What should a spouse do when their partner has cheated on them?
Should they try
to save the marriage or call it quits?
As long as a husband and wife want to save their marriage, even
after one or both of them has had an affair, the marriage can be
saved and restored.
The key word is “want.”
Some spouses see an affair as the opportunity they've been looking
for to end a relationship they’ve been wanting to get out of for
quite some time.
(Affairs are usually the result of other problems in the
relationship.)
*** Dealing with the emotional aftermath of an affair is an emotional
roller coaster because if you decide to save the marriage you’ll
be forced to go back and deal with the problems that paved the way
for the affair in the first place.
****
And please keep in mind that when we’re talking about “cheating” it
could be either an emotional or physical affair because a spouse
can cheat on their partner without becoming physical with someone else.
There is such a thing as emotional flings.
Few things hurt as deeply as being cheated on whether it's physical or
emotional
(in fact many people claim emotional infidelity hurts worse).
But a couple shouldn’t assume divorce is the only “reasonable”
response to adultery.
Please believe me when I tell you that you owe it to yourself to
make divorce the last option. You can always get divorced later.
Marriage counseling, plus time and effort, can restore your
relationship.
In fact for many couples, the relationship becomes stronger and happier
than it was during the “good days” of their marriage.
What can you do when infidelity has damaged your marriage?
1. Find a trusted friend.
Find a trustworthy person of sound mind and good character
for support. This person will help you stay focused and keep
your emotions in check.
2. Create emotional space.
Give each other emotional space as you work things through
so
your feelings don’t get the best of you and do your marriage in.
This tactic helps manage accusatory and defensive emotions (which
are natural to have by the way).
3. Give yourselves time.
Healing takes time.
These wounds won’t heal overnight. Healing could take months.
Take it slow and easy.
4. Don’t be
a coroner.
Please don’t do an autopsy on the affair and try to uncover every detail, at
least during this initial time of healing.
Save that discussion for later when you are less likely to be
accusatory
or defensive.
Why?
Fact is, the affair happened for a reason – it was triggered by
underlying
conflict(s).
After your emotions have cooled off, you can meet with a marriage
counselor to work through the details of the affair and why it happened.
But this should be done in a
spirit of healing the relationship because
your goal is to prevent future relapses.
4. Vent your feelings to a counselor, initially.
Before you “unload” on your spouse with both barrels, you might
consider venting to a therapist or counselor first instead.
You have every right to be angry.
But if you’ve decided to save your marriage you must manage your
emotions differently because need to minimize further pain
and
damage - even if you’re justified in "letting them have it!".
Emotions are a tight rope walk in this situation between being
expressed constructively or destructively.
Your goal is to do whatever it takes to figure out why there was
emotional or physical adultery.
Strengthen and heal your relationship in those areas to close the
loop on infidelity or else it’s likely to happen again.
One of the absolute best things you can do is find an exceptional
marriage counselor who can help get your marital house in order.
You can save and restore your marriage as long as you:
1. Are constructive not destructive in your feelings and actions.
2. Work to heal the marriage rather than uncover the explicit details of the affair.
3. Take all of the time you need to
heal, restore, rekindle you relationship.
4. And find the support of an exceptional marriage counselor,
If you follow this advice, it’s possible to be mad about
marriage
again, AND stay mad about marriage for years to come.
Until next time, this is Mike & Gayle Tucker and we want YOU to
be mad about marriage!
