Although help is important in surviving an affair, you may want to consider whether you are getting help too
soon. The reason to consider the question of getting help too soon is that many times as a couple, time is often needed to allow the hurt and reality to set in. It is a way of allowing things to ‘sink in enough to realize that the two of you have a problem that needs attention.
When you get help too early, there is a risk that you and the cheater will focus on the pain and removing the pain rather than addressing the issues causing the pain.
Let me explain. When you jump into the counselor’s office too early for help, there is still large amounts of denial, and there is the risk of having the wrong focus. In all likelihood, you will end up attacking the cheater or the lover, when the issues leading up to the affair were in your marriage relationship.
Although attacking the lover and cheater may give you some momentary relief, you only dealt with the symptom, NOT the root problem. You focused on their solution to the problem, rather than the problem itself.
This is why you do not want to get help too soon. Both of you may need to hurt a while and think a while in order to be at a point where you are willing to deal with and work through the issues in your lives and relationship. The affair itself was a ‘quick fix’ to something. You may need the hurt to sink in so that you can locate the real issue. Time has a way of showing you what that real issue or issues are.
Since therapists often focus on alleviating the pain, they will address what is hurting you. If you sought help to early, the place where the hurt is may not be the place where the problem lies.
You will need support, encouragement and direction. Knowing the right time to bring those things into your marriage is important. It is also important that both of you realize that there are problems. When both of you are hurting bad enough, you will start cooperating in finding solutions, and the solution is not divorce.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
