Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay welcome trial lawyer and judge on Hot Bench Yodit Tewolde to discuss accusations of a possible affair between Georgia DA Fani Willis and the Trump case prosecutor (7:05), before checking in on the state of the GOP (38:38) and reacting to the cancellation of HBO’s Rap Sh!t (1:03:32).
Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay
Guest: Yodit Tewolde
Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith
Subscribe: Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Stitcher
Van Lathan
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The Daily Mail has published an explosive report that South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a former Donald Trump aide, have been having a secret affair “for years”—at least since 2019. Noem’s spokesperson told the tabloid, “This is so predictable that you would attack Governor Noem less than a week after she endorsed Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States.” Neither have denied the Daily Mail’s reporting, and Vanity Fair has reached out to both of them for further comment.
A “family values” Republican, Noem has three children with her husband, Bryon. They’ve been married for over 30 years. Lewandowski married his wife, Alison, in 2005, and they have four children.
Lewandowski has a reputation of being just one of the many characters that Trump can’t quit. Trump’s original campaign manager, Lewandowski was fired in June 2016 after “a series of incidents that the Trump family worried had cast the candidate in a negative light.” These may have included, but were not limited to, aggressively handling a reporter and protester, reportedly calling a coworker a “fucking bitch,” and reportedly calling a staffer to yell at him as the staffer’s grandmother was having her Last Rites read. Soon, though, Trump brought Lewandowski back in the fold.
Noem stoked speculation that she’s angling to be Trump’s running mate for 2024 with an early endorsement of the indicted man for president. Trump received her endorsement onstage in North Dakota last week, where a Trump-Noem 2024 graphic reportedly appeared on a screen behind them. “I will do everything I can to help him win and save this country,” Noem said when introducing the former president.
The Daily Mail claimed it has a long list of receipts including “stays at luxury resorts where their intimacy was observed and noted.” They allegedly took private planes on donors’ dimes, and would disappear frequently. Rumors of their alleged affair surfaced briefly in 2021, via far-right conservative website American Greatness, but Noem issued a strong rebuke of the story. She said it was “total garbage and a disgusting lie,” and she was “proud of the God-fearing family” that she raised with her husband. Lawyers for Lewandowski dismissed the allegations as “rumors.”
Lewandowski became a key adviser to Noem by 2019, and they would travel frequently together. Per the Daily Mail, “In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Noem and Lewandowski became virtually inseparable companions on the Trump campaign trail. By then, their relationship was an open secret at the White House and among high-level GOP lobbyists and political consultants.”
However, after a scandal in which Lewandowski allegedly propositioned a donor’s wife at a Benihana, he was supposedly cut loose from Noem’s team. “Corey was always a volunteer, never paid a dime (campaign or official),” Ian Fury, Noem’s communications director, said in a statement at the time. “He will not be advising the governor in regard to the campaign or official office.” The Daily Mail claimed this was not true. Lewandowski continued working for Noem, and she would, according to a source, “make excuses for his behavior and apologize to staffers for him.”
Kenzie Bryant
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The most dangerous relationship threats aren’t always the most visible; like a pattern of high conflict, lack of kindness or disrespect. Those are clearly problematic signs that need attention but the behaviors that are sometimes the least detectable can create a significant vulnerability in the relationship where emotional safety levels have taken a serious hit.
A relationship is in red alert if one or both are in emotional distress over a long period of time and are not communicating about it. I’ve seen this repeatedly in my couples therapy practice and anecdotally in life. They are often not talking about it because one or both of them are conflict avoidant or have learned that it’s not safe to talk about their feelings. Maybe this was learned many years ago in their family of origin or during the course of the relationship itself. They might have tried to express their feelings to their partner repeatedly and felt their attempts were ignored.
So they stop trying.
For some people, minimizing their experience and sweeping uncomfortable feelings under the rug has been a coping mechanism. For them, this pattern shows up in other places as well like friendships and in the work environment. If you peel back the layers, you will often find this pattern was developed a long time ago in a family system where they learned that expressing emotion or sharing uncomfortable feelings would not be responded to well, or perhaps not at all.
The biggest problem with one or both in the relationship having shut down emotionally in this way is that the more time that passes, the more risk there is to the relationship. The challenge is that sometimes a couple like this presents to the outside world as well functioning and happy. When alone, they may even pretend that all is ok. But the distress are there, fraying the relationship from the inside out.
This can look like:
A relationship in this state is in red alert because of the risk of one or both of them reaching hopelessness. If this happens, one or both essentially have internally given up on the relationship being able to provide what they need. But they are no longer talking to their partner aloud about their needs but are experiencing the emotional impact.
The PsychCentral article, What It Is and Why It’s Important, describes the critical importance of “emotional safety” well:
When you don’t feel emotionally safe, you feel emotionally threatened, which causes the same bodily reactions as feeling physically threatened. You “freeze.” You hold your breath and tense your body. Alternatively, you may go into attack mode. Or you may shut down. Brain studies have shown that social rejection activates the same pain centers in the brain as getting physically injured. To your brain, physical and emotional pain are practically the same thing. And if you can’t get back fairly quickly to feeling safe and accepted, you’re essentially living in a state similar to constant physical threat.
This is where things get really dangerous in that loneliness can lead to seeking needs being met outside of the relationship. Affairs are often triggered by this intense unspoken need and longing. Or in some cases they may slip into a state of ambivalent acceptance of their fate for the time being, especially in the case of there being children being raised.
In my therapy practice, I’ve seen couples where one has literally already silently grieved the end of a relationship months before they end up in couples therapy with me. And the other person feels blindsided when they hear that the other is essentially done. If only they had been able to communicate more effectively and responded better to each other’s distress, perhaps this could have been avoided. They can start to try at that time but getting to the point of hopelessness is tricky to contend with. Ideally a couples seeks help before one of them has landed there.
If you’re in a relationship that’s in “red alert,” having awareness of this is the first step towards course correcting. All it takes is one of you to hold your hand up and say, “I think we’re in trouble. Let’s see if we can do something about this.” With therapy you can learn to show up for each other in a more open and supportive way. If it’s legitimately too late to salvage the relationship, at least you can both know that you tried.
It’s also important to remember that most of us function in relationships in a way we’re not even aware of. We all have imprints, models and learning experiences about what relationships are supposed to be that informs us. Prior wounds from earlier relationships can be healed through later relationships. All it takes is a spark of insight, a “aha” moment to realize that there are ways you can show up for each other in a healthier and more loving way.
When I work with couples in a state of severe disconnection like this, I’m always searching for an ember of hope. Can this ember be tended to and become a small flame? This is ultimately up to the couple as it can be scary to try. But potentially incredibly rewarding.
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Learn about my California Online Therapy practice or if outside of the state, I can offer can an email relationship consulatation.
Lisa Brookes Kift, MFT
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“Why did I do it? I love my wife, I have so much to lose, why?!”
Many of the men I work with are seeking answers to questions like the one above. They’ve acted in ways they later regret and, at some point, they had to face the painful fallout of their actions: a devastated loved one who might end the marriage/relationship; the shame of behavior that conflicts with their values; the despair and humiliation of losing a job or getting into legal trouble.
In each instance through the acting-out experience, these men have built a secret reality where they escaped to again and again, a dream-like existence that allowed them to feel and experience things they couldn’t imagine feeling in their “real” lives.
Some have used their secretive world as an escape, an exit from an un-namable (and therefore un-manageable) malaise they cannot shake. Others sought relief from an overly constrictive sense of self, a self subsumed by fear and inhibition.
But the “solution” sought through acting-out isn’t realized (and therefore isn’t a solution at all). In fact, as many have discovered, often more harm is caused to self and others through acting-out; and acting-out ultimately prevents one from going inward in order to do the psychological work that is needed to make meaningful life changes.
What occurs during the process of acting-out for some men?
By the time these men reach out to me, many feel like they’ve reached a breaking point, or even a point of no return. Many feel marred by shame, guilt and/or despair. Some are desperate to save their relationship/marriage, seeking the therapy as part of a non-negotiable condition set out by their partner.
Over the last two decades, as I listened to the hundreds of men I’ve worked with around acting-out issues, a theme has emerged in their struggles, a dynamic that they may not have been aware of when they first entered therapy.
The secretive world of acting-out contained for them a promise, a promise of something different, not necessarily something better or positive, but rather an experience that would ultimately lead to a dramatic shift/alteration of the self (their subjective-self experience).
The promise of something different that I am discussing is, of course, a maze with no exit. This elusive, inarticulable promise is never found . . . like in the myth of Tantalus, it always remains just beyond one’s reach.
And for those who feel convinced about what they are seeking (they believe what they are seeking is clear in their mind), what they end up grasping for does not emotionally satiate them. In these instances, they may double down on their acting-out attempts — more alcohol, more sex, more porn, more drugs, more risk, more danger, more more — only to ultimately find that their hunger is as fierce — and as unsatisfied — as ever.
“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.” ~Nietzsche
Some men describe feeling gripped, being over-taken by the anticipation of what this promise of something different might offer, and in these instances it is the stirring of desire (above and beyond what is being chased) that consumes them.
In renewed wanting, these men become convinced that something awaits them in the world of acting-out (a world that is often cloaked in secrecy). Like a child overcome by anticipation for Santa to bring the ultimate gift they will never tire of, these men enter a state of wanting (and seeking) that alters and jolts them.
The following are a few descriptions men have used to describe this anticipatory state just prior to and during acting-out:
“There’s this buzzing sensation throughout my body.”
“I feel excited but it’s weird, it’s a combination of anxiety and excitement.”
“For me it’s a feeling of dread…but I’d rather feel this than nothing.”
“My heart starts to pound and I become more alert, more awake.”
“All my problems fall away, and all I have to focus on is what I’m about to do next.”
Enlivened by expectancy, these men may feverishly begin seeking for what they believe they want/need. As they close the blinds to their regular life (and everything that anchors them there), they become different. During this process, a dream-like shift in consciousness occurs; sometimes this shift is subtle, at other times jolting.
The constant across a wide range of acting-out behavior is that you become altered. Even unrecognizable to yourself perhaps.
And whether this shift is positive (excitement) or negative (anxiety, dread), the common denominator is that you momentarily experience a shifting from one state of being to another, a self-alteration that may be taken as evidence that the antidote to what is lacking in your life is out there in the acting-out world, waiting to be discovered.
What is sought through acting-out often has little to do with our current life circumstances. The current frustrations and challenges of our lives are painfully real, but these frustrations do not account for the self-alteration sought through secrecy and acting-out.
In therapy it is often the exploration of childhood wounds and early family dynamics that gives these men a better understanding of what is occurring and why.
To journey back into our past is an invitation to revisit a time when we were most vulnerable and helpless, a time when the intensity of childhood longings consumed us (especially) if they were not adequately tended to by our caregivers.
These early relationships had a profound impact on our adult capacity to connect deeply with our own needs and emotions; on our ability to hold in consciousness intense feelings and yearnings that may be in conflict with each other; and they shaped the ways in which we allow (or don’t allow) ourselves to be seen by others and ourselves.
There are certain experiences that are so overwhelming that they cannot be put into words. In these instances, we needed help from our caregivers to make sense of what was happening to us. Without this parental attentiveness and their efforts to help us identify and name what was occurring, our inner experiences remained alien and even dangerous to us.
Without the capacity to self-soothe, the force of our emotions overtook us, each feeling an inner attack against the self. In short, to feel became dangerous.
To survive this, we had to learn how not to feel, how not to be connected to our inner world.
This is the nature of traumatic experiences; we cannot make sense of them, we cannot achieve what psychiatrist Richard Chefetz calls a “felt coherence” of our inner experiences; when a felt coherence is lacking, our inner life can feel haphazard, inarticulable and mysterious.
These fragmented (and split off) parts of ourselves continue to influence the shape of our lives. While segregated from our awareness, they seek expression (and, ultimately, reunion with the rest of who we are).
But many of us are unaware that these self-fragments are active and in need of our attention.
In order to get control of acting-out behaviors, we must discover how these lost parts of ourselves are seeking expression, seeking a resolution from past injuries.
Secretive acting-out serves two functions in relationship to these lost parts of ourselves:
The secretive world of acting-out might be an unconscious attempt to create experiences that will help us reconnect/rediscover these hidden selves;
Or the acting-out may be a way to keep these self-experiences at bay, actions that replace remembering because we unconsciously fear that knowing about these lost parts would be overwhelming (what Freud called the repetition compulsion, repeating the dynamics of painful childhood experiences rather than remembering these experiences).
In order for self-wholeness to occur, a wholeness that will loosen the grip that secrecy and acting-out have on us, we must learn to create relationships with the wounded parts of us that long ago went underground.
Until then, the mysterious world we create through the acting-out process may keep promising us things we feel compelled to chase.
Article References
Bacal, H. (2006). Repetition compulsion and the dread to repeat. In R. Skelton, The Edinburgh international encyclopedia of psychoanalysis. Edinburg, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
Chefetz, R. (2010). Live as performance art: Right and left brain function, implicit knowing, and “felt coherence.” In Knowing, Not-Knowing and Sort-Of-Knowing: Psychoanalysis and the Experience of Uncertainty. Edited by Petrucelli, J.
Freud, S. (1914). Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through. S. E. 12 London: Hogarth Press.
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Article original source, with approval: RichardNicastro.com
Richard Nicastro, PhD
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Nia Long is speaking out for the first time about her breakup with her partner of 13 years, Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka, describing the recent, very public demise of their relationship as “a gut punch and then this red carpet of blessing.”
In a new cover story for The Cut, the actor explained, “For the last 22 years, I’ve been pouring out. But at a certain point, you’re like, ‘Woo, I’m looking a little tired.’ Even if I can’t see it, I can feel it. So I try to pour into myself and let everyone know this is a ‘do not disturb’ period.” In September 2022, the Celtics suspended Udoka over reports that he “had an improper intimate and consensual relationship with a female member of the team staff,” per The Athletic. Long says she still doesn’t see why this very private matter had to be handled by the team so publicly. “The Celtics made a choice to make my family business public, and I don’t understand why. It could’ve all been handled internally,” she told the magazine. “I do understand why, but I can’t talk about it. Maybe one day I will. You know, fear drives stupidity, and I’ll leave that right there. I’ve learned that I’m stronger than I ever thought I was.”
The Boyz n the Hood star went on to explain that she’s been getting through this difficult time in her life by prioritizing her youngest son, 11-year-old Kez, from her relationship with Udoka. She revealed, “My only focus right now is my youngest son ’cause he’s having a really tough time. I’m sure I have some things that I’m suppressing, but I have to do that to take care of him first. That’s the giving. It’s natural. I’m sure I’ll have to circle back with myself several times to reconcile things. But the one thing I’m trying not to harbor is anger.” She added that she’s still just trying to figure out what happened between her and her ex “Because, you know, you’re with someone for 12, 13 years, you think you know them.”
Thankfully, following the cheating revelation, Long was met with a flood of support from the public which she says “saved my life.” The actor continued, “It saved my mental well-being because I felt uplifted by the community in a way that felt like my family was checking in and making sure I was okay. And that, I appreciated. I have that for people like Beyoncé. I look at her, and I’m so proud of her because I know how difficult it is to sustain and manage everything she has in her life. My life is probably a smaller version of that. Black women that are dynamic and famous and there to inspire are also required to be exceptional, and sometimes I just get tired of being strong. That’s my biggest thing: I don’t want to have to be strong. I would like to just have an experience that’s pleasant. But the difference comes down to race. Race matters and makes a difference in your experiences and the way people treat you, respect you, and regard you — and the way people protect you. Malcolm X said the least protected person in America is the Black woman. That quote resonates big time in my life right now.”
But while she may still be reeling from that breakup, don’t expect Long to shed any tears over the end of her 13-year relationship. “I don’t cry as much as I used to,” she confessed. “I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but I do check in with myself and let people know how I feel, for better or worse. ’Cause I’m not holding on to nonsense, and I’m also not passive-aggressive. I say it and sometimes it’s received, sometimes it’s not, but in any case, it’s my truth.”
Emily Kirkpatrick
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According to Case, a disturbing incident provided yet another reminder of her vulnerability as a woman in the male-dominated world of gaming.
Since moving to Dallas, Case had become friends with an older guy in the industry who helped her navigate the nascent business and plan her career. But the man was “always just skirting the edge of inappropriate in a way that felt uncomfortable,” she says, making comments about how easily he could fall in love with her, despite the fact that he was married. He frequently told her to lose weight because it would help her image.
Mindful of his power and influence, Case tried to shrug it off. One afternoon, Case alleges, he took her for lunch at his usual spot to talk business and strategy. Afterward, they headed out to his car so he could drive her home. Once the doors were shut, the mood changed. He asked her to pull down her pants, she says, and show him her vagina. He “commanded me, ‘Show me what you’ve got. I want to see it,’” Case says. “He just would not let up,” she says.
As she sat frozen, she says, she thought, “If I’m not the cool girl who goes along, what am I going to give up? Am I going to be on the outside? That was my fear. It felt like one thing on this continuum of constantly being expected to expose myself or otherwise be on display. I just thought that’s how the world was. The story I told myself was: I’m strong and I am a survivor and I just do what I have to do.” So she did, pulling down her pants in the car in silence as he watched. “He didn’t touch me but I definitely felt, like, trapped,” she says, “It just felt like he was sort of leering at me.” Then she pulled her pants back up and said she had to go.
In July 1997, Case scored her biggest win yet: a job as a game tester at Romero’s new studio, Ion Storm. With a multimillion-dollar publishing deal from Eidos, the British behemoth behind the best-selling Tomb Raider franchise, Romero had made it to the top of the industry, and downtown Dallas. Ion leased the 22,500-square-foot, glass-ceilinged penthouse of the Texas Commerce Building, and transformed it into what a press release called “the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory of Gaming!” When Case stepped out of the emerald-green elevator doors onto the penthouse floor, she felt more like Dorothy entering Oz. As clouds floated above the glass ceiling, she passed vintage arcade games, a movie theater, a custom deathmatching arena with big shiny screens, and a snack room stacked with Bawls soda, Milk Duds, and Cup-O-Noodles. Throughout the maze of corrugated steel cubicles, at every oversized monitor, were her people: gamers, dozens of them. Though she was outnumbered by guys as usual, she felt as much a part of their team as ever. “I thought it was fucking awesome,” she says.
But as the sun overhead turned to darkness, a harsher reality set in. With nearly 100 employees, millions spent on renovations, and no game release in sight, Romero’s team was working 12-hour days, six days a week. That explained the sleeping bags and pillows under the desks, which I saw myself when I was there profiling Romero for Salon. Case returned with a packed suitcase and camped under her desk for two weeks. She felt determined to prove herself, and land her dream job as a game designer.
But the pressure kept building. For a year, Romero had been endlessly touting Daikatana’s impending release. This included a notorious ad in major gaming magazines that warned, “John Romero’s About to Make You His Bitch.” Romero’s spokesperson said he disavowed the ad at the time, saying it wasn’t his idea and that he regrets not preventing it. But the damage was done. It wasn’t the misogyny of the ad that bothered gamers so much. It was the macho posturing about an increasingly delayed game that was starting to feel like vaporware. The man who’d perfected the art of trash-talking in gaming now found himself being savaged by the gaming bloggers and press.
Just before Thanksgiving 1998, Case and few others took Romero to P.F. Chang’s for an intervention of sorts. “We heard a rumor that your entire Daikatana team is going to leave tomorrow,” Case told him. The next day, they did—a devastating blow that made the haters hate even harder. But it had one silver lining: Case got promoted to a job designing levels for the game. “I was ecstatic,” she says. “I felt like this brotherhood of designers had accepted me.”
Romero was interested in more than her design skills. Amid all the strife inside the company, they’d grown close. Both were gamers at heart, and both were familiar with life under siege. He was 31 now, with a newborn daughter, but his troubles at work spilled into tensions at home, and he and his wife soon separated.
One night, he and Stevie went to dinner. “We were sitting on a curb after eating dinner or something, having some wine, and he kissed me,” she says. “That was it.” Case and Romero tried to keep their relationship secret at work while they raced to get Daikatana out the door. “He was supersmart, hilarious, goofy,” Case says, “The whole thing that made him a gamer—the intelligence, and the wit, and the playfulness—that was just so fun. I felt like it was somebody that got me very deeply, good and bad. Everything about who I was.”
Their bond grew stronger in the face of mounting adversity. In January 1999, as I later reported in Masters of Doom, the Dallas Observer published a scathing exposé of Ion Storm’s work culture drawn from leaked internal emails. “The place where the ‘designer’s vision is king’ has turned into a toxic mix of prima donnas and personality cults,” the article declared. Then, in April, it emerged that the Columbine High School shooters had been avid fans of Doom. A national uproar over violent video games ensued.
By the time Case and Romero showed up to that year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual gaming convention in Los Angeles, the baggy-jeaned KillCreek of before was no longer. Standing arm in arm with Romero, in his black leather pants, mesh black shirt, and long silver chain, Case had completed her transition from corn-fed tomboy to video-game vixen. Dressed in a tight baby-blue shirt and black pants, she’d dyed her hair blonde, dropped 50 pounds, and surgically enlarged her breasts. To the hordes of autograph-seeking fans at the expo, Romero and Case had become gaming’s It couple.
David Kushner
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The emotional backlash of an affair on the partner who was cheated on can be earth shattering. Whether there was suspicion of this happening leading up to the discovery or not, it all leads to a spectrum of emotions including shock, anger, grief and loss. It can feel like the relationship has been dumped upside down with the contents shaken all over the ground. But if both partners are open to the work of affair recovery, it’s possible and in many cases the relationship can come out the other side stronger than before.
The work to heal a relationship after this type of betrayal is unique to each situation and dependent on how each person shows up to it. Is there remorse from the person who cheated? A sincere interest in healing the wounds caused by their behavior? A willingness to end the other relationship, if it has been ongoing? Are they willing to do anything to save their primary relationship? Just as important is the response of the partner who was impacted. What do they need to be able to move on? Can they eventually forgive the partner who chose to be unfaithful?
The most important aspect of affair recovery for the betrayed partner is re-establishing emotional safety in the relationship.
When there is emotional safety present between a couple there is trust and a sense of knowing that they prioritize, respect, understand and love each other. There is ease and an intuitive knowing that they can be themselves. This is where real authenticity in relationships lives.
When there is a breach of trust either physically or emotionally in a committed relationship, emotional safety is severely compromised. The betrayed partner may feel like they are spinning in a vortex, untethered with the realization that what they thought they could rely upon or was theirs only was not. The dishonesty and often sneaky behavior involved with cheating partners further impacts the sacred space of emotional safety.
When a person finds out that his or her partner has strayed, feelings of betrayal, confusion, and abandonment may cast a painful shadow over everyday life.”
– Rachel Moheban-Wachtel, LCSW in article, Affair Recovery: 5 Steps to Repairing Your Relationship
When an affair has occurred and the couple would like to try heal and move forward, primary goal is to shore up the aspects of emotional safety that have been compromised, most importantly involving trust. But questions about whether their cheating partner loves them anymore also understandably comes up.
When the foundation of emotional safety has been compromised this needs to be acknowledged and addressed. If a couple stands any chance or pushing through this work, they must re-establish this type of safety. It is the glue that keeps intimate relationships together in a truly meaningful way. It’s not easy but can be incredibly rewarding, especially if the couple also manages to successfully navigate any of the issues leading to the affair. Though this type of exploration has a time and a place (not recommended until after there is a show of good faith, desire to repair and signs of progress).
Dr Richard Nicastro, PhD looks at the challenge of maintaining trust and hope in the post-affair recovery process in the piece, The Emotional Crisis of an Affair and How to Heal. It looks at these two roadblocks as they can come up for both partners doing affair recovery therapy work.
Lisa Brookes Kift, MFT
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The emotional backlash of an affair on the partner who was cheated on can be earth shattering. Whether there was suspicion of this happening leading up to the discovery or not, it all leads to a spectrum of emotions including shock, anger, grief and loss. It can feel like the relationship has been dumped upside down with the contents shaken all over the ground. But if both partners are open to the work of affair recovery, it’s possible and in many cases the relationship can come out the other side stronger than before.
The work to heal a relationship after this type of betrayal is unique to each situation and dependent on how each person shows up to it. Is there remorse from the person who cheated? A sincere interest in healing the wounds caused by their behavior? A willingness to end the other relationship, if it has been ongoing? Are they willing to do anything to save their primary relationship? Just as important is the response of the partner who was impacted. What do they need to be able to move on? Can they eventually forgive the partner who chose to be unfaithful?
The most important aspect of affair recovery for the betrayed partner is re-establishing emotional safety in the relationship.
When there is emotional safety present between a couple there is trust and a sense of knowing that they prioritize, respect, understand and love each other. There is ease and an intuitive knowing that they can be themselves. This is where real authenticity in relationships lives.
When there is a breach of trust either physically or emotionally in a committed relationship, emotional safety is severely compromised. The betrayed partner may feel like they are spinning in a vortex, untethered with the realization that what they thought they could rely upon or was theirs only was not. The dishonesty and often sneaky behavior involved with cheating partners further impacts the sacred space of emotional safety.
When a person finds out that his or her partner has strayed, feelings of betrayal, confusion, and abandonment may cast a painful shadow over everyday life.”
– Rachel Moheban-Wachtel, LCSW in article, Affair Recovery: 5 Steps to Repairing Your Relationship
When an affair has occurred and the couple would like to try heal and move forward, primary goal is to shore up the aspects of emotional safety that have been compromised, most importantly involving trust. But questions about whether their cheating partner loves them anymore also understandably comes up.
When the foundation of emotional safety has been compromised this needs to be acknowledged and addressed. If a couple stands any chance or pushing through this work, they must re-establish this type of safety. It is the glue that keeps intimate relationships together in a truly meaningful way. It’s not easy but can be incredibly rewarding, especially if the couple also manages to successfully navigate any of the issues leading to the affair. Though this type of exploration has a time and a place (not recommended until after there is a show of good faith, desire to repair and signs of progress).
Dr Richard Nicastro, PhD looks at the challenge of maintaining trust and hope in the post-affair recovery process in the piece, The Emotional Crisis of an Affair and How to Heal. It looks at these two roadblocks as they can come up for both partners doing affair recovery therapy work.
Lisa Brookes Kift, MFT
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