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What to Do After an Affair
Don’t be frantic when you find out your spouse had an affair. It’s time for you to draw upon your strength and stand up for yourself. You have to remain strong. This, however, should not be your reason for not seeking out the help of your closest friends and the members of your family. When dealing with an affair, you have to keep in mind several principles. With these, you can regain your composure much more easily and rebuild your marriage and your family.
Be responsible. If you are the spouse who committed an affair, you have to take responsibility and be accountable. This means that you have to own up to your mistake and work hard in rebuilding your marriage. If you are the victim, then you owe it to yourself to be responsible for the kids and for the whole family. When your spouse asks for forgiveness, then you should also consider their plea. It is more important to be ‘responsible’ than reactive.
Ask for forgiveness. This step is more for the spouse who committed the affair. When you ask for forgiveness, you begin the process of healing and reconciliation. Forgiveness involves accepting responsibility for your part in what happened, admitting the wrongs involved, and beginning the process of making things right.You spouse may challenge the sincerity of your forgiveness if you do it half-heartedly, so it is imperative to be genuine when you seek forgiveness.
Get professional help. If you feel that this event is beneath your personal strength and power, seek professional help. Go get counseling and marriage assistance. This way, you can both look back and understand how you can improve your marriage together.
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One of the scars of having survived the affair is that you become obsessed with the affair. Not long after, you feel that every single woman that your husband talks to is a potential mistress (If you are the husband, you assume each man is a potential paramour). Your view of the world has changed. When your spouses watches movies, you may wonder which person she it ‘turned on’ by. Each time you ask such questions concerning others, a second question is there as well. That second question is “do I turn her on?” The vulnerability to such questions has been a boon to those selling Viagra and Cialis since they often exploit such questions.
Even without evidence, you feel that your partner is cheating on you. In the first few months after the affair, this is understandable. However, when this goes on a year after the affair, you better check yourself. If your fears and fantasies have continued that long, you have crossed over the line to obsession.
Rather than obsess, you will need to work towards renewing your relationship with your partner. When you are already in control of your emotions, you should talk with each other and explore your unmet needs. When you do this, you become aware of unmet expectations and needs and you can start doing something about them.
Start doing things together. Such activities may be as simple as shopping, buying things together, and planning things for the kids. In this way, you can become less independent from each other and more dependent. When you start depending on each other, you then start drawing upon the strength of each other. You will then start connecting emotionally again. This way, your love for each other will grow again.
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A popular credit card company uses the catch phrase question, “What is in your wallet?”. The campaign using the phrase has been catchy to say the least. When an affair occurs, and lawyers are involved, the question arises “What is in your…best interest?” While the lawyers are busy angling for your wallet, they will cite that what they are doing is ‘in your best interest’. They are looking at your legal rights instead of your emotional best interest. There will be many people offering to assist, all in the name of your ‘best interest’. What you need to consider is what angle are they considering your best interest from? Grandparents look at it in terms of access to the grandkids, lawyers look at legal rights, counselors look at emotional status, financial planners look at the bottom line. All these things are important, but you need to consider what is in the best interest of YOUR MARRIAGE. What will bring healing?
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrha
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A question that often haunts those who have experienced an affair concerns the possible re-occurrence of the situation. Clients often want to know how to keep it from happening again. Although the world craves quick fixes and easy answers, there is not one in this area either. What I often share with them is that when people repent or turn from the error of their way, there are changes in both their thinking and their behavior. When a person is only changing either their behavior or their thinking, such change is short term. These half-way changes are often done only to make peace and rejoin with their spouse. They regret the trouble they have gotten into more often than having engaged in an affair.
So the first sign is to see whether there was genuine change or only partial change. Another thing to look for is their willingness to keep secrets. The keeping of secrets damages the spirit of the marriage. Another sign is how they spend and handle their money. When they keep rigidly separate accounts without a GOOD reason, it is not a good sign either.
When a spouse is truly repentant, they will be willing to discuss what led up to the affair along with what the warning signs of heading back into that situation are. A common mistake many couples make is assuming that by not talking about what happened, it won’t happen again.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it does have some items to help in dealing with the question.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affair, affair prevention, cheating, infidelity, keeping adultery from happening again, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Many people do not understand forgiveness and what it involves. One of the areas of confusion concerns ‘making excuses’. In the aftermath of an affair, some resolute spouses search diligently through articles and research looking for answers. Although most are well meaning, the motivation is frequently one of looking for possible excuses. If you ask them, they are searching for reasons “to explain” what happened. Unfortunately, the reality for most is that they are looking for reasons to excuse what happened or find an explanation to blame it on. The search keeps them occupied, yet distracts them from looking at what they need to change or improve right now.
Looking at what is happening in the ‘here and now’ is difficult, although that is all they can actually change. The past has already happened. You can only change what your are doing in the present. Try forgiving rather than looking for excuses or something or someone to blame it on.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
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There is a time, in the aftermath of an affair, when either through urges, frustration, temptation or just giving up that you consider having an affair yourself. Although it is tempting, you will need to resist the urge. This is one of those items that you will need to fast forward the tape and look at where it will get you in the LONG run rather than looking at the temporary relief you fantasize that it will bring. Such affairs are often more about revenge and emotional release than about relationship and love. This temptation will come, but it will pass if you refuse to give into the urge.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
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A woman in Zimbabwe has filed a 400 billion dollar lawsuit against her sister. She claims here adulterous relationship with her sister led to her losing her spouse. If people realized the potential damage of adultery there would be fewer episodes of infidelity. Infidelity has an emotional, financial, relational, moral and spiritual price tag that few realize until it is too late.
Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affair, Affairs in the News, infidelity, infidelity in Zimbabwe, the cost of adulteryIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
The human mind amazes me with all the ways it manages to twist and turn information, especially regarding affairs. When the will is set on having the affair, the mind will manufacture all kinds of rationalizations and excuses to make it sound acceptable. This same mindset of twisting information and looking for loopholes will also influence theology. If writings in your religious teachings take stands against affairs, you will likely find exceptions and escape clauses. The looking for excuses will influence how you look at the world. All kinds of reasoning will be used. Phrases like “God does not want me to be lonely”, “I deserve to be happy”, “My spouse did me wrong first”, “Everybody is doing it”, “They do it in France”, …Although some of these may have a sliver of truth, they are being used to rationalize the behavior. The bottom line is that an affair, is an affair, is an affair. No matter what you call it, it is still an affair. No matter how you excuse it, it is still an affair.
When you honestly call it what it is, then you can begin to take steps at improving your situation.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affair, cheating, excusing affairs, infidelity, relationships, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Learning to live together in a marriage is a continuous process. Sometimes it is easy, oftentimes it is not. Yet, the complexity and the difficulty multiply if an affair occurs in a marriage. If your marriage had been rocked recently by an affair, as a couple, you need to make some tough decisions and commitments to make things better. You have to deal with emotional challenges and difficulties on a daily basis.
As you continue your life together as couples, you need to deal with difficult situations as they occur. This way, you can arrest a situation before it escalates into an even bigger issue. You can also prevent the feeling of being trapped with each other and the accompanying hopelessness of such a situation.
When rebuilding your marriage after an affair, honest is critical. Honesty is needed concerning your emotions, behaviors and thinking. You need to accept responsibility in each of these areas rather than blame your spouse for what you felt, thought or did. This same honesty is needed in dealing with the different issues that you face. Acknowledge the part you played in little mistakes when they occur so that they would not grow into something bigger. When you are honest with each other, you will know where you stand in relation to each other and will be better able to determine your worth to each other. Honesty is a foundational building block of trust between the two of you. As you strive to deal with each other honestly, it will become more natural and less awkward. The blaming with decrease and trust increase.
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It hurts when you discover that your spouse had an affair. It is a personal betrayal filled with broken promises and shattered dreams. If there is any heart-shaking, gut-wrenching problem which shakes us to the core of our being, is going through an affair. While enduring the pain it is difficult remembering that there are second chances, even though they do not deserve any chances. Despite the pain, which you will want to avoid, it is best to talk through what happened, if only to sort things out. Whether or not you stay together, this issues leading up to the affair and the affair itself need to be addressed.
Just because you choose the option of staying together does not mean things will be easier. The relationship will not magically ‘come together’ after the affair. Rebuilding your marriage after an affair is a difficult and tedious job. It is often a thankless task as well. Although tedious, the option of doing nothing is even worse. Without deliberate efforts on your part, your marriage will simply disintegrate.
Rebuilding your marriage requires a one day at a time approach. Positive communication skills and developing a positive outlook are important. This way, you will no longer focus on what is negative and what is difficult. Focusing on the negative, often leads to feeling overwhelmed. Rather, you start becoming better in each other’s eyes. You might not be able to forget the affair or even forgive them. It is unrealistic to expect yourself to do so in the immediate aftermath of the affair.
The problems did not develop overnight and they will not go away overnight.
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