Staying Married After An Affair - Rebuilding Your Shattered Self-Respect

Staying Married After An Affair - Rebuilding Your Shattered Self-Respect

Staying married after an affair is a choice that you don't regret. You truly want to make this marriage work, but there are so many difficult aspects of his betrayal. Along with the hurt and anger, your self-respect has been damaged so that you feel like you've lost your sense of self-worth.

You aren't responsible for your spouse's decision to cheat. No one's marriage is perfect, but that is no excuse for his betrayal. There is never an excuse for someone to break their marriage vows and think that somehow life would be better. What an affair does it make a bad situation worseevery time.

If your self-respect has been shattered and you desperatedly need help, this article isfor you. There are three key steps to rebuilding your self-respect and regaining a healthy sense of self-worth. You where a great person before the affair, and you will be again.

Key 1: Take Responsibility for Your Life

The first thing to remember is that you are not responsible for his infidelity. But you are responsible for your life. If you want to survive the affair and get beyond this chapter in your life, you are responsible for helping to heal the damage in your relationship. This does not mean that you made your spouse cheat!

But you have to want to surpass the difficult and unfair hand you've been dealt. You are responsible for what you tell yourself, and you will have to be responsible for changing the negative inner dialogue that's been overwhelming you ever since you found out about the affair.

I'm not good enough...I'm not smart enough...I'm not attractive enough...

You are responsible for your own self-confidence, self-worth and self-respect. What you think of yourself matters most!

Key 2: Embrace Reality

Of course you are feeling depressed (plus a lot of other nasty feelings) after finding out about his affair. But you must accept that this is your reality right now. Living in denial won't help and pretending nothing happened will only postpone your healing. This does not mean that's it's permanent, but pretending won't help you rebuild your self-respect.

Once you accept that your reality now includes a host of negative emotions, you can start to understand the power of that negativity. Acknowledge that this is an incredibly hard time in your life and that your feelings are normal. You have the power to flip the picture back around to a more positive image of yourself.

Key 3: Feed Your Emotions and Spirit

No one's marriage is perfect and yours may have been in trouble for some time. When's the last time you had any fun, let alone fun with your spouse? Anger, resentment, frustration, hurt and a thousand other negative emotions have been your constant companion since you found out about the affair.

Take back your sense of self-respect by stopping the bad habit of not having fun. It's probably the last thing you feel like doing, but you have to develop some new, good habits: principally, enjoying your life. Your life has not stopped just because of his affair. It may feel like your life is over, but that is far from the truth!

Now that does not mean that you can stop trying to rebuild your marriage and focus on having fun. It simply means that your emotions and spirit have been damagedand only you can lift them back up. By nurturing and loving yourself, you will rebuild your self-respect after the affair.

Staying married after an affair is challenging and so is rebuilding your self-respect. Surviving an affair impacts your self-respect and the how long it takes to rebuild it varies for each individual. I can't tell you that you'll have it back next week, or even next month. But once you acknowledge that you really have lost respect for yourself, only you have the power to turn that around.

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