subject: 3 Suggestions for Recovering From Infidelity [print this page] 3 Suggestions for Recovering From Infidelity
Your partner, the person that you loved more than any other has betrayed you. They have shattered the trust that you freely gave them, and it is going to take a long time to get over that. If your partner has been unfaithful before then you need to question whether it is worth carrying on. If this has been a stupid mistake, and your believe that your relationship is worth fighting for, then it is worth fighting for. Recovering from infidelity is not easy, but it is possible.
Did you discover the infidelity or did your partner confess? Is it something that you suspected or did you think that you had a happy relationship? One thing is certain, your relationship will never be the same again. The good thing is, if you can both work through this together, then your relationship will be stronger than it was before this nightmare began.
A lot people who are recovering from infidelity make the mistake of looking backwards, they wish that things can go back to what they where before they found out about the affair. Not a good move, you have to look forward into the future. Whether you knew about them or not, back in the good old days your relationship had problems, if things where so good, your partner would not have had an affair.
1. Take Action
You have to work through your emotions. You have to get rid of the hurt and anger. But at some point you have to regain control of your life again. You can just wait, revelling in your misery, for healing to occur by itself, and in a few years that might happen. On the other hand, when you are feeling able, you can take positive and affirming action to regain you life and your relationship. Healing takes time and effort from both of you, and the sooner that you can start, the sooner your can get your life back.
You can have counselling, you can research the internet for advice, but it is all meaningless unless you take action. Nobody can tell you what to do, it can only come from inside you, you have to make the conscious decision to put this behind you and get on with your life, until you do your life will remain in stasis. If you want to have any hope of recovering from infidelity you have to take control of your emotions, if you do not then you might never achieve happiness.
2. Need To Know
For your own peace of mind you need to know what happened. It's probably slightly easier if you know the other person, because then your imagination has a face to work with. If you don't know what happened then you will always wonder, and your mind will take you through it again and again and again. The mind is a powerful thing, and it will play on your insecurities. Knowing about it will hurt, but the knowing of it will help to put your imagination to rest.
By answering your questions your partner can start to regain your trust in them. If they try to hide something then their body language will give them away, so push them, you need them to be honest.
Talking about the affair is also a good time to understand the reasons for the affair. The fact that they had an affair suggests that your relationship has some problems. You need to identify what they are and come up with a joint way to deal with them. If your relationship has problems then they have to be dealt with otherwise your relationship cannot mover forward. If left unchecked, these problems could spin out of control and do irreparable damage to your relationship.
3. Let It Go
Recovering from infidelity can be achieved if you can leave the affair behind you, which I appreciate is easier said than done. It is not something that you can ever forget, but it will poison your life if you hang on to it.
Your partner needs to be able to accept responsibility for their actions, they have to admit everything, and in apologizing to you, they also need to demonstrate that they have understood the deep hurt that they have caused you. They have to prove that they are willing to do whatever it takes to regain your trust and to heal the relationship. And you have to forgive them. You don't forgive the affair, but you need to forgive your partner, and then move forward into the future.
If you can let go of the affair then you can break its power over you and your relationship. It is destructive, and it will waste your time in healing your relationship.
So, those are my 3 suggestions for recovering from infidelity. They are not particularly easy, or pleasant ones to follow, but they can help you through this dark time and back into the light. There are people all over the world who make up everyday, because they realise that what they have if something special. If you have a relationship that can be saved, if you are both willing to commit to its healing, then you can build something special.
