Infidelity and Mediation: Rebuilding Trust in Canadian Couples - Family Mediation CenterFamily Mediation Center
Infidelity and Mediation: Rebuilding Trust in Canadian Couples
INFIDELITY AND MEDIATION
How Daniel Manages Infidelity in His Practice
How Daniel Manages Infidelity in His Practice Unfaithfulness represents one of humanity’s oldest relationship challenges. This breach of trust creates profound damage within partnerships and frequently serves as a red flag pointing to deeper underlying issues: emotional distance between partners. However, despite how common it is, cheating remains poorly understood by many.
Extramarital relationships can be compared to cracks appearing in a home’s foundation—they signal that something more serious requires immediate attention beneath the surface. Similar to structural problems in a house, recognizing and addressing the root causes that led to the affair (along with taking remedial action) allows couples to start reconstructing their bond.
When spouses start drifting apart—whether emotionally, physically, or in both ways—the likelihood of an affair developing grows substantially. Given the inevitable pressures that come with any romantic partnership, ongoing disagreements can create a widening gap between partners. Seeking to restore this lost intimacy, one person might seek connection elsewhere.
What We Manage in Mediation
In mediation, we encounter many couples seeking separation following an affair. The main issue isn’t actually the sexual act with another person—yes, this creates a wound that the betrayed partner will need to heal over time—but the fundamental problem is broken trust. Our ego initially convinces us that the problem is our partner sleeping with someone else. We were certain infidelity wasn’t a concern in our relationship; unfaithfulness happens to other couples, not us.
After the initial shock of discovering we are “mortal” like other couples, people start to look for lawyers or mediators. Some individuals are certain they don’t want to reconcile. They don’t even know the reason they are upset and sad—we are the ones putting some light and showing them the sadness is related to trust. In these cases, we don’t insist on therapy—we respect our clients’ feelings. The client knows exactly how much they love each other and what can or cannot be reconstructed.
As a matter of fact, the person who committed infidelity somehow lets the other person know “by mistake,” and the partner “finds out” by chance. The truth is that the unfaithful person didn’t know how to say “I don’t love you anymore” or “I’m no longer emotionally engaged in this relationship.” We respect self-determination and move forward with the mediation process. We don’t get involved in the emotional aspects of the infidelity; instead, we help them understand the trust issue at its core.
When We Start with Disclosure of Assets and Debts
After we show them the trust issue as the core problem, and clients can metabolize what is really happening and they’ve moved from pain and suffering to action, we start with the full disclosure of assets and debts.
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