These are highlights from a teleclass I did with Tammy Nelson. You can purchase recordings of this class at her website: The New Monogamy; Love, Sex and Fidelity

There are three phases of treatment around affair recovery: a beginning, middle and end of treatment.

Phase 1 is characterized by calm, reassurance, structure, image of the container – created with my voice, my breathing, touching them, asking them to breathe, asking them to have eye-contact with me or to lower their eyes away from their partner – soothing and calming. Suggest they not make a decision to leave or stay; urge them not to decide, they are not in a position to make a decision, separate the affair from the divorce.

Reassurance: I will be here with you, I have sat with many couples through this moment, I promise you it won’t be like this forever. I don’t know where you will end up but what you will do here hopefully will give meaning to whatever happened. What you are going through is normal; it is in the nature of the beast. This is what people go through – read After the Affair by Janis Spring for more examples. Don David Lusterman recommends normalizing the flux of contradictory feelings, especially the resumed sexual hunger that is suddenly unleashed. Most clients are very uncomfortable talking about it. One partner is triggered by panic of loss and they’re talking more about their needs, unmet longings, than they have in years, and that is Normal.

Structure: I don’t think all these answers can be asked right now. I know you want to know this/this/this, take a moment with me and know that there is a difference between wanting to know and knowing. People will ask questions and not be prepared to live with what they are going to be told. They need someone to say to them, “I can see that you would want to know that; can you imagine yourself living the consequences of knowing?” This is enormously protective and containing for them.

Don’t rush in to ally with the person who is hurt. We don’t want to rush the process with empty answers about why a person did what they did.

Acknowledge that there are two people here for whom the predictable future has been disrupted. They are in this together. Neither of them knows where this is going to go. Each one is anxious and restructuring the relationship. Each is anxious about being alone, anxious about the return of the old conflict.