After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful

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Harper Collins, Feb 14, 1997 - Psychology - 304 pages

For the 70 percent of couples who have been affected by extramarital affairs, this is the only book to offer proven strategies for surviving the crisis and rebuilding the relationship –– written by a nationally known therapist considered an expert on infidelity.

When I was 15, I was raped. That was nothing compared to your affair. The rapist was a stranger; you, I thought, were my best friend.

There is nothing quite like the pain and shock caused when a partner has been unfaithful. The hurt partner often experiences a profound loss of self–respect and falls into a depression that can last for years. For the relationship, infidelity is often a death blow.

After the Affair is the first book to help readers survive this crisis. Written by a clinical psychologist who has been treating distressed couples for 22 years, it guides both hurt and unfaithful partners through the three stages of healing: Normalizing feelings, deciding whether to recommit and revitalizing the relationship. It provides proven, practical advice to help the couple change their behavior toward each other, cultivate trust and forgiveness and build a healthier, more conscious intimate partnership.

 

Contents

IntroductionCan a Couple Survive Infidelity?
1
Exploring Your Ideas About Love
63
Confronting Your Doubts and Fears
80
STAGE THREE
107
Restoring Trust
146
How to Talk About What Happened
167
Sex Again
192
Learning to Forgive
234
Truth and Consequences
268
Index
281
Copyright

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Page 248 - Seldom or never does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crisis. There is no birth of consciousness without pain.
Page 113 - We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.'" "In that sense,
Page 148 - Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful.
Page 71 - not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.
Page 26 - If God existed, if He was minimally fair, let alone loving and forgiving, how could He do this to me?
Page 238 - To forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be. It represents a choice to leave behind our resentment and desire for retribution, however fair such punishment might seem
Page 265 - found that the older a woman is at the time of her divorce, the less likely she is to
Page 261 - No longer imprisoned in the wordlessness of the trauma, she discovers that there is a language for her experience. She discovers that she is not alone; others have suffered in similar ways. She discovers further that she is not crazy; the traumatic syndromes are normal human responses to extreme
Page 166 - an environment in which your partner is most likely to fulfill your needs. If nothing comes of it, at least you'll know you did your part.

About the author (1997)

Janis Abrahms Spring, Ph.D., is a nationally acclaimed expert on issues of trust, intimacy, and forgiveness. In private practice in Westport, Connecticut, she is the author of the award-winning How Can I Forgive You?, The Courage to Forgive, the Freedom Not To, and Life with Pop: Lessons on Caring for an Aging Parent.

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