Could Cheating Actually Save Your Relationship?

Can Cheating Actually Save Your Relationship?

Cheating. It’s an emotionally loaded word that’s torn many relationships apart. But have you ever considered shifting the lens? Could cheating actually be viewed as a trigger that forces much-needed change?

Helen and Shahn are Clinical Psychologists and Couples Therapists who have been married since 2017. They have over 28 years of professional practice experience between them. 

Drawing on experiences with their own blended family, and their wealth of professional experience, they created the app, My Love Your Love to make therapy more accessible and better equip couples to navigate their relationships.

Of course, Helen and Shahn realise that infidelity is never ideal in any relationship. But if life takes an unexpected turn and you find your relationship challenged by infidelity, it doesn’t necessarily mean a separation is inevitable either.

In fact, Helen and Shahn suggest that while cheating can put a relationship under a microscope, it can also encourage the couple to freely discuss all of its unspoken weaknesses. If dealt with in a mutually respectful way, it could actually lead to positive results.

Helen and Shahn say there are four key ways that infidelity might actually be good for a struggling relationship:

1. It can compel positive change

The discovery of an affair can feel like having a grenade thrown into your relationship. And although it may feel like it’s destroying everything you’ve ever known, it can push you to get to the core of the issues in your relationship.

Sometimes it takes an infidelity for couples to talk about topics they’ve avoided for a long time or maybe never even discussed. These include unmet needs, frustrations, desires, loneliness, longings and disappointments.

Before the affair, these issues may have been swept under the rug. Then when infidelity blows up a relationship, all of these unresolved problems start to line up and present themselves. Of course, sometimes the problems are too great. And in the end one or both partners will want to part ways. But at other times, partners will agree to turn over every stone and look at every relationship crevice to try to find some common ground.

In that case, you may come away with tools and techniques to create a stronger relationship in the future. These new positive habits can be carried forward in this upgraded version of the relationship so that future problems can be addressed as they arise. And the relationship can move forward stronger than ever.

2. It can lead to a stronger emotional connection

The period after the discovery of an affair can be an emotional minefield and one of the most distressing periods a couple will experience. The attachment bond has been shattered and both partners will begin to process all that is at stake – not only the loss of the existing relationship but also the loss of their imagined shared future.

If there is any further infidelity, lying, betrayal or other breaches of trust, this will only cause more harm and pain. But if the partners pay attention to and understand the threats to the relationship, and if the victim of the affair feels safe, there is an opportunity to build an emotionally stronger connection.

This intense period requires vulnerability, raw truths, forgiveness and commitment. When both parties navigate this minefield together, they may be able to repair the attachment bond and often report that their emotional connection is stronger after the affair.

3. It can encourage better communication

Communication is key to any successful relationship. And it’s never more important than when a couple is going through a crisis. To successfully work through an infidelity, the cheating partner will need to build trust with their partner. Wounds from cheating won’t heal without ongoing emotional connection and transparency in the relationship. And that comes down to communication.

In fact, in the post-affair stage, open communication is the only way to move forward. The victim of the affair needs to feel validated. They also need to have their questions answered and feel confident their partner is now being open and honest.

This isn’t always easy. The cheating partner may feel defensive and put walls up. No one likes to feel guilty or face the pain and hurt they’ve caused. Having good communication boundaries and strategies ensures that the couple can move forward in an effective way without causing more damage.

4. It can be validating and freeing

The truth is freeing –for both the cheater and the victim. It’s not uncommon for people to suspect their partner may be having an affair before they discover the truth. The rumination and suspicion can be absolutely agonising. It can lead to low self-confidence, anxiety and even depression.

For the cheater, carrying around the guilt and having to cover up lies can cause them to feel stressed and anxious about the uncertainty in their lives. Even after an affair has ended, the cheater may carry the lingering fear that they will be exposed and have to face the consequences.

The truth can actually come as relief to both parties who are free from wondering ‘what if’. Even if the ‘worst’ has happened, they may feel lighter. While they may have a hard road ahead it can feel freeing to move to a place where all the cards are on the table.

Helen and Shahn’s top tips

If you’re wrestling with infidelity in your relationship, the My Love Your Love experts recommend the following steps to give your relationship the best chance of making it through the other side, even stronger and healthier than ever.

• Accept accountability – if you are the one who cheated, take responsibility for your actions. Cut off contact with the other party to the affair.
• Try to avoid shaming and blaming – instead focus on how the actions made YOU feel.
• Keep communication open and honest – answer questions and take steps to prove yourself.
• Check out the My Love Your Love app for plenty more guidance on how to move forward in your relationship. The app applies proven research and clinical experience to offer an interactive resource that not only improves your emotional connection but also helps you to develop insight into your conflict patterns and teaches strategies to help your relationship thrive.

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MEDIA FACT SHEET

My Love Your Love (MLYL) is a relationship therapy app structured around 5 key modules. Helen and Shahn chose to focus on these areas as they believe they are essential for making a relationship not only work but grow and thrive, and are based on research and their clinical experience working with couples. Each module has different exercises and games for partners to participate in. The M yLove Your Love relationship therapy app tracks partners’ progress so they can always see their relationship satisfaction status.

The 5 key modules:

• Feeling the story - partners will be learning a crucial skill that will form a solid base for all communication between them in their relationship. Feeling the Story is the first step to increasing emotional intelligence and connection with others more generally.
• Conflict compass – allows partners to understand and address conflict. MLYL will work with partners to show the impact conflict has on their relationship and help them to undo their conflict patterns and learn more effective communication and repair strategies.
• Deep connections - focused on exploring and building deep emotional connections between partners. Here partners will be diving into some creative exercises to get them to intimately understand one another, as well as working on shared values, goals and ultimately being able to sit with fundamental differences between them.
• Baggage Claim - partners will explore what vulnerabilities, hurts and stories that each of them bring to the relationship. Here they go deep to unlock subconscious processing to bring each other closer together and work to eliminate unhelpful patterns in their relationship
• Sex and desire - takes the awkwardness and shame out of sex in relationships. This module emphasises the importance of mutual consent and pleasure and provides users with a number of activities and games to understand each other's sexual interests, increase their capacity to move into the sexual moment and ultimately to fan the flames of desire.

Meet the founders:

Helen and Shahn are both Clinical Psychologists and Couples Therapists who have been married since 2017. They are both directors at Drummoyne Psychology and have over 28 years of professional practice experience between them. Both have become known for their expertise in relationships. Through their own blended family, and their wealth of experience they created My Love Your Love to make therapy more accessible and better equip couples to navigate their relationships.

• Shahn Baker Sorekli has over 18 years experience in the treatment of mental health disorders in a variety of settings and is a fully registered and endorsed Clinical Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia. He is also a member of the Australian Psychology Society and fellow of the Clinical College.
• Helen Robertson has over 10 years experience working in mental health across a variety of settings. Helen is a fully registered and endorsed Clinical Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia. She also has Advanced Certification in Schema Therapy and a member of the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST).

Why My Love Your Love was created:

The My Love Your Love concept was born out of the idea that relationships are in constant flux and thus need regular intentional attention and energy. Love between two people is not something that flows without effort but rather is a daily choice.

Helen and Shahn know through their own marriage, that all good relationships are not without tension or conflict. During the course of their relationship they have navigated many adjustments such as moving from a couple dating to a blended family, navigating parenting, and working together to build their psychology practice.

Through their marriage and over 28 years of combined professional practice experience they created My Love Your Love. Using their wealth of experience based on their clinical practice and numerous evidence-based psychological theories of practice for individual and couples therapy.

MLYL’s mission is to help couples thrive. Through MLYL, Helen and Shahn want to help partners connect, build empathy, develop a deeper understanding of each other, reduce conflict, learn healthy strategies to resolve difficult issues, and keep desire alive.

How to download the app:

1. Both partners download the app
2. One partner registers both partner’s details. This partner will create their own password and verify the email
3. The other partner will then be sent an email to verify the connection and be given a password to use to log in to the app
4. Both partners’ apps are synced, both can now log into the app and are ready to go