Does Time Heal All Wounds? Healing After An Affair The easiest–and cheapest–way to start on this journey is to take our free First Steps Bootcamp. It's an online guide with 100+ pages of content and a full-length video of a mentor couple who was in as big of a mess as it can get. You'll take a big sigh of relief when you have a clear plan and learn that you're neither crazy nor alone in this journey, whichever side of the infidelity you find yourself on. Start the Free First Steps Bootcamp Now! Have you ever had a torn rotator cuff? It's embarrassing to admit, but I tore my rotator cuff playing on our Xbox 360 Kinect. (For those of you who don't know, this is a virtual game you play on the television) I mistakenly believed that if I carefully protected my shoulder it would heal on its own. Four months later, I now see that my plan didn't work; I'm going to need surgery. The old saying "time heals all wounds" isn't necessarily true, especially when we're talking about healing after an affair. It's not time that heals all wounds, rather, it's a matter of how that time is spent. Infidelity is one of those situations where doing nothing seems to make things worse. While talking to one of our mentor couples, I asked, "In retrospect, what did you not know that you needed to know after the affair was discovered?" The betrayed spouse first said that she wished she'd realized the affair was not about her. She said had she known this, it would've allowed her to focus on real issues rather than trying to change in order to control her mate's choices. If she didn't cause it, then she had very little leverage to control the outcome. When I asked what was the least productive thing she did after discovery, she said that it was her rage. She told me her first response was to try to make him hurt as badly as she was hurting. She said, "I gave myself permission to begin hitting him to make him hurt like me. I wanted to punish him rather than exploring what I needed to do to move forward." She added, "Not only did it not make me feel better, but it kept me from moving forward because I was trapped playing the role of executioner." Anger is a common roadblock for healing after an affair. The one thing her husband could see in retrospect was that getting the truth out was necessary before they could begin to heal. He said that the least productive thing he did was beating himself up with guilt and shame rather than beginning to explore answers as to why he did it. He said, "All I could think about was me and how bad I'd screwed up rather than trying to discover how I'd gotten here in the first place and what I needed to do to keep from repeating my mistakes." He said that he now sees how beating himself up was only effective as long as he felt the pain, but if he'd begun to explore what was driving him he could have shaved months off their recovery. Infidelity creates a pain like almost no other in life and families. Lives hang in the balance of the choices we make upon disclosure. Mistakenly, we believe that simply letting time pass will heal all our wounds. It's what we do with the time that creates a pathway to healing, restoration and salvation or alternatively, a roadmap to remaining struck in raw trauma and agony. There is a better way than simply allowing time to pass. Over the next two weeks, we will share insights we received from a survey of both betrayed and unfaithful spouses regarding what helped and what didn’t help to create a pathway toward healing after the infidelity came to light. It's our mission to be a safe place for even the most broken of people walking through what seems like unending hurt and sadness. Throughout our website you'll find testimonies, courageous videos, in depth interviews and all you need to gain a better understanding what it means to heal from something as devastating as this. If you're in need of insight regarding any of our courses, please send an email to info@hope-now.com. Harboring Hope registration opens soon. Subscribe to be notified of monthly registration dates! You don't have to do this alone. Our online course for betrayed spouses provides support, direction, and a safe place for healing. It often sells out within a few short hours. Don't miss it! Learn More! Hope for Healing registration is coming up! Subscribe to be notified of monthly registration dates! This course offers community for isolation and healing for shame, and that's just the beginning. Learn More! EMS Online registration is just around the corner. Subscribe to be notified of monthly registration dates. EMS Online is our online course for couples to heal after infidelity. It often sells out quickly. "This course saved our marriage. We are closer now than we have ever been in 36 years of knowing each other." -L., alumnus Learn More! Sections: NewsletterFounder's LaptopFree ResourcesHot Off the PressRL_Category: Recovery FundamentalsRL_Media Type: Video