Infidelity First Aid: Top 8 Strategies to Heal Betrayal Trauma after D-Day

On the day infidelity is discovered or disclosed (d-day), both partners and their relationship are hurled into a traumatic, emotional crisis. The betrayed partner can feel shock, grief, bewilderment, devastation, anger (or all of it). The wayward partner might feel guilt, panic, shame, fear, shutdown, ambivalence, or even relief. In times of extreme stress and emotional hijack, strong guidance is needed to make things better, not worse. This first aid guide (based on the wisdom of hundreds of HEALers) gives both partners the healthiest path to stabilize and heal in the turbulent aftermath of d-day. Triage yourself and jump to the section that feels most relevant right now, but revisit every section at some point. Wherever you are in this tumultuous time, trust that not only is healing possible, but so too is thriving beyond infidelity.

1) Refrain Yourself

First, do no harm. Regretful reactions due to acute flooding just throw gas on a fire. If you have already had a rash reaction, forgive yourself, for these are instinctive. Use of the other strategies below will make regulating and responding wisely easier.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Recognize and refrain from classic trigger reactions such as fight (with verbal, emotional, or physical violence), flight (escaping, withdrawing), freeze (shutting down), fawn (pleasing), or flop (give up or give in). Self-care, emotional regulation, space, and breaks are key (see "Love Yourself"). Change a reaction to a response with deliberate intention. For example, stand up to lies assertively rather than fight, or establish boundaries rather than flee.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Refrain from making big, permanent decisions, especially with massive stress, confusion, and no clarity (see "Trust Yourself").

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Refrain from the natural tendency to be hyper-obsessed with the primary partner, the relationship/reconciliation, and/or affair partner. These fresh and looming threats feel like they demand 100% of our attention, but self-love (see "Love Yourself") and self-protection (see "Protect Yourself") must be in the mix.

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Refrain from false/early forgiveness, which is often an attempt to rug sweep rather than face the pain.

• (WAYWARD PARTNER) Refrain from getting lost in an affair fog with the affair partner, as there is often a chemical addiction at work. Cut off all contact with the affair partner and get professional help if you want to reconcile and heal yourself.

• (WAYWARD PARTNER) Refrain from further lies or withholding when asked for information, thoughts, feelings, or the deeper why. You may not know some of the answers, but share what you are able to in a healthy way (see "Share Yourself").

2) Love Yourself

In the aftermath of discovery, self-care often goes out the window, sometimes for quite a while. Sometimes, self-care was never there. But devastating times make self-care more important, not less. When your life is falling to pieces, self-care puts the most important piece--you--back together again. 

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Reframe self-care as "all-care". Forget any conditioning that self-care is selfish, or that we “should” take care of others first, and start thinking about yourself. Self-love benefits the collective: everyone in our lives (especially partners). SelfAll-care is a great way to work on relationships, since personal wellness is shared through relationships. Another implication of this idea is to spend time with the healthiest, most supportive people possible, avoiding blamers, shamers, and drainers (see "Sharing Yourself"). Try this Self-Care/Self-Love Playsheet (in 3 parts) to explore possibilities of self-care across multiple domains of well-being. You could also start by asking "what is my greatest self-care need right now?" and giving that to yourself in some way? For example, you might feel exhausted, and your highest need is sleep ... can you have a nap, or just lie down for a while? 

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Use the acronym SHAPED below to cue well-being or create your own acronym with the wellness themes that work for you.

  • Sleep: sleep may be difficult for a spell, but sleep hygiene helps, or just take rests when you can.

  • Hydrate: drink fluids or carry a bottle around as thirst can be ignored in stress.

  • Access support: via a good friend, coach, therapist, support group, or mentor.

  • Practice: healthy, effective, healing practices (e.g., yoga, mindfulness, EMDR).

  • Exercise: get moving, stretching, lifting, whatever you will do regularly.

  • Diet: balanced, healthy eating (when eating is not forgotten).

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Embrace gains and release drains in your life. Let go of, move away from, get help for, or put up boundaries toward people, situations, actions, and substances that drain, harm, or otherwise don’t feel good to you. Move toward all the nourishing people, activities, and things. If single-celled organisms can move toward food, and away from toxins, so can we. For example, if you are feeling triggered by your partner, arrange for some autonomy (e.g., they watch kids while you go for walk or see a friend).

3) Protect Yourself

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Complete honesty is not always available in the early days after d-day. Therefore, even with 99% certainty that the affair was not physical, it is important for everyone involved (and their partners) to be screened for sexually-transmitted infections or diseases (and HPV screening for women). This may require disclosure to partners of affair partners as well. 

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Protecting yourself may begin with healthy boundaries from your partner and/or the affair partner. You can reduce or minimize contact from either or both, whether you are separating or simply need space to heal (see Top Reconciliation Strategies for much more on this and other reconciliation basics). 

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Infidelity often involves a financial betrayal component which could be mild (going to dinner), medium (gifts, hotels), hot (giving away family assets to support the affair partner), or extra spicy (drained accounts or bankruptcy to pay for sex). Protect yourself by checking and securing financial assets and accounts where possible and looking for secret credit cards, accounts, or phones.

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Regardless of whether your jurisdiction uses no-fault divorce or not, it may be important to gather evidence of the affair. This may happen prior to confronting your partner (if you discover). Photographs, screen shots, credentials for secret accounts, downloaded messages, or a simple journal may help you later as proof, or simply to understand what happened.

• (WAYWARD PARTNER) Some unfaithful partners feel so much shame or remorse that they sacrifice their own support completely to help their partner's healing. This seems noble or even appropriate as they wayward partner may feel great guilt and indebtedness, but their efforts will fail quickly if they 100% deny themselves of support. Going farther, the unfaithful partner may feel like they deserve whatever exclusion, scorn, or abuse is heaped onto them. In the case of exclusion, protecting oneself from isolation is important (seek other supports). Where there is abusive treatment or unreasonable demands, healthy boundaries are also required. 

• (BOTH PARTNERS) If you are separating, or even if you are questioning, find a mediator, lawyer or other professional to guide you through the process. Protect yourself physically, financially, and in terms of custody. Stand up for yourself, especially if your partner is abusive or manipulative.

4) Trust Yourself

The previous steps help create a foundation on which many decisions and actions (big and small) are taken on the healing journey. Learn to trust yourself by approaching those decisions and actions with the following considerations.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Big clarity allows for big decisions. Small clarity allows for small decisions. No clarity means no decisions (return to steps 1-3 above). Use the "2 out of 3 ain’t bad" principle when making decisions: trust what your heart (feelings), head (thoughts) and gut (body intuition) agree on (even two out of three). If you can’t feel your body, get some help with somatic therapy or practice interoception. Though it may not feel like it right now, there will come a time when you feel incredible clarity, and deciding will be easy.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) A small, fuzzy decision or action (that you can change later) is still a step. Allow your decisions (and life) to evolve over time. There are few absolute outcomes which cannot be undone. Actions can be small steps along a continuum, instead of making a giant leap and thinking in black and white. For example, in between total commitment to a monogamous marriage and complete divorce, there are a huge spectrum of intermediary options (including doing more things independently from your partner, trial/temporary separation, psychological or therapeutic separation, legal separation, boundaries, time apart, nesting, or cohabitation). So let your bigger decisions be made up of small and gradual little ones, and also let them change over time.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Ask for help from wise, grounded others to support you with and through decisions. Also feel free to ignore advice (like from this list) or from well-meaning but judgemental (or wounded) others who cannot appreciate your unique path.

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Give yourself time. If the affair(s) lasted three years, your unfaithful partner has had all those years to understand, process, and reflect on what was happening. You have only just begun, and deserve as much time and space as you need to catch up, let alone decide things (see first point). There may be long stretches where you don’t know what to do or what decision to make and this is okay.

• (WAYWARD PARTNER) You may be addicted to the affair partner and therefore not be able to make clear decisions. You also may not be willing to acknowledge the addiction and its impact on your thinking. Get professional help and perspective.

5) Share Yourself

Shame, isolation, manipulation, or fear can inhibit healthy sharing. But keeping things inside hurts, because sharing what you are going through (with healthy others) is one of the most powerful aspects of healing. Sharing also helps reverse a social bias to keep infidelity secret (privacy can be healthy, secrets are toxic).

• (BOTH PARTNERS) You have the right to a) share, b) choose who to share with, and c) express how you wish to be supported. Choose healthy listeners who do not blame, judge, get overly upset, or project their own experiences on you. Find those who listen deeply, hold space, stay grounded, show compassion, and ask how you need to be supported. That may look like simple listening, an offering of support, sharing perspectives, or a combination. 

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Look for healthy outlets in places you never imagined. A support group member, work colleague, coach, neighbour, or stranger at the checkout could be a great support you never expected. You may have great friends, family, or a therapist but also accept that some people you thought would be there for you will not be. Use your intuition to sense if a person feels safe or if sharing in a particular situation will bring some goodness somehow.

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Consider if your underlying intention to share is coming from a healthy place or a place of pain? If you are sharing to cause harm (to others or self), or are repressing out of fear, look to a professional for guidance.

• (WAYWARD PARTNER) Embrace voluntary, radical honesty, respecting your partner's desire for information (or not). Strive to share the details, but also your thoughts, feelings, and the deeper reasons for the infidelity (if you are able) that are often wrapped up with older pain.

6) Support Yourself

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Help and healing is everywhere and infinite, seek it out and embrace it. Engage with multiple modalities of healing including support groups, therapists, coaches, yoga, friends, family, courses, forums, resources, and more. Line your unique healing path with multiple steps. 

• (BOTH PARTNERS) If there are reconciliation efforts, they must be balanced with individual healing (for both partners), as well as complete breaks. Explore these Top 8 Infidelity Reconciliation Strategies and Assessment to learn the major strategies for reconciliation success, avoid common pitfalls, get clarity on your own reconciliation, and reveal the next steps that are right for you and your partner.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) Even without reconciliation (which is a two person job), personal healing is always available. Even if your partner has left, or is not willing or able to reconcile in a good way, more energy is available for personal healing and thriving. The phrase “healing alone” is an oxymoron--nobody has to heal completely alone. Seek out supportive others (see above). 

7) Reframe Yourself

• (FAITHFUL PARTNER) Don’t take the affair personally for it has nothing to do with you. Unfaithful partners may try to blame the faithful partner or the marriage, which is flawed and desperate thinking. Even where a faithful partner blames themselves, the infidelity is always 100% the responsibility of the unfaithful partner (even if responsibility for the relationship is shared 50/50). Instead of straying, the wayward partner could have shared their inner thoughts and feelings, spoken to a therapist, or separated.

• (WAYWARD PARTNER) You may be in a pit of shame, or stuck in denial or blaming, but there is great healing available for you beyond these barriers. Betrayal causes massive harm to your partner and yourself, but in that cataclysm are deeper, older wounds waiting to be healed. This unresolved pain holds you back from sharing your deeper self, or acting in healthy ways, especially in relationships. Yes, support your partner, but keep in mind that one of the best ways to support them is to heal yourself by exploring the deeper, underlying "why" embedded in older pain.

• (BOTH PARTNERS) As much as you are able, take a stance of acceptance and gratitude. Many HEALers feel grateful for the affair long-term, in that it was the catalyst for a transformation in themselves and/or their relationships. Even if you are not there yet, you can be grateful if any of the following hardships do not apply to you, for there are a great many people impacted by them.

  • Suffering from and having to treat sexually transmitted diseases.

  • Dealing with custody and/or paying support for out-of-wedlock children.

  • Having addictions (to sex or substances) and undergoing serious treatment.

  • Going bankrupt financially, being heavily indebted and/or losing jobs or homes.

  • Having a partner who leaves instantly, with no chance for reconciliation OR having a long, confusing, and painful reconciliation.

  • Having an affair partner who stalks, intrudes, or otherwise cause harm in toxic and unpredictable ways.

  • Having police and the legal system involved, and/or being assaulted, murdered, or taking one's own life.

8) Rest Yourself

• Balance recovery and rest by sensing when you've had a big contraction (or healing is slowing down) and take a break. Taking breaks also applies to therapy, reconciliation efforts, talking about the affair, reading books, taking courses ... anything to do with recovery. At first, the betrayal will dominate your life, and you may hyper-focus on it, but eventually you will have little moments of respite, and (at some point) entire days when you won’t think about it. Yes, this happens! Your progress is not only gauged by your capacity to let some healthy “normalcy” back into your life, it depends on it.