When Nicole told Alwin (these names are aliases) that he should forgive and forget about her infidelity now that they were coming to couples therapy, I, Jomo, paused the conversation and shared one of my favourite quotes with her. The quote was from the author C. S. Lewis, “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive”. Nicole and Alwin had been together for twenty years; they had three lovely teenagers and had built a home and a successful business. Shortly after celebrating their nineteenth anniversary, the news from Nicole that she had an affair with a man she had met at her service club shattered Alwin.

He crumpled on the floor, crying his heart out after Nicole shared that she had an affair. What was a bitter pill for Alwin to swallow was how she ignored what he was feeling and told him, “The other man and I are finished, you need to get on with it’’. As the attachment researcher and couple and family therapist Susan Johnson points out, ‘‘there is no greater trauma than to be wounded by the people we count on to support and protect us”. What can make an affair particularly devastating is that it shakes the foundation of safety that we often experience in a love relationship. After a year of Nicole and Alwin unsuccessfully trying to mend the marriage, they were prompted to begin their couples therapy journey with Jomo.

Infidelity is one example of a relationship injury. In addition, relationship injuries can be experienced as trauma for the spouse who has been harmed. Trauma significantly affects mental and physical health because it plunges people into a cycle of fear and helplessness that challenges their assumptions about predictability and control. Hence, it was not surprising that in one of our consultations, Alwin described experiencing frequent flashbacks to when Nicole shared with him that she had an affair. He was also having difficulties sleeping, and he was regular having nightmares. He also explained that he was often irritable and had trouble concentrating. All of the symptoms he described are associated with experiencing trauma.

As a couple and family therapist, Jomo has learnt over the years that the growth couples want in their relationship is impossible if the relationship injury that was experienced is not tackled. We could not go forward if the damage caused by Nicole’s infidelity was not addressed. Therefore, when Jomo begings consulting with couples this usually involves him engaging couples in the process of forgiveness whilst providing them with tools to use outside of therapy to continue practising this forgiveness. Susan Johnson has provided a six-step template of how to work through this process of forgiveness.

The first step involves having the injured partner speak about their pain as openly and simply as possible. It was not effortless for Alwin to do this because it meant that he first had to resist making a case against Nicole and concentrate on re-counting the pain he experienced and the specific context in which it occurred.

The second step involves the partner who caused the injury staying emotionally present and recognising the injured partner’s pain and their responsibility in the injury process. This process was initially tricky for Nicole to do as she experienced considerable guilt about the affair. She often sought to minimise Alwin’s experience in response to this guilt. Jomo encouraged Nicole to slow down and be present for Alwin; when she became more emotionally present, she could better acknowledge Alwin’s hurt and the effect the affair had on him. As Susan Johnson maintains, the absence of an emotionally reassuring reaction by a loved one can colour a whole relationship in an instance of danger. This lack of emotionally reassuring response can outdo hundreds of lesser meaningful times and bulldoze the safety of a love relationship. Therefore, having Nicole acknowledge the hurt she caused was a powerful and cathartic moment for Alwin.

Step three involves partners reversing the never again promise; that is the promise Alwin made to himself after learning about the affair, that he would never trust or be vulnerable with Nicole again. More than anything else he wanted to be able to connect and trust his wife the same way he had done for most of the last twenty years. This trusting involved him moving from behind the never again wall to share the amount of grief and anguish he experienced since he learnt about the affair.

In step four, the partner who did the injury takes ownership for how they inflicted this injury on their lover and expresses regret and remorse. This ownership meant Nicole could no longer minimise the damage she caused Alwin, nor could she coolly say, “I am sorry”. Instead, she spoke about how Alwin’s grieving impacted her, and she teared up as she expressed the terrible sadness and guilt she felt seeing him go through this pain. In the session, Alwin spoke about how touched he was when he saw Nicole tear up and express her feelings. He was even more touched when she said she was interested in working to make things better.

In step five, the couple has a hold-me-tight conversation centred on the attachment injury. During this talk, the injured spouse shares what they need at the moment to bring some closure to the trauma. For example, Alwin shared with Nicole that he will require her not to shut down or minimise things when he brings up difficult feelings. Nicole, in turn, shared that she was in a better place to acknowledge Alwin’s painful feelings, listen, empathise, and support.

The final step involves the couple creating a new story that captures the injuring event, how it happened, how it eroded trust and connection, and how it shaped complex interpersonal interactions. More importantly, this new story tells how they dealt with and began to recover from this trauma.

Recovering from a relationship injury can only occur when both partners are involved in the forgiveness process. This shared work leads to better emotional and physical health and a secure attachment that supports both partners after they have experienced an affair.