Repairing Your Marriage After an Affair After Infidelity: Tips, Insights, And Advice That Might Help

Repairing Your Marriage After an Affair After Infidelity: Tips

, Insights, And Advice That Might Help

Most people who stop by my infidelity blog are women, but I go sometimes get a few men. And, often folks will email me, wanting to know "how to repair a marriage after an affair." Often, people truly want to save their marriages and move on, but they just don't know how to overcome feelings of betrayal, shock, and deep hurt and pain. It can be difficult to rebuild trust and intimacy after an affair, as the spouse who cheated will often hold back for fear of rejection, while the spouse who was cheated on will suffer self esteem issues and self doubt that will contribute to their wondering if their spouse really still loves and desires them.

But, it is possible to move past these things. Marriages often can and do survive affairs, only to emerge stronger as both parties rise to the occasion and make a conscious decision to work together to fix the issues that contributed to the affair in the first place. In this article, I will offer you tip and advice to begin repairing the marriage following an affair.

Responsibility Must Be Taken: The spouse who cheated must take full responsibility for the decision, the actions, and the fallout. I understand that you may have felt neglected, misunderstood, or vulnerable, but there are always better ways to handle this than cheating. I understand that you likely would like to take it back, but you can't. However, a good start is to take full responsibility for both your actions and repairing the damage.

On the flip side, the spouse who was cheated on must take some role in repairing the vulnerabilities that existed and contributed to the situation. I understand that you were not the one who cheated and you are the one who was greatly wronged, but if you truly want to save your marriage, you must make a conscious decision to act in such a way that is going to help you heal rather than hold you back.

It's very easy to cling to the bitterness and the score keeping, but this really isn't going to make you feel better or make you happy. Define what you really want. For me, it was to again feel loved and desired by my husband and to again feel secure in the world as I thought it existed. One day it finally dawned on me that punishing my husband and continuously harping on the affair and how I was wronged was only continuing to perpetuate the negative feelings that were destroying me. And eventually, I realized that I had self esteem issues that existed (and needed to be addressed) long before the affair presented itself. So, for myself, I needed to address these things so that I could be whole outside and inside of the marriage.

A New Reality Must Be Created: I see a lot of couples making the mistake (which I made as well) of trying to get back the life that they had before the affair. They do the same things, go to the same places, and go through the same motions, hoping to recapture life before the cheating. But, here's the truth. First, your marriage before the affair had issues and was lacking in some way for the affair to have happened. Second, like it or not, the affair does change things. It's usually impossible to really go back.

The best thing to do is to look forward rather than to go back. Establish new ways of doing things, new ways of communicating, new ways of being intimate, and new ways of interacting and enjoying time together. Often, a change of scenery or venue helps quite a bit. The key is to create new memories, new rituals, and a new marriage that is better and more satisfying than the old one. Before my husband cheated, I used to hear people describe an affair as a "wake up call," and I never really understood that, but now I do. And, sometimes, this wake up call is a real blessing because once the short comings are fixed, both parties are often much happier as a result.

It Comes Down To A Conscious Decision: People often ask me what, in the end, is most necessary to repair a marriage after an affair. There are quite a few things, but if I had to narrow it down to one, I'd say it's making a firm, conscious decision. One day, I woke up and just decided that I was absolutely not going to let this one thing ruin what I had spent years to build. I'd painstakingly built up my family, my home, my life, and I wasn't going to let some ridiculous stranger take this from me. Likewise, my husband had to decide that no matter how hard it was to reach me, no matter how much patience and reassurance I needed, no matter how difficult it was knowing I wasn't ready to trust or be intimate yet, he had to make a conscious decision to stick with me and hang in there until I was ready to move forward.

There's no denying that it can be a real challenge to rise above an affair. It's not always an easy road, but in the end, the rewards are great if you use this as the starting point to a new, better way of doing things and a new marriage that ultimately works better for both of you.

Although I never would've believed this two years ago, my marriage is stronger than ever after my husband's affair. It took a lot of work, and I had to play the game to win, but it was worth it. 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 read my very personal story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com/

POST COMMENT

Registry Cleaner Reviews - Is a Registry Cleaner Essential For Your Computer? Enjoy your Microsoft Windows 7 Losing Hard Drive Space For No Reason - Beware & Repair ! What is the Vista Internet Security 2011 - How to Remove Vista Internet Security 2011 Completely Be A Computer Expert! Reset Lost Windows 7 Password By Yourself! Sash Windows Renovation Some Important Tips That Work Wonders Fix Slow Pc Problem With Computer Repair Services In Ny Remove Vista Antispyware 2011 - The greatest method to Uninstall/remove Vista Antispyware 2011 Rapidly Portland Roof Repairs - A Solution To All Your Roof Problems Are You In Need For Garage Door Repairing In San Antonio Windows XP Recovey of files in case of corrupted core files Proven Solutions To Fix The Death Of A Black Screen Windows 7 Getting car repairs in Dorking