Counselling services
Expert Affair Recovery and Infidelity Counselling in Calgary
Rebuild trust and heal your relationship after an affair with intensive affair recovery programs.
What Is Affair Recovery Counselling?
When betrayal occurs in a relationship, the resulting emotional pain is often difficult to overcome. At Can’t We Just Get Along Counselling, we have helped many individuals and couples find ways to cope with the complexities of the infidelity recovery process.
The Phases of Healing from an Affair
There are three phases of healing that Melody uses to help couples heal from an affair. They include:
- Disclosure phase
- Information seeking phase
- Reconstruction of the new marriage phase (creating marriage number two)
Phase 1: Disclosure
The unfaithful spouse or partner must disconnect from their affair partner, take full responsibility, avoid defensiveness, make a renewed commitment, and find empathy for the betrayed spouse or partner’s feelings. It can be difficult when an affair is discovered, and defences can rise.
Phase 2: Information Seeking
What matters the most in terms of healing and rebuilding trust is how the betrayer and the betrayed talk about the affair. For the partner who has been hurt, it’s best to act like a reporter seeking information. Ask questions like who, where, when, how, and why. It’s the why — the reason behind the actions — that matters most. Due to the strong emotions that can occur, the partner who has betrayed needs to ask him or herself the question, “Will knowing this fact help or hurt me?”
Information that increases obsessive thoughts is harmful and should be avoided. If you are the hurt partner, you may need professional help to work through these painful or intrusive thoughts. It’s common for partners who find out about marital infidelity to screen for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Having a therapist like Melody, who is trained in treating these issues, is essential to manage symptoms associated with trauma, such as nightmares or flashbacks.
Phase 3: Reconstruction Of The New Relationship
The reconstruction of a new relationship starts with creating understanding, trust, communication, and healing. It is where Melody employs an integrated approach of Gottman therapy, solution-focused therapy, systems theory, and sometimes EMDR helps to overcome relationship challenges and rebuild the marriage. She focuses on helping couples:
- Create goodwill, focusing on strengths and areas of connection
- Understand the story of and behind the affair
- Understand vulnerabilities
- Create an environment that builds trust and reconnection
- Form skills to coping with and desensitizing triggers
- Rebuild a sound relationship house
- Restore self-esteem, mutual respect, and emotional intimacy
Tips To Remember
- How you tell the story is more important than what you share
- Shift from adversarial to emphatic
- Avoid power struggles
- Control destructive outbursts and frequent conflict
- Remember that secrets are harmful acts of suppression that create unreasonable perspectives — what we resist persists
- Secrets create traps and prevent us from having freedom
Our Affair Counselling Services
Melody Evans, our Registered Clinical Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist, provides intensive programs for couples struggling with infidelity. You can book longer affair therapy sessions or attend an intensive to start rebuilding your relationship after infidelity or an emotional affair. At times, deeper issues can occur individually, including substance abuse, sexual addictions, unmet needs, depression, and more. If you believe you or your partner are struggling with personal issues, we can also provide individual therapy.
Our Approach to Infidelity
At Can’t We Just Get Along Counselling, we believe the most important thing to know is that you can save your marriage. Since each person is unique, the work is tailored to the specifics of your marriage. Infidelity is prevalent — more so than most couples want to admit. We do not minimize the damage that infidelity can have on relationships but believe that it is possible to heal and overcome guilt and anger with time. We also offer other therapy services to help improve marital satisfaction, including couples therapy, couples anger management, and family counselling.
Recommended resources
Pamela Meyer: How To Spot A Liar
Contact Us
Contact us to learn more about how our affair recovery services can support the unique needs of your relationship and help you navigate infidelity to rebuild a new relationship.
