How to Make Your Marriage Work After Cheating, An Affair, Or Infidelity

How to Make Your Marriage Work After Cheating

, An Affair, Or Infidelity

Interestingly, I often get emails from both the spouses who cheated and the spouses who was cheated on. Both often want to know the same thing. They want to know "how to make a marriage work in the after math of cheating."

There are important roles and tasks for both the spouses and these are often thwarted by fear, doubt, anger, and hurt. Both people often want to do the right thing, butthe high emotionspresentoftencloudwhat this really is. In the following article, I'll outline things that both spouses can do to help make the marriage work after cheating has compromised it. These things haveworked for myself and countless others, but require commitment, determination, andan open heart.

Have Patience And Don't Rush The Healing: As nice as it would be, healing doesn't happen overnight. Both parties will need time to process, evaluate, and then remedy the situation. And, how you feel yesterday may not be the same as how you will feel tomorrow. Healing isn't a straight line or linear. One day, you may feel that you are well on your way, only to feel like you are regressing the next. This is normal and it's important that you don't become impatient with yourself (or your spouse, if you were the one who cheated.)

It's very common to want to move on quickly because the aftermath of the cheating will make life painful, awkward, and difficult. Of course you don't want to prolong those feelings any longer than is necessary. But saying that you've healed or have moved on when you really haven't only delays your real progress. Holding back your feelings or your concerns will only cause you further doubt. Not putting your true cards on the table will only foster mistrust. It's important to be really honest every step of the way. Don't hold back from your spouse, try to protect them, or try to hide or diminish your true feelings. You can be honest in a gentle, respectful, loving way, but you need to be honest all the same.

Step Up And Admit Any Part You Had In The Affair: If you are the spouse who cheated, you must take full responsibility for the choice. Everyone understands that it takes two people to make a marriage vulnerable. However, there is always a choice in our actions and you must take responsibility for yours.Don't even try to imply or hint toward any blame or burden on the part of your spouse. Make it very clear that the mistake is all yours and that you are willing to work on any shortcomings or vulnerabilities that contributed to this one time error that you will never allow to happen again.

Outline very specifically what you plan to do to make this right and ask your spouse to share with you anything that they need from you to facilitate this (hint: you should hand over your passwords, cell phone records and other information without being asked.No, you won't have to do this forever, but you should make this effort to show your spouse that you have nothing to hide and you are willing to work with them to heal them and your marriage.)

By the same token, the spouse who was cheated on should take an honest look at themselves and their marriage when they are ready to do so. It's important to completely understand any vulnerabilities or shortcomings so that you can fully address and fix them to ensure that you aren't going through this again at a future time.

Diminishing The Self Doubt That Will Sabotage Your Marriage: It's plain to see why the person who was cheated on will have self esteem issues and doubts. You wonder if your spouse still finds you desirable, attractive, or sexy. You wonder if are trying to save the marriage because they genuinely want to or because they feel that they should out of a sense of obligation or convenience.

It's less well known that the spouse who cheated often has doubts about themselves and issues with their own self esteem. They will wonder how they messed up so badly, how they had such poor judgment and how they can fix the shortcomings which led up to the affair in the first place.

All of these issues will need to be admitted and addressed. If they aren't, the doubts and nagging little voices will remain and slow the healing. I often find that it's quite helpful for both parties to work on themselves outside of the marriage. It's not until you're able to know without a doubt that are worthy, desirable, forgivable, and enough that you will begin to believe that your spouse feels this way as well.

Truly Believing That Not OnlyCanYour Marriage Work After An Affair, It Can Be Even Better: Many people assume that they will have to choke down their resentment, anger and doubt, and sort of limp along while the marriagestruggles througha weak, vulnerable skeleton of it's former self. They sort of brace themselves for this undesirable existence, determined to make the best and hang in there during a difficult situation.

Few people actually believe that their marriages can not only survive, butthrive after an affair. I can not tell you how many people tell me that their marriages are actually better after infidelity. What's required is the time, hard work, and effort necessary to restore the trust, intimacy, and commitment. Couples whodo these things are often very pleasantly surprised to find that their reality is actually better than they could've ever imagined.

Martialcross roadslike affairs often will either destroy or strengthen a marriage. If you want yours to be one of the survivors, make a conscious decision that you will hang in there with patience and grace, that you will be honest about what you need to move forward, and that you will do the work necessary to create something that is not just a shadow of what you once had it is actually better, so much so that you want to focus on enjoying and strengthening it rather than on looking back.

Although it was sometimes difficult, I'm glad I did the hard work necessary to make my marriage work. Although I never would've believed this two years ago, I did eventually truly get over the affair. My marriage is stronger than ever. It took a lot of work, and I had to play the game to win, but it was worth it. Our bond and intimacy is much stronger and because of all the work I did on myself, my self esteem is at an all time high. I know longer worry my husband will cheat again. You can reada very personal story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

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