Thirteen excuses why people won’t seek help, and how to over come them.
Whether this heart stays broken or can be repaired is in your hands. The choices and decisions you make once betrayal is uncovered are the key.
by Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC, SEC
Life situations can be like getting hit by a car, so emotionally and physically painful that you might like to be put into a medically induced coma. Death of a loved one comes to mind, and divorce. As a Marriage and Family Therapist, though, the thing I see that is equally as painful is a partner’s betrayal in a long-term relationship. Sometimes couples come in before an extramarital affair is uncovered, and other times they come in just after, but witnessing such deep pain is not my favorite way to spend an afternoon. The betrayed partner usually feels and acts like someone who has just been in a wreck — in shock, wanting to run but don’t know where to run to. Feeling crazy, even though they aren’t, and entering a state of obsession, fury, injury, and feeling like a fool. Even crazier, the person who they desire comfort and reassurance from is the person who just skewered their heart. They don’t know what to do, but they know to come to marriage therapy.
It is there that hope for a healed marriage and reconciliation can begin. It’s not a short process, but when handled intelligently and finesse by someone who has experience and knows what they’re doing, we know that 75 percent of marriages survive and hopefully go on to a better marriage than they had before. You can’t hope to survive betrayal of trust without getting to the roots of the problems that caused one partner to stray in the first place. Knowing what I know, every marriage in crisis needs a therapist to manage the terrible experience, from start to finish.
Imagine being in that state and not going to a professional counselor. Plenty of people choose that route, and this article is for you. These do-it-yourselfers instead go an Internet search about what to do or rely on close friends or family to counsel them. Imagine going to your friends and family to also guide you through your serious health issues in life, like cancer, chronic illness, or broken bones. I would imagine that taking that route might make your health worse, and potentially life-ending. That’s how I view what’s likely to happen to couples who don’t get professional help during one of the most painful experiences of your life. I tell people who are thinking of managing it themselves that they might as well be having a cat driving them in a car going down a windy road near a cliff, it’s going to come to an ugly end.
Here are some of the reasons I hear from couples about why they didn’t go to a marriage counselor when they hit rock bottom in a marriage crisis:
- My husband doesn’t believe in marriage counselors. Does he also not believe in the sun and the moon? Seriously, what does this mean? A note for the naysayers on our behalf … Most of us spent three to five years post-college studying relationship dynamics and mental and emotional health, then taking exams and thousands of hours practicing as interns before we were allowed to put our shingles out as a licensed therapist. God knows how many books and peer-reviewed research articles we’ve read on the subject. We also get close to 30 hours of continuing education every two years. If you studied anything for that much time, do you think you might be helpful in that area? I hope so.
- Therapists are for white people. Yes, I have been told this, and I understand that people who have endured disenfranchisement and negative bias from Anglos have every reason to be skeptical. After all, the profession of psychology and mental health counseling was started by white men and was only available to wealthy people for many years. But today we have a lot of diversity in the counseling profession, insurance covers some or all of it, and more and more diversity is showing up in our client base. It’s becoming more accepted in the mainstream and at last losing some of the only crazy people go to counseling aspect. What I can tell you is to ask your friends who have tried counseling for their marriage what it was like. See if you can find a therapist you are comfortable with, whatever that means to you. There is no shame in asking for help, and I would rather you try marriage therapy before deciding it isn’t an option for your family.
- It’s so expensive. If I told you that you could likely save your crumbling marriage for $3,000 to $5,000 (or less), would you do it? Have you checked the cost of divorce?
- My mother majored in psychology so she’ll help us. Ladies and gentlemen, no one knows less about counseling, relationships, or marriage dynamics than a person with a bachelor’s in psychology. They also know little or nothing about psychology. Psychology has nothing to do with mental health counseling. If you think it does, you really do need a qualified marriage therapist to help you.
- We think we can handle it on our own. Could you also do everything else that requires training, without training? I will say if you two can maintain a calm state and have a civil and calm conversation alone, and show compassion and empathy to one another continually, handle the extreme ups and downs, give each other the time and space to move through the process, not talk to anyone else about your problems unless both of you are there, and for the betrayer, be able to patiently answer 10,000 questions asked several times each over two or more years, maintain complete honesty, and have each answer cross-checked dozens of times, know how to handle the children, then maybe you could. Oh, do you know the questions which should never be answered? Do you know if you should be transparent with your phone records, emails, text messages, and physical location? And, just saying, if my husband or I cheated, I’d make sure we had a marriage crisis therapist to see us through it, even though I am one myself.
- My spouse wants a Christian counselor. I see a lot of clients who have long become disillusioned with religion. If that’s not you, you may want to visit with your pastor, priest, rabbi or whomever is the leadership in your religion, or a Christian-based counselor. In my experience, when one spouse demands a Christian counselor, it is because they are afraid their partner will leave, and they want someone to read the scripture to shame them into staying. There are better ways to save a marriage, ones that work. Also, before risking your future with religious-based counseling, ask your pastor or Christian counselor what their training is in marriage crisis. Time and again, couples take this option first, then end up coming to see me.
- She says it was an emotional affair and they never met in person. Do you have blind faith that everything your spouse tells you is true? Does the other person (OP) live within 100 miles of you? Do they work together? Does your spouse ever travel alone? Do you know a lie when you hear one? One thing a marriage therapist can tell you is, cheaters lie. This is another great thing about having a couples therapist trained in marriage crisis, they can smell lies and will work to get to the truth.
- We’re going to read a book. It would be rare to find a book that would hit every aspect of what couples need to know and do to manage the revelation and pain of infidelity, how to handle the initial phase, how to know when separation is a good idea, how to conduct a separation so you avoid marriage crisis limbo, how to handle money, kids, family, and friends. I have written one recently, but it’s not published yet. Until then, you need to call someone like me to help you through. For Michelle Weiner-Davis fans, * I respect her greatly, but she is an idealist and never saw a marriage that couldn’t be saved. I don’t think that’s realistic. Your family’s future is on the line, belly up to the bar and get the individualized marriage help you need.
- I’ll research what to do on the Internet. The information on the Internet is highly questionable. If the person is not a marriage-crisis trained therapist, take what they say with a grain of salt. In our world, the only research worth mentioning is peer-reviewed. That means, an academic did legitimate, ethical, research, wrote the article, and other academics approved it. That’s as legit as it gets. Articles by someone who got their spouse back, life coach gurus, psychics will lead you to divorce court. Relationships and cheating situations are complicated, and no couple is the same. The best course of action is, you know, an experienced marriage therapist.
- My spouse says it’s over and they’ve had an epiphany. They want me to just let it go. And I have a beach house in Malibu I’ll sell you for $50,000. Don’t be conned by a person who may well believe the lies they tell you, but underneath the lies are just trying to avoid the painful work and recovery process that is necessary to create the new marriage you should both desire. Affair recovery counseling is tough, but if you did the crime, you need to do the time if you want your family to recover and be healthy. Face your demons, drop your pride and ego, and do what your injured partner needs to heal. Children want to avoid dealing with the hurt of affairs and breach of trust, adults will deal with it, even though they may have preferred not to.
- My spouse says it’s my fault they had an affair, so I need to fix myself, then it won’t happen again. Oh my. Nice try at flipping the tables, but you will have a difficult time getting anywhere if your unfaithful spouse wants to start with the subject of how you drove them to it. A therapist will point out that humility, mortification with self and regret, a sincere desire to repair and do what it takes to meet the emotional needs of their betrayed spouse for as long as it takes are good predictors of whether your marriage can be saved. When I encounter finger-pointing cheaters I work with them to come down off their high-horse and change their perspective. It can and must be done.
- We think a separation may be the answer. It might be, but also might be the worst thing you could do. I cringe when I see couples separate without a rhyme, reason, or plan, and without also working on themselves during their marital break. You may think you just need a cooling off period, but what you need is to cool off and commence an individual and relationship overhaul. Without the work to repair what got you in this situation in the first place, the odds are stacked high against your marriage working out.
- We tried marriage therapy once and it didn’t work. Right. When I hear this one, I think to myself, “You tried marriage therapy, and YOU didn’t do the work.” Also, not all marriage therapists will be a fit for you. Don’t give up because of one therapist, you may have to visit a few to find one that’s a match. I’ve had couples that thought I was the worst therapist in the world, and others that think I can do no wrong. Neither is true, but you get the idea. Also, if you are expecting the therapist to carry you through the marathon recovery process of a post-affair, think again. We will be your tour guide, but you must do the walking. Marriage therapists lament that only about 5 percent of their clients take the suggestions and advice we offer seriously, but it’s true. Whether a couple is unwilling to put in the effort or aren’t aware of how much work a good marriage takes, and how much more work it takes to recover from an extramarital affair, a lot just drop out and go off into the ether to manage their dysfunctions themselves, usually disastrously. We can lead a horse to water …
There are so many reasons that a couple should seek professional help when in an unhappy relationship or marriage crisis, that I could talk about it all day. I will tell you that 30 years ago I ended up divorced from the father of my two children because in the 1990s, our counselor knew nothing about marriage crisis and sent us away to deal with it ourselves. I went into this work because of the horror I feel about it to this day. We all suffered, especially our young children. It lit a fire in my belly to understand it, and I spent years going to graduate school and researching the subject. Peer-reviewed research. I now see where we went wrong, and what we could have done. If we had had the proper help, I believe we would still be married today. I am not the only person who regrets how my marriage crisis played out. Millions of other have their regrets, too. Don’t be one of us.
Marriage crisis is one of life’s most traumatic events. The good thing is we know a lot about it now, and unhappy marriages can be turned around. Marriages can heal from a partner’s betrayal, and although the trust may never be totally the same as before, it can grow over time and become something that is rarely thought about. Another reason I didn’t mention above that you really need a professional counselor to help you through is, some marriage can’t and should not be saved. Some affairs are more damaging than others, for example. A long-term love affair is often more devastating that a one-night stand with a stranger, for example. Also, people have serious mental disorders known as personality disorders like narcissism, borderline personality disorder and more. These are chronic problems that don’t improve, and partners like this can be hopelessly abusive, and, dangerous. Addictions are a whole other huge topic that needs to be taken into consideration.
When a married couple goes through a terrible experience like infidelity, the important thing to remember is there is excellent help that can make a significant impact on whether you move on together or apart in a positive direction. Even when marriages don’t work out, we like to believe that it is an opportunity to for a person to grow, evolve, and travel new frontiers in personal well-being. Manage your marriage crisis so that you can say you did all you could do to repair and save the marriage, whether you were successful or not, knowing we did that gives us peace of mind.
- Michelle Weiner-Davis has written books about saving marriages and is considered a solutions-focused Marriage and Family Therapist. To learn more about her and her work visit her Divorce Busting® web site.
Becky Whetstone, Ph.D. is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas*, and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager® . She has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She is also co-host of the Call Your Mother relationship show on You Tube, and has a private practice in Little Rock, Arkansas, and as a life coach via teletherapy. To contact her check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!
*For licensure verification find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.
Becky Whetstone is an Arkansas native and has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Texas and Arkansas. 
