80. Should I Contact the Affair Partner?

After discovering infidelity, the urge to reach out to the affair partner can be intense. You may be searching for closure, clarity, or simply trying to make sense of what happened. But is contacting the affair partner truly helpful, or could it set your healing back? In this episode, I unpack the emotional and psychological layers behind this question.

We explore the potential reasons why you might want to reach out, seeking the truth, closure, or control, and just as importantly, the potential emotional risks. Whether you're in the early days of betrayal or further along in your journey, this episode is designed to help you make an informed, empowering decision that supports your healing.

Key Takeaways:

• Closure rarely comes from the affair partner; it begins with you.

• What you hear may not bring clarity, but more confusion or pain.

• Seeking control externally often distracts from true healing.

• Not all truths are helpful; consider emotional readiness.

• Redirect your energy toward your growth, not their guilt.

💬 Reflection Questions:

Have you wrestled with the idea of contacting the affair partner? What would you hope to gain, and is it worth the emotional cost?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

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• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast episode number 80. I'm your guide on the journey after infidelity and for those who are new here I'm Luke Shillings and for those who are not welcome back.

I'm so grateful for you being here. As you may have begun to notice either through your own experience or simply through listening to me each week, infidelity and its impacts are complex and by no means straightforward. It's a bit of a bittersweet feeling for me to know that although the podcast has served as a foundation for some and a lifeline for others really helping them through their journey after betrayal, it's also clear to me that I'm very unlikely to run out of things to talk about anytime soon on the topic.

The good news is that everything we discuss here is transferable to many other situations in your life because ultimately we're talking about relationships. I'm fairly confident that you could take almost any episode that I've produced and take something from it that you could use in a relationship other than one that has experienced betrayal because basically that's what we're talking about. We're dealing with this this concept that relationships are ultimately based on our thoughts about another person and we do have options when it comes to what we think.

We don't necessarily always know what the next thought is going to be, as in thoughts do tend to arise, but in terms of which ones we want to believe and which ones we want to act on, well that really is within our control. We control the narrative far more than we perhaps give ourselves credit for sometimes. Yes there are tough questions to explore, tough questions to face, but we can all get a little bit closer to the answers we need.

So I hope that even if you are at a point where you feel like you've consumed a lot of content on this topic and there are consequences to that, it can send us down rabbit holes that are not helpful. It can reinforce certain negative emotions and certain experiences and can actually be quite triggering in some cases. But if we look at this whole journey from a slightly different perspective and we recognise that everything that we learn from this will not benefit us just in this pain and this healing that we're going through right now, but will actually impact us on a much greater level throughout all of our relationships.

Okay so today I want to talk about a question that is often asked. I see it very regularly in online forums but I also get it asked by clients, certainly in the early stages, quite a lot. And that is, should you contact the person your partner had an affair with? Should you contact the affair partner? Finding out about an affair is a shock to the system.

It's like you're navigating a boat in familiar waters and then suddenly there's a storm and you're thrown off course. In the middle of this storm many of us think, well maybe I should talk to the other person involved. Maybe they have the answers.

But is reaching out the right move? I want to spend a little time looking at some of the pros and some of the cons of doing such a thing. This is not really about whether there is a right or wrong decision. Even if I do have my own opinions, what I want to do is just to explore why it's important to you and what are the potential consequences of doing so or not.

Okay so let's start by considering the reasons that you might choose to contact the affair partner. The first might be to seek closure. The desire for closure is a powerful motivator.

You may feel like understanding the why behind the affair can help you close this painful chapter and start to move forward. Contacting the AP or affair partner might seem like a direct route to these answers. However it's important to prepare for all outcomes as the affair partner's version of closure might not align with what you need or what you expect.

It's worth considering that you ensure you're emotionally ready for whatever response you might receive. Closure is complex and not often quite where we think we'll find it. It often involves more than just getting answers.

It's also about acceptance and finding peace within yourself. Another reason you might contact the affair partner is to get the truth. There's this belief that the affair partner could shed light on details of the affair that your partner might have omitted or sugar-coated in some way.

The hope is that by piecing together a more complete picture you can understand the situation better. It's a quest for a unvarnished reality of what had happened. However it's worth considering how crucial it is to question whether knowing more details will genuinely aid your healing process or if it might actually just lead to further hurt.

Truth can be a double-edged sword offering clarity but also inflicting more pain. That's assuming that what you get from the affair partner is in fact truth. The next thing could be simply just confronting the reality, just wanting to face it head-on.

For some the affair might seem like a distant almost unreal event until they have a direct confrontation or interaction with the affair partner. Speaking to them can make the affair undeniably real which for some is a necessary step in the healing process. It can serve as a wake-up call that propels your interaction whether that's working towards reconciliation or deciding to part ways.

However confronting reality in this way can lead to a significant emotional upheaval. It's a step that requires a great deal of strength and self-assurance as it might change your perspective on the affair and your relationship. What about an attempt to gain control over the narrative? Feeling out of control is a common experience for many after discovering an affair.

It really does feel like that rug has been pulled from underneath your feet and control has gone. By reaching out to the affair partner you might believe that you're taking back some control over the situation, deciding for yourself what the narrative is rather than being a passive recipient of it. This act can be empowering for some, feeling like they're not just a bystander in their own life story.

However while gaining control can be empowering it's essential to reflect on whether this interaction genuinely changes your situation or if it's just a temporary assertion of control. True empowerment comes from internal decisions and actions towards healing and growth, not in trying to control the external circumstance. You might also be trying to just seek an apology or or even gain an explanation.

You might hope that the affair partner feels some remorse or regret for their actions and seeks to offer an apology or explanation for their involvement, almost like trying to see if they're a good person. For some hearing an apology or receiving some form of acknowledgement can be a step towards healing, offering a sense of justice or recognition of the pain that's been caused. It is important to manage these expectations here though.

The affair partner might not be willing or even able to provide an apology or an explanation, at least not one that aligns with what you seek. Their perspective and their willingness to engage honestly can vary greatly and seeking this form of closure can sometimes lead to just further disappointment. It's easy to see that even with these positive reasons for contacting the affair partner it can lead to further confusion.

There are many other elements that need to be taken into consideration. It's not quite as straightforward as we first might seem. Now I want to shift the perspective or shift the focus a little bit more towards reasons, active reasons, as to why not to contact the affair partner.

So the first and probably most obvious one is just opening up old wounds. Reaching out to the affair partner risks reopening those emotional wounds, it risks acting as a trigger in and of itself which you might have already been working very hard to heal. This act might resurface the initial shock, the betrayal, the heartache that was experienced when the affair was first discovered.

Whilst seeking answers or closure might seem helpful, the interaction could instead trigger a setback in your emotional recovery, bringing these intense feelings of pain and anger to the forefront once more. It is crucial to weigh the potential benefits of contacting the affair partner against the risk of undoing any emotional progress that you've made. Healing is not linear and whilst seeking understanding is natural, ensuring that you're not exposing yourself to unnecessary harm really is key.

So protective measures like counselling, professional support, coaching both before and after can really help mitigate this risk. The next is actually a bit of a flip from the one of the comments previously, this unreliable narratives. The affair partner's account of the affair may be significantly distorted by their own emotions, their justifications or their intentions.

Their perspective is inherently biassed as it comes from a place of involvement rather than objectivity. There's also the possibility that they may withhold information too, they may lie or manipulate the narrative to lessen their culpability or to protect themselves. This can lead to further confusion and make it harder for you to find the clarity or closure that you're seeking.

So before deciding to contact the affair partner, really consider the reliability of the information that you might receive. Are you prepared to sift through potential falsehoods or half-truths? Perhaps that's something you've already been experiencing when trying to communicate with your partner. It may be more beneficial to focus on sources of support and information that are more likely to be unbiased and grounded in your well-being.

What about just using it as a distraction from healing? You know fixating on the affair partner and the role that they played in your partner's infidelity could completely divert your focus from the most crucial aspect of your journey. This is probably one of the most common things I see amongst my own clients where they are trying to reconcile everything that's happened from the affair leaving them in a permanently emotionally dysregulated state and that means that they then show up in a very unhelpful way in their relationship now. And even though it might not be the direct responsibility of the betrayed partner to do all of the healing to rebuild the relationship, we still play a part in it.

You know we're not void of responsibility when it comes to rebuilding a relationship and sometimes this fixation on finding more answers, trying to gain more clarity, trying to overcome these difficult experiences and difficult emotional challenges that they're facing by wanting to do things like fixate on the affair partner can actually further damage the relationship that you're trying to rebuild with your actual partner. If not careful this distraction can manifest as an obsession with the details of the affair consuming your thoughts and your energy which could otherwise be directed towards self-care, personal growth and of course making informed decisions about your actual relationships future. Try and recognise when your interest in the affair partner moves from seeking closure to becoming a hindrance to your recovery.

It's essential to channel your energies into practises that foster your healing and empower you to rebuild your life whether that includes reconciliation with your partner or forging a new path forward independently. There's also a risk of misdirected anger. I think this is something perhaps I experienced a little bit too.

In the aftermath of discovering an affair it's natural to feel a surge of emotions including anger. When considering reaching out to the affair partner there's a risk that this anger could become misdirected towards them instead of being processed in a way that contributes to your healing. While the affair partner does share responsibility the primary focus for your healing should be on your relationship with your partner and your personal growth.

Directing these intense emotions towards the affair partner just clouds your judgement and can really impede the healing process. So before acting on the impulse to contact the affair partner it's beneficial to explore healthier outlets for your anger. Again professional help, therapy, support groups or physical activities can be really constructive ways to manage and work through your feelings redirecting your energy towards activities that promote healing and can also prevent the negative impact of misdirected anger.

The temptation to want to go and do harm and really let that anger out is high. I get it but it's usually not helpful. What about just creating unwanted complications? This situation is already complex and initiating contact with the affair partner can unintentionally complicate your situation even further.

This can include complicating your relationship with your partner especially if you're working towards reconciliation. It might also give the affair partner unintended influence or presence in your life impacting your emotional well-being further and the dynamics of your healing process. Additionally this contact could escalate into conflict, legal issues or unwanted communication from them.

So it's worth being careful to evaluate the potential for unwanted complications arising from contacting the affair partner. It's important to consider not only your immediate desire for answers or confrontation but also the broader implications for your emotional health and relationship recovery. Maintaining boundaries and focussing on your healing journey without additional external stresses is crucial.

From my experience diving into the storm to fetch answers doesn't always bring the peace that we hope for. It's often more about us needing to feel in control again. But real control comes from deciding how we respond, how we heal and what steps we take next in our lives.

So before you decide to contact the affair partner maybe it's worth asking yourself a few questions. What am I hoping to achieve? Will knowing more help me move on or will it keep me stuck? And am I prepared for the possibility that I might not like what I hear? Instead of looking outward for answers there's always another path. It involves looking inward and asking ourselves what we need to heal.

It's about understanding your feelings. I mean really getting to grips with your emotions and why and why they're there and where they're coming from. It's also about seeking support from friends, family or a professional who can help you navigate your feelings without any judgement.

And finally it's about focussing on self-care. Making your well-being an absolute priority because healing really does start and finish with you. I worked with somebody recently who was really keen on contacting the affair partner.

We talked it through but ultimately their decision was to still to do so. They thought that contacting the affair partner would answer all their questions but when they did the answers weren't satisfying. They just led to more confusion and more pain and in the end they found far more peace in just focussing on their own journey and on the things that they could control.

On understanding themselves and what they needed to move forward. Contacting the affair partner is a deeply personal decision and there is no right or wrong answer. It's about what you feel is best for your journey to healing.

Remember you're the captain of your ship even in the stormy seas. It's about navigating your way through the storm in a way that feels right for you. I think listening to something like everything I've just spoken about in this episode can be used as a way to get a more overall general view on why it is that you want to do this and what it is you think you would get if you did.

You may listen to everything I've said and think yes this is definitely I still want to pursue this. This is absolutely what I need and that's absolutely fine. But you may also listen to it having not really realised what some of the consequences or potential consequences are for going down that route and probably more importantly maybe not really questioned why it was so important to you.

So once again thank you ever so much for tuning in today. It's been an absolute pleasure as always. There's another question very closely aligned to this one which I will discuss in a future episode so I hope you look forward to listening to that and that question is should I contact the husband or wife of the affair partner which is another complicated issue and I look forward to talking about it very very soon.

In the meantime if you want to keep up to date with everything that I do then please if you're not already doing follow the podcast of course and subscribe to the after the affair mailing list which you can do at lifecoachluke.com forward slash subscribe. I wish you all an amazing week and I look forward to speaking to you again very soon. Take care.