Affair Damage Control: Key Survival Tips In the Immediate Aftermath of An Affair

“I’m cheating on you.”
These four gut-wrenching words have the potential to form the most devastating sentence you will ever encounter in your adult life. The trauma, betrayal, and utter emotional storm that undoubtedly occurs in the aftermath of an affair often leaves both partners feeling confused and devastated. And there is no easy way out of this situation; regardless of whether a couple decides to work things out or go their separate ways, work must be put in regardless in order to regain emotional control and to get out of crisis mode.

Fortunately, there are a number of things that both partners can do in the immediate aftermath of this news that will help ensure not only their personal survival, but also the potential survival of your relationship. Numerous books have been written on the subject, and you will likely read several of them in the coming weeks as you attempt to find meaning in this challenge. Quality therapy will also be critical in digesting this trauma. But when you have just heard the news and you can’t get to a book store, you can’t get in with a therapist, and you can’t make sense of life, there is one ultra-important thing you can do to help decipher up from down and left from right. The single biggest immediate consideration to hold in mind when the affair has just come out in the open is this: 

Think tactically, not emotionally. 

As soon as a secret infidelity has been brought to light, there is an immediate and overwhelming emotional hurricane that blows in to the relationship. There has been much research done to identify and explain these emotions: shock, rage, sadness, confusion, guilt, blame, the list goes on and on and on. It’s important to know that there will be plenty of time to unpack all of these emotions down the road, and that they will pass. But for now: think tactically. What that means is that you need to rely on rational thinking to drive your decision making, and detach from the emotional side of your brain because, quite frankly, it won’t be giving you accurate information for quite a while. 

One way to illustrate this is to think about a plane flying through a storm; the clouds have reduced visibility to zero, and the plane’s GPS satellite navigation is going haywire. If the pilot relies on the clouds in front of the windshield or the faulty instrumentation, the plane is sure to crash. But by relying on analog instruments—such as the plane’s altimeter and a compass—the pilot can navigate to safety. 

Now, think of your emotions like your brain’s GPS system: complex, usually accurate, but not at all helpful when providing inaccurate information during a storm. In the aftermath of an affair, it’s not that your emotions are malfunctioning, they are just over-functioning—giving you such a wide array of emotions at varying intensity levels that you can’t possibly process them all at once. Similarly, just as a plane has analog equipment, so too are you equipped with simple critical thinking skills and rational thinking that can—and will—help lead you out of the emotional storm. 

In practical terms, ‘thinking tactically’ looks like this: “My partner is cheating on me. I recognize that I am feeling a mixed bag of really, really big emotions right now, but I’m not going to let them drive my decisions. I will work my way out of this, and if my partner and I choose to try to fix things, we can work together on that when we’re ready. In the meantime, I’m not going to do anything drastic—such as moving out or filing for divorce—because I know that this won’t bring permanent relief from the pain I’m feeling. I’m going to take things one step at a time, I’m going to breathe deeply and often, and if I’m feeling rage or depression or betrayal, I’m going to acknowledge it while also not allowing it to drive my actions.”

This type of mindset is critical in surviving the initial period following a betrayal. Interestingly enough, this tip applies to both the partner who feels betrayed AND the partner who has strayed; the partner who has strayed can “think tactically” by also not doing anything drastic, by recognizing the emotional chaos that is temporarily clouding both partners, and by exhibiting patience, honesty, and empathy. Working in this way, both partners can begin to work through the wreckage and build out a path for the future following this difficult event.