It is very difficult to go through an affair. The stress and trauma in dealing with an affair can be life-changing and may introduce profound changes in the perceptions and life of the spouse whose partner had an affair.

Before moving on with the path of healing and wholeness, it is necessary to differentiate forgiveness from reconciliation. Reconciliation means that both you and your spouse are willing to work in rebuilding a relationship that has recently undergone an affair. With reconciliation, you try to look for common grounds and ties so that you can smooth out differences and repair your relationship.

Reconciliation is built upon the notion of forgiveness, which is a conscious decision of the victim to lay down his or her claims on the matter. It is a decision involving the grant of amnesty to the other person. Rebuilding marriage, however, should not stop at forgiveness only. Why? Because it is possible for you to forgive someone without working towards reconciliation.

Trust then rests on the possibility of reconciliation. When both parties reconcile, they are exerting efforts and are working towards the resolution of conflict and affirm their marriage vows. The process of rebuilding trust therefore should be built on forgiveness and on a firm commitment to the marriage.

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Some people have the mistaken notion that trust could not be repaired once it is broken. It is true that rebuilding trust is never easy, yet given time and commitment on both spouses, trust can be rebuilt.

Trust is broken when expectations are violated and some promises are broken so much. An affair is definitely a violated expectation. When you said your vows during the wedding ceremonies, your promise to be together in sickness and in health; for poorer or for richer, you made a very profound promise. In the instance that an affair by any spouse occurs, trust is broken!

If you are the one who felt cheated and your spouse was involved in an affair, you need first to deal with the stress and even the trauma related to the affair. You also need to check if your partner is trustworthy and if the violation of your trust will occur again.

The first major question that the victim needs to answer is whether the victim is willing to reconcile. The answer to this question will only be arrived at through a talk with the spouse and try to work out reconciliation. If the spouse who had an affair is willing to commit, then, this becomes the first step towards reconciliation and healing.

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There are different factors that influence your capacity to trust other people, including your spouse. Social scientists have explored these factors and they found out that if these factors were shown by another person, trust will be granted to him more. Understanding these factors can also greatly enhance the process of rebuilding your trust on your spouse who has gone through an affair.

It matters that the person being trusted has the ability to deliver his promises. No matter how many dialogues you go through, no matter how many activities you do together, and no matter how you assure each other that everything will be alright, without the ability to trust, these will all be senseless.

You should also check the integrity of your spouse. Integrity is largely based upon past actions being completed or delivered. With an affair, integrity has been tarnished but if your spouse who went through an affair is willing to work it out, then such integrity will help build trust between you and your spouse.

You and your spouse should also display benevolence, which refers to your care and concern for each other. When both of you display affection and care, the process of rebuilding your trust will proceed at a much faster rate.

When these factors are enhanced between you and your spouse, you will be able to see results and your marriage will move towards reconciliation and healing.

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No matter how much social scientists and psychologists talk about trust and its bases, you have first hand experience at how it works through your relationship with your spouse. If your spouse had an affair, then surely, no amount of scientific explanation could explain and heal the pain that you are feeling.

 

Your trust towards your spouse is built upon love and interdependence with your spouse. Your need to be loved and your need to feel important can only be given by another person—the person you love and trust deeply. Trust, however, is risky. There is always the possibility that the person you trust would break such trust. When this trust is frustrated, then you would feel immense pain and disappointment.

 

In response to such an affair, you need to sort out and settle your differences. When you know each other—your personalities, your characters, as well as your quirks, then perhaps, you can better arrive at a better understanding of how you can settle your love and your trust.

 

Trust is important in resolving conflicts between you and your spouse. Hence, you need to affirm your love and your trust so that you can easily talk about your differences and the lessons you have learned with the experience of going through an affair.

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Going through an affair and surviving it is a lot like having your house blown by tornado. It is very difficult to rebuild, it is very difficult to know where to stay and how to pick up the pieces again. In this regard, you cannot go through it just by yourself.

There are people who have gone through an affair and try to rebuild their lives by getting a divorce; getting depressed or even becoming dependent on substance and other addictive activities. This is not the way to rebuild your life!

Rebuilding your life is done by rebuilding your trust with your spouse. You need to take the bricks of time and forgiveness and cement it with commitment and a willingness to work things out. When you affirm your commitment and your love with each other, nothing would be impossible. In cases where you feel depressed and lost, you can find comfort in love and hope.

Love is just like the building of a home. It might be blown away by different trials and difficulties in life but if you are willing to work it out and remember your love, you can rebuild what has been lost.

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“Homewrecker”. The word is used to label the other man or woman caught up in the drama triangle of an affair. The label is used to stigmatize that person, blame them for the destruction of the family and make them an outcast. This scenario is all too common. The reality is that they are not the ‘true’ homewrecker. Labeling the other person with such a name only serves to displace the guilt and pain. The actual person or persons who wreck the family are elsewhere.

Who is the actual homewrecker? To answer that, consider who has the power to dissolve the marriage. Only the judge can dissolve the marriage. The judge is the only one with the power to do so. Although the judge officially dissolves what God had joined, who brought it to the judge? The lawyer is the one who presented the case and situation to the judge. The lawyers often agitate the situation in order to break things up. The divorce lawyer and their client are the actual homewreckers. The legal profession has done such a good job of spin, they are not identified as the homewrecker, although they are the ones who make it happen. It is easier to market yourself as a divorce lawyer seeking the benefit of your client than it is to way “we wreck homes and ruin families”. Lawyers have ruined more families than whores, gigolos, and sexual addicts ever dreamed of. What makes it worse, they do it with self-righteousness of ‘preserving the rights’ and ‘upholding the law’. If the legal profession went back to thinking through their actions, and only taking cases based on moral convictions, rather than what pays, there would be a reduction in divorces. They justify what they do saying they are only representing the wishes of their clients. Could it be that clients do not want what is best for themselves? Could the clients be wanting something that is wrong? When the affair happened, didn’t someone want something that was wrong?

Before jumping to the assumption that the other person is the homewrecker, think through who is actually taking steps to dismantle and destroy the family? Sex alone can not destroy a family. Filing for divorce can destroy a family. Labeling the other person the homewrecker only serves to shift the blame around and let someone not feel guilty for actually ripping the family apart.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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The power of myths is part of what creates more damage with adultery than their needs to be. There are many myths about infidelity that only serve to confuse, blame and avoid the real issues. Some of the major myths that create problems are:

1. Everyone is Faithful. The truth is that some people are not faithful. With the greater temptations that modern society faces today, there is even greater pressure to be unfaithful.

2. People have affairs because they are unhappy with their marriage. Many adulterers are actually very happy with their marriages. The affair is more about poor self-control, poor judgement, addiction, or character problems than about unhappiness with their spouse.

3. Affairs are all about sex and sexiness. The public are often surprised to find out that it is most often not related to sex, but more so to loneliness, despair, the need for excitement or other issue rather than pure sex. The thing that excites most people about affairs is not the sex, but rather the secrets and secrecy.

4. Divorce in inevitable. Although 2/3 of marriages that have affairs end up with divorce, that is a number that is unnecessary. It is not inevitable that the relationship has to fall apart because of an affair.

5. “If I fall in love, I have to go with it.” This is just a matter of giving in to your urges. You can sy no to the affair. It will only have the power over you that you allow it to have.

6. Affairs are better kept secret. There is even great debate in the counseling community about the need for confidentiality and secrecy concerning affairs. Clients often use confidentiality to include the therapist in on their secret, when what is often needed is to address the issues out in the open with their spouse. The hiding only perpetuates more secrecy.

If you can counter and overcome these myths, you will increase the likelihood of surviving the affair.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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I am not sure whether it is the entrepreneurial mindset, creativity or wickedness that develops the many creative ways to enter infidelity. I discovered a whole website dating service that caters to married people for affairs. The site will remain nameless. In perusing the testimonials, a common theme for people who jump into affairs is that they want some spice in their love life. What they don’t tell you is that this kind of spice is more expensive than people can afford.

Another common occurrence was the corrupting influence of evil friends. In many cases, it was the corrupting influence of worldly friends that led to an affair developing.

Among other observations was that secretiveness was a big issue. Spouses often had secret charge cards or secret bank accounts where they had the funds needed for the site.  After the account was paid for, they used secret emails (often hotmail) for their address. Once they posted a profile on the site, they had profiles and literally developed another ‘wild’ lifestyle that began with the secret hoarding of money.

I do not advocate such sites, although there are many lessons to be learned from how people are led astray. If a person can learn what to look for before an affair happens, it can save untold thousands and untold heartaches.

So, some of the warning signs:

1. Secret charge card

2. Secret bank account

3. Secret email account

4. Password protected email account

5. Password protected cell phone

6. Corrupting friends.

This will give you a start concerning danger signs that there is too much of the wrong kind of spice in your marriage.

Best Regards,

Jeffrey Murrah

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