can affect the partner’s psychology: 1. Damage to Self Esteem: The cheated partner suffers a blow to their self-esteem.

They start asking themselves “Was I not enough?”, “What did I do to make him think of her?” and so on. These thoughts come to the mind even though the decision to cheat was the partner’s. It is not their fault at all. 2. Lack of Trust: The victim of infidelity will find it very hard to trust anyone. They even find it hard to trust their own decisions or judgment of others. Even if the relationship ends, and another begins, the baggage of infidelity can follow. 3. Sense of Instability: When the one thing in your life that gave you security is shattered, it feels like the whole world has turned upside down.

It becomes very difficult to find the sense of stability in yourself. 4. Roller-Coaster of Emotions: