Gottman gets credit for all this research, compiling and sharing it

Affair Recovery

Phase 3 attachment
The opposite of betrayal is establishing trust, commitment and loyalty.

Trust is based on transparency, truth, constructive conflict, processing past emotional injuries, and attunement.

We build towards recommitment and loyalty and faith through work on cherishing.

They talk purposefully about what values give their lives meaning, what dreams they have for their future individually and together, and their goals for fulfilling those dreams.

Couple who talk about their sex life have more satisfying intimacy over time.

When a hurt partner feels enough trust and safety with a partner to resume the sexual relationship, the work on rekindling romance and erotic connection can begin.

Tailor your sexual relationship to your own needs and preferences as a couple. Discuss topics like what kind of sexual initiation you would prefer, which kind of touch feels best, what are the best ego sparing ways to refuse sex and so on.

Design specific rituals of connection to integrate regularly into your relationship.

Choose times, places, and ways to connect in a predictable manner they can count on that feel satisfying and loving for both of them.

Rituals of connection sustain friendship closeness and emotional intimacy.

Set up a high cost for subsequent betrayals.

With this, you are on your way to working through the pain, healing the past and establishing a wonderful relationship 2.0

If you would like to add the following questions, to keep your relationship on track, I would suggest a review of these every 4 months or so until you both agree it is no longer needed. If either of you still want to do it, please do it.

Can you set up a checklist for the affair let’s check up on ourselves in four-six months a year for up to two years and look at are we doing what’s necessary to keep the affair healed and no relapses. The research seems to indicate that it takes 2-3 years to move into new patterns of trust that are enduring. As in grieving a death, many couples grieve the loss for 2-3 years.

​Literally set up how good are you at doing this this this this this with a checklist
 

All credit to John and Julie Gottman PhD
Definition “an affair” means either a clandestine emotional or sexual liaison with someone other than a partner that violates the traditional wedding vows of sexual and romantic exclusivity. The liaison poses a threat to the primary love relationship. It could include any kind of relationship with someone other than the partner that the partner perceives as a threat to the primary relationship. we are referring only to committed or married couples in which an emotional or sexual affair has violated vows of sexual, romantic, and love exclusivity, it has involve deception of the hurt partner.
 
The data suggest that men who only have impersonal sex risk becoming lonely and dying sooner, and being sick or while alive.
 
Infidelity is the cause of 17% of divorces in the United States. 14% of married women report cheating at once during their married lives 22% of married men reported cheating at least once during their married lives.
 
The Bradberry lab showed that commitment needs to include a willingness to behave really invest in the relationship for commitment to predict marital stability. Rust Belt did the best research of anyone in the world and commitment. Not just friends 2003 Shirley glass.
 
3% of men who have affairs divorce their wives and marry their lovers.
 
Frank Pitman found that the divorce rate for those who do marry their lovers is 75%. There’s the intervention of reality, guilt, expectations, a general distrust of marriage, and the continued distressed of the affair partner.
 
There’s a high correlation between online infidelity and subsequent real time sexual affairs, disinhibition, accelerated intimacy, and hyper sexual online behavior that can easily lead to real time infidelity.
 
31% of people say that they have had an online conversation that has led to real time sex.
 
Shirley Glass (2003) Seeks to bust the myth that unhappiness with a marriage is the cause of affairs.
 
“Affairs are caused by conflict avoidance and self disclosure avoidance, not creating adequate boundaries, and at times sexual addiction, although that’s less frequent.” Affairs result from reversal of walls and windows.
 
The betrayed partner is suffering from a PTSD reaction to the affair. There needs to be a long process of talking about the affair that includes the betrayer partner expressing remorse and answering questions about the affair.
 
Peggy Vaughn‘s book “The Monogamy Myth,” (2002) you can download for free at her website: dearpeggy.com
She identified differences between people whose relationships stayed together versus those who broke up, post-affair.
Couples who stayed together talked thoroughly about the affair with one another, while couples who broke up tried to move forward without talking about the affair.
The betrayer partner’s expression of remorse was essential, as it was the betrayer partner listening non-defensively to the hurt partner‘s emotions and answering her partners questions with absolute transparency.
The suggestion is that the hurt partner not ask questions about types of sex during the affair, otherwise they will picture more traumatizing images. At this point there is no down regulation or minimizing of emotions. No criticism and contempt…
Express emotions without those but let’s not down regulate or minimize emotions just yet.
In this piece of therapy did you not talk about why it occurred because it’s premature to do so.
Discussing it to early may encourage the betrayer partner to blame the affair on their low marital satisfaction and her partner to engage in self blame.
Having an affair is a choice made by the betrayer partner alone.

The goals at this phase:
One- openness and transparency
Two- expressing emotion
Three- listening to emotion
Four- the betrayer partner expressing remorse.

Atonement not only includes verbal apology its behavior change. The couple is starting to build marriage number two in which honesty, transparency, and witnessing each other’s truths are the foundation. You may require that telling the truth is verified. This phase lasts for as long as her partner needs it to.
Note: both her partner and the betrayer partner a given therapeutic support and empathy.

Let’s take the judgment out of it.

Affairs happen.

They are, in fact, quite common.

The processes involved in affairs are fairly universal and very human.

We recognize that people at times betray their own morals.
 
Atonement is a way of return returning to oneself into one’s own moral home. This return involves transparency and, eventually in phase 2, greater understanding.
In phase 2, couples learn how to process their past failed bids for connection and their regrettable incidents, so they can understand how their communication went wrong. The “aftermath of a regrettable incident” is a helpful exercise for this.

Some realizations include both partners may have turned away from each other, engaged in negative comparisons, invested less in the relationship and become less dependent on the relationship to get needs met.

The betrayer may have engaged in critical thinking about the partner (criticizing the partner and overly critical) and blamed them for their own unhappiness.

The betrayer partner may have stayed open to, or even encouraged, flirtation with others, and given themselves permission to cross boundaries.

There’s a difference between understanding what went wrong, and blaming.

The processing may lead to more self- disclosure and vulnerability, related to deeper needs, as well as more awareness that each partner felt lonely and abandoned during their first marriage.

This is not used to accuse the partner for the affair.

Conflict avoidance seems to be universal for couples that have affairs. Great couples after an affair, go into talker listener without using the four Horsemen. They then to the dream within conflict exercise in the compromise exercise to help deal with gridlocked perpetual problems and arrive at a compromise. They may need help coping with diffuse physiological arousal and how to take a break to self soothe.

The couple learns how to create and ritualize every day emotional connection. They create rituals of emotional connection.

They work on expressing fondness and admiration for each other appreciation and gratitude for the contribution to the relationship. They learn how to have supportive stress- reducing conversation for sharing stresses that originate outside the relationship.

​The couple has a weekly ritual called the “state of the union” in which once a week they talk about their feelings and needs in a calm way to create emotional connection without conflict.

Gottman PhD research:

​Managing Stress Together to Stay Together
 
This is still from the Sound Relationship House by Gottman, with Stu Jacobson, PhD contributing an idea.
 
How well do you as a couple manage the spill over of stress? 
 
Jacobson found that some couples maintain the gains in couples therapy and there are those who relapse two years after therapy. The effect of stress management was the only factor that mattered.
 
This factor alone eight of those couples who have made progress in a relationship to maintain a positive changes it happens if they developed.
 
We highly recommend that you have a stress reducing conversation for at least 20 minutes every day. This conversation gives you a great opportunity to turn towards each other, thereby increasing your emotional bank account.
 
Consider that this is part of the magic five hours a week. Post that on your fridge and remind yourself of it.
 
The stress reducing conversation is the talker and listener. My website has an audio of me describing talker and listener as well as a handout with it. Very important. If you can successfully do the talker and listener, you will find that most of the problems will be easier to handle as a team.
 
Giving support meetings maintaining eye Contact, asking questions to demonstrate genuine interest. You’re showing empathy and you demonstrate that you are an ally for your partner. You communicate understanding and you don’t give advice unless asked.
 
It’s us against others.
 
I will not side with the other or your adversary or opponent in your story.
 
Even if I agree with the other person, I will empathize with my partner’s emotions.
 
I’m gonna focus on what my partner is feeling now -what my partner is perceiving.
 
There is solidarity and the thinking is, “This is our problem and we will face it together. I will provide affection and comfort as a way of giving support come here and let me hold you. I am totally on your side.”
 
Continue reducing stress by showing that you are interested in the person speaking, be excited when they’re excited and sad when they’re sad match them be their ally. When they have fear, irritation, or anger let them know that you can see where they would have that feeling.
 
Validate.
 
Don’t Stonewall or ignore. Don’t fail to respond. Don’t get defensive. Don’t criticize them they are going through stress. Do not side with their enemy.
 
Sex, romance and passion are part of turning towards.
 
We often struggle with talking about it openly. Pay each other compliments, give surprise gifts, tell them how they are special.
 
Make them feel special.
 
Find out what soothes them and continue your courtship- that’s number one.
 
Number two -develop rituals routine ways to talk about sex.
Talk about having a signal whether or not you’re in the mood for sex. Talk about how to communicate what you prefer as foreplay or sexual positions you like (that you’ve done together before).
 
Number three- make the relationship a priority, schedule date nights or getaway weekends. What are your preferred times and frequency for having sex? No judgment blame or harshness during this conversation.
Romance, passion and good sex thrive when there’s an atmosphere of safety and warmth.

I thoroughly enjoy reading, watching training videos and getting live training.

My next training is a week long, in Florida, with some gurus (national and international) from the field of Couples Counseling. Looking forward to letting you know what they are saying, what the research is demonstrating and improving my services for you.

I tend to blog about what I learn, so you can likely find it here.

Looking forward to sharing it with you.

All credit to John and Julie Gottman PhD
Definition “an affair” means either a clandestine emotional or sexual liaison with someone other than a partner that violates the traditional wedding vows of sexual and romantic exclusivity. The liaison poses a threat to the primary love relationship. It could include any kind of relationship with someone other than the partner that the partner perceives as a threat to the primary relationship. we are referring only to committed or married couples in which an emotional or sexual affair has violated vows of sexual, romantic, and love exclusivity, it has involve deception of the hurt partner.
 
The data suggest that men who only have impersonal sex risk becoming lonely and dying sooner, and being sick or while alive.
 
Infidelity is the cause of 17% of divorces in the United States. 14% of married women report cheating at once during their married lives 22% of married men reported cheating at least once during their married lives.
 
The Bradberry lab showed that commitment needs to include a willingness to behave really invest in the relationship for commitment to predict marital stability. Rust Belt did the best research of anyone in the world and commitment. Not just friends 2003 Shirley glass.
 
3% of men who have affairs divorce their wives and marry their lovers.
 
Frank Pitman found that the divorce rate for those who do marry their lovers is 75%. There’s the intervention of reality, guilt, expectations, a general distrust of marriage, and the continued distressed of the affair partner.
 
There’s a high correlation between online infidelity and subsequent real time sexual affairs, disinhibition, accelerated intimacy, and hyper sexual online behavior that can easily lead to real time infidelity.
 
31% of people say that they have had an online conversation that has led to real time sex.
 
Shirley Glass (2003) Seeks to bust the myth that unhappiness with a marriage is the cause of affairs.
 
“Affairs are caused by conflict avoidance and self disclosure avoidance, not creating adequate boundaries, and at times sexual addiction, although that’s less frequent.” Affairs result from reversal of walls and windows.
 
The betrayed partner is suffering from a PTSD reaction to the affair. There needs to be a long process of talking about the affair that includes the betrayer partner expressing remorse and answering questions about the affair.
 
Peggy Vaughn‘s book “The Monogamy Myth,” (2002) you can download for free at her website: dearpeggy.com
She identified differences between people whose relationships stayed together versus those who broke up, post-affair.
Couples who stayed together talked thoroughly about the affair with one another, while couples who broke up tried to move forward without talking about the affair.
The betrayer partner’s expression of remorse was essential, as it was the betrayer partner listening non-defensively to the hurt partner‘s emotions and answering her partners questions with absolute transparency.
The suggestion is that the hurt partner not ask questions about types of sex during the affair, otherwise they will picture more traumatizing images. At this point there is no down regulation or minimizing of emotions. No criticism and contempt…
Express emotions without those but let’s not down regulate or minimize emotions just yet.
In this piece of therapy did you not talk about why it occurred because it’s premature to do so.
Discussing it to early may encourage the betrayer partner to blame the affair on their low marital satisfaction and her partner to engage in self blame.
Having an affair is a choice made by the betrayer partner alone.
The goals at this phase:
One- openness and transparency
Two- expressing emotion
Three- listening to emotion
Four- the betrayer partner expressing remorse.
Atonement not only includes verbal apology its behavior change. The couple is starting to build marriage number two in which honesty, transparency, and witnessing each other’s truths are the foundation. You may require that telling the truth is verified. This phase lasts for as long as her partner needs it to.
Note: both her partner and the betrayer partner a given therapeutic support and empathy.
Let’s take the judgment out of it.
Affairs happen.
They are, in fact, quite common.
The processes involved in affairs are fairly universal and very human.
We recognize that people at times betray their own morals.
 
Atonement is a way of return returning to oneself into one’s own moral home. This return involves transparency and, eventually in phase 2, greater understanding.
In phase 2, couples learn how to process their past failed bids for connection and their regrettable incidents, so they can understand how their communication went wrong. The “aftermath of a regrettable incident” is a helpful exercise for this.
Some realizations include both partners may have turned away from each other, engaged in negative comparisons, invested less in the relationship and become less dependent on the relationship to get needs met.
The betrayer may have engaged in critical thinking about the partner (criticizing the partner and overly critical) and blamed them for their own unhappiness.
The betrayer partner may have stayed open to, or even encouraged, flirtation with others, and given themselves permission to cross boundaries.
There’s a difference between understanding what went wrong, and blaming.
The processing may lead to more self- disclosure and vulnerability, related to deeper needs, as well as more awareness that each partner felt lonely and abandoned during their first marriage.
This is not used to accuse the partner for the affair.
Conflict avoidance seems to be universal for couples that have affairs. Great couples after an affair, go into talker listener without using the four Horsemen. They then to the dream within conflict exercise in the compromise exercise to help deal with gridlocked perpetual problems and arrive at a compromise. They may need help coping with diffuse physiological arousal and how to take a break to self soothe.
The couple learns how to create and ritualize every day emotional connection. They create rituals of emotional connection.
They work on expressing fondness and admiration for each other appreciation and gratitude for the contribution to the relationship. They learn how to have supportive stress- reducing conversation for sharing stresses that originate outside the relationship.
The couple has a weekly ritual called the “state of the union” in which once a week they talk about their feelings and needs in a calm way to create emotional connection without conflict.

Phase 3 attachment
The opposite of betrayal is establishing trust, commitment and loyalty.
Trust is based on transparency, truth, constructive conflict, processing past emotional injuries, and attunement.
We build towards recommitment and loyalty and faith through work on cherishing.
They talk purposefully about what values give their lives meaning, what dreams they have for their future individually and together, and their goals for fulfilling those dreams.
Couple who talk about their sex life have more satisfying intimacy over time.
When a hurt partner feels enough trust and safety with a partner to resume the sexual relationship, the work on rekindling romance and erotic connection can begin.
Tailor your sexual relationship to your own needs and preferences as a couple. Discuss topics like what kind of sexual initiation you would prefer, which kind of touch feels best, what are the best ego sparing ways to refuse sex and so on.
Design specific rituals of connection to integrate regularly into your relationship.
Choose times, places, and ways to connect in a predictable manner they can count on that feel satisfying and loving for both of them.
Rituals of connection sustain friendship closeness and emotional intimacy.
Set up a high cost for subsequent betrayals.
With this, you are on your way to working through the pain, healing the past and establishing a wonderful relationship 2.0
If you would like to add the following questions, to keep your relationship on track, I would suggest a review of these every 4 months or so until you both agree it is no longer needed. If either of you still want to do it, please do it.
Can you set up a checklist for the affair let’s check up on ourselves in four-six months a year for up to two years and look at are we doing what’s necessary to keep the affair healed and no relapses. The research seems to indicate that it takes 2-3 years to move into new patterns of trust that are enduring. As in grieving a death, many couples grieve the loss for 2-3 years.
Literally set up how good are you at doing this this this this this with a checklist

​Managing Stress Together to Stay Together
 
This is still from the Sound Relationship House by Gottman, with Stu Jacobson, PhD contributing an idea.
 
How well do you as a couple manage the spill over of stress? 
 
Jacobson found that some couples maintain the gains in couples therapy and there are those who relapse two years after therapy. The effect of stress management was the only factor that mattered.
 
This factor alone eight of those couples who have made progress in a relationship to maintain a positive changes it happens if they developed.
 
We highly recommend that you have a stress reducing conversation for at least 20 minutes every day. This conversation gives you a great opportunity to turn towards each other, thereby increasing your emotional bank account.
 
Consider that this is part of the magic five hours a week. Post that on your fridge and remind yourself of it.
 
The stress reducing conversation is the talker and listener. My website has an audio of me describing talker and listener as well as a handout with it. Very important. If you can successfully do the talker and listener, you will find that most of the problems will be easier to handle as a team.
 
Giving support meetings maintaining eye Contact, asking questions to demonstrate genuine interest. You’re showing empathy and you demonstrate that you are an ally for your partner. You communicate understanding and you don’t give advice unless asked.
 
It’s us against others.
 
I will not side with the other or your adversary or opponent in your story.
 
Even if I agree with the other person, I will empathize with my partner’s emotions.
 
I’m gonna focus on what my partner is feeling now -what my partner is perceiving.
 
There is solidarity and the thinking is, “This is our problem and we will face it together. I will provide affection and comfort as a way of giving support come here and let me hold you. I am totally on your side.”
 
Continue reducing stress by showing that you are interested in the person speaking, be excited when they’re excited and sad when they’re sad match them be their ally. When they have fear, irritation, or anger let them know that you can see where they would have that feeling.
 
Validate.
 
Don’t Stonewall or ignore. Don’t fail to respond. Don’t get defensive. Don’t criticize them they are going through stress. Do not side with their enemy.
 
Sex, romance and passion are part of turning towards.
 
We often struggle with talking about it openly. Pay each other compliments, give surprise gifts, tell them how they are special.
 
Make them feel special.
 
Find out what soothes them and continue your courtship- that’s number one.
 
Number two -develop rituals routine ways to talk about sex.
Talk about having a signal whether or not you’re in the mood for sex. Talk about how to communicate what you prefer as foreplay or sexual positions you like (that you’ve done together before).
 
Number three- make the relationship a priority, schedule date nights or getaway weekends. What are your preferred times and frequency for having sex? No judgment blame or harshness during this conversation.
Romance, passion and good sex thrive when there’s an atmosphere of safety and warmth.