There are times you may wonder if it is possible to go from ‘cheater to healer’. If you were the one who strayed, you may have doubts about what you can do in repairing the stinky mess surrounding you.
I have had some readers express to me that they want more help for the cheater. I have heard your requests and will deliver help for cheaters seeking healing.
First, I assure you that you can go from cheater to healer. This transformation from cheater to healer is possible. In fact, your involvement is key in turning things around. Although your actions are a major factor in the fracturing of your marriage, your actions are also important in the healing.
A few well placed words or key question can turn things around suddenly and dramatically. (I will cover the phrases that can turn things around in a future post).
First, “end the affair”. The affair has to come to a tire screeching, brake locking stop. Not only is the stop important, ending the affair on all levels is important. This means that not only the physical affair, but also the fantasizing, day dreaming, and social contact. This means that facebook, twitter, snapchat, Skype and and form of contact stops.
This may strike you as common sensical. The sad truth is that many spouses have never learned basic things like the importance of ending the affair.
Who is going to teach them such basics? In many homes, the role models are dysfunctional. Although you may be nostalgic about your parents and childhood, there is a real possibility that there was some dysfunction in your family. You may be repeating dysfunctional patterns without even realizing that what you’re doing is dysfunctional.
Schools are definitely not going to teach the basics of healthy relationships, and many churches fail in providing instruction in these areas. So where would the cheater have learned basic instruction on relationships?
When it comes to ending the affair, there is no room for gray. The end has to be black and white. Over means over. There is no wiggle room for you or the lover.
Contact must be severed. Not only must it be severed, any future efforts by the lover or the cheater to connect should be treated as “emotionally radioactive”.
‘Over’ does not mean cooled down, put on the back burner or returning to ‘just friends’. There is no returning to being friends. Lines were crossed which changed everything.
Many cheaters stop there. If you sincerely want to be a healer, there is more to do. Besides stopping the affair, your spouse will need to see that you hate the affair.
In hating the affair, it is not just the effects of what happened that you hate. Everyone hates what happened. What makes a huge difference is reaching the point where you hate the affair itself. You hate the cause and the effect.
Popular culture has given a bad name to hate. There is a place for hate. In recovering form an affair, you need the added impetus that the hate gives you . When you go beyond ending and begin hating the affair, it sends a message that your heart is no longer connected to the lover. Your spouse needs reassurance that your heart belongs to them.
When your heart is torn, it is not available to the lover or to your spouse. When torn, your heart doesn’t even belong to you. Healing requires your whole heart. Your spouse needs to hear that your heart belongs to them, see that your heart belongs to them and feel that your heart belongs to them.
Moving from cheater to healer requires a heart. Not having an intact heart is one reason some attempts at recovery fail.
Does this mean that you no longer “follow your heart?” If your heart is leading you anywhere but back to your spouse, then following your heart is a bad idea.
When your heart is not there, there is no room for healing, there is no room for them.
If you’ve cheated and want to start turning things around, the video “Cheater Recovery: Help for the Cheater, Starting the Road to Recovery” takes you through disclosure and recovery.
Best Regards,
Jeff
