Surviving Infidelity: Making Decisions, Recovering from the Pain by Rona B. Subotnik and Gloria Harris
This book is an oldie but goodie. It has been around for years but has stood the test of time and is still relevant today for those healing from infidelity. The beginning of the book can be particularly helpful for those who are dealing with emotional affairs. The authors devote a section to talking about the differences between emotional affairs, internet affairs and physical affairs and the ways in which all three can be forms of betrayal. The rest of the book takes you through how and why affairs happen, how to heal individually and how to work on repair of the relationship as a couple.
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, PhD with Christine Musello, PsyD
Neglect can be a particularly difficult form of childhood trauma. Even thinking about neglect as a form of trauma will make most people scratch their heads. It is easy to understand how an act of sexual abuse or a physical assault by a parent would be considered a trauma for the person who experienced them. But neglect? How does that make sense?
Neglect would be considered what is often called a little ‘t’ type of trauma. Meaning that it is a smaller, chronic, more every day type of occurrence that has a significant negative impact on a person over time. Neglect can be hard to pinpoint because as a child it is simply your normal. However, neglect has enormous impacts on children and sets you up to operate out of deprivation (emotionally, physically, sexually, financially, spiritually etc.) in your adulthood. If you have experienced neglect, this book is a great read to help you understand how that has shaped you.