Emotional Injuries in Relationships: Infidelity & Betrayals
You don’t have to have experienced an emotional injury such as infidelity or betrayal in your relationship to benefit from couples or relationship therapy. Sometimes, it’s such instances that start the conversation about the need to go to therapy to help improve the relationship.
Both emotional and physical betrayals hurt and it may seem like you’re not sure how you can over come this. Although it spins your world upside down, it is possible to rebuild your relationship!
What is an emotional injury?
An emotional injury is a relational injury where something has occurred between partners during a time of need, that causes a breach in trust and safety, and results in experiencing of challenging emotions and a sense of betrayal or abandonment. It redefines the relationship and can shatter the view once held of a supportive and trusting partnership.
An emotional injury can happen as a result of infidelity, a traumatic experience (either witnessing or being involved), not being present for a partner during a time of need such as when experiencing mental health or physical health concerns, among other instances.
Results of an emotional injury:
After an emotional injury, partners can feel any number of emotions such as anger, confusion, guilt, shame, sadness, loneliness, numbness, fear, anxiety, hopelessness, humiliation, frustration, among other reactions.
Often times, it can alter the way you see your partner, yourself, and the world at large. It can lead to frequent inquiring of your partner to understand why it happened or it can lead to withdrawal, disconnection, and avoidance of people or situations that remind you of the event. These are all natural reactions after big life changes.
Relationship therapy, and Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) specifically, can be especially helpful to explore how you’re feeling, identify the cycle, and repair the relationship ruptures, and decrease the chances of such instances happening in the future. By working through the injury, it can help with forgiveness, decreasing resentment, and forming a secure bond. Therapy can help in being able to identify how you’re feeling and share your concerns with your partner without criticism, blaming, defensiveness, or escalation. By learning to identify the cycle that keeps you stuck in disconnection, you can learn to recognize and decrease the chances of getting stuck in it.