Returning to a healthy relationship after your wife had an affair

The damage of an affair

Affairs shake relationships and people to their core.People survive earthquakes, and relationships like yours can survive affairs.

Like the earthquake, the breach of trust occurring in an affair damages the whole foundation of your marriage. It shakes you to your core. In the shaking and upheaval that comes with cheating, the foundations of your marriage are damaged.

Although the foundation of your marriage is damaged, the reality is that you and your wife will continue having a relationship. A relationship will go on in one form or another. The question of concern is “What kind of relationship will you have with your wife?”.

Once the foundation of trust in your marriage is damaged, it’s impossible to go back to the kind of relationship you had before. The desire is to go back to the way it was, but the damage makes that impossible.

After an affair occurs, you may find that you feel uneasy. You wonder in the back of your mind if it could happen again.Just the thought of what happened makes it hard to imagine thing going back to the way they were. You may consider the cheating an indelible stain on your wife and your marriage relationship.

It’s not just the trust that is gone. The mental safety and emotional security associated with the trust has also been damaged.

When your wife is late, your thoughts consider scenarios that you previously wouldn’t have considered.When she takes a call, you wonder if it is another man. The peace of mind you once enjoyed is no longer there.There is a fear that it could happen again.

Calls and getting home late are no longer ‘business as usual’.

You may find yourself reacting suspiciously to any man who talks to your wife, looks at your wife or is nice to your wife. Your mind works overtime trying to analyze the motives behind gestures directed at your wife.

“What does he mean by that?” “Did she sleep with him also?” “Is he attracted to her?” “Is she looking at these other men?”
Couples can repair their marriage

Honesty is Essential: It is even more essential to have the right attitude with the Honesty

In going through the recovery, it’s important to tell yourself the truth about what happened. You need to be honest with yourself about what actually happened and what was done to you.

Since affairs are highly emotional, the emotions often make the reactions extreme and create damages and wounds that were not actually inflicted. It makes everything sound worse than it was.

It magnifies any negative emotion or thought. Separating out what was actually done versus what you thought was done or why it was done is important.

Once you tell yourself the truth, you will also need to tell your wife the truth about what you think and what you feel. Besides being honest with her, you will need to be open to and accept her honesty as well.

You may not agree with what she has to say, but you will need to hear her out.

Affairs are often driven by fantasies. These fantasies concern how the ‘affair’ will fix a perceived problem. You will need to hear out you wife on what she sees as the problem and how the affair was seen to ‘fix’ the problem. These are often hard to hear, but it is important to hear out.

An important part of the honesty is attitude. Honesty without a loving, caring attitude will come across as cruelty. Bear in mind that although what you wife did was was devastating, more marriages are ruined by bad attitudes than by bad actions.

Your attitude is critical in addressing the issues in your marriage. You can do all the right things, but if they are done with the wrong attitude, it can inflict more damage than it hoped to heal.

Commitment and Communication

Your wife will also need to see that you are committed to your relationship and committed to her. This commitment often needs to be restated for reassurance purposes. Wives often hear a great deal of talk.

Your wife has heard all your talk and promises. She needs action+talk. Rather than just tell her that you are committed, you will need to show her.She will want to see that you show her that you love her and not just tell her that.

With the honesty and commitment, you have the basic building blocks of good communication. Couples can survive an affair when they have honesty, commitment and communication.

Communication often becomes the foundation of the new relationship after the affair. Rather than have a relationship based on trust with many unspoken assumptions, you will need one where assumptions are discussed along with the needs of each of the spouses. Such communication will enhance the intimacy within the relationship.

A metaphor that helps illustrate what can be is the scar tissue that develops in the aftermath of a wound. The tissue is often tougher than the previous tissue. This tougher tissue pulls the skin tighter and holds the separate parts more firmly than the original tissue did.

Honesty is often tough to hear and tough to speak, yet it is a necessary requirement for the couple to pull themselves together in the aftermath of infidelity.

Honesty + Show & Heal

The formula that I use to remember the steps of returning to a healthy relationship is:

HONESTY + Show and Heal.

Most people remember show and tell from school. Here, it is show and heal. You wife needs to see things, and experience the healing.

The steps to take in returning to a healthy relationship after your wife has cheated are:

1. Be honest with her.

2. Allow her to be honest with you. Listen to her without reacting, denying, defending or attacking.

3. Show her that you love her. She has had enough talk, she wants you to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

4. Show her that you accept her. That does not mean that you approve of what she did, it means that you accept her. She made a bad choice. She needs reassurance that you still love her.

5. Show her that you are committed to her.

6. Show her that you love your children.

7. Allow time for the hurts to heal. Both your hurts and her hurts.

8. Before speaking out or confronting her, consider if it will bring healing. If it won’t, you may need to reconsider saying it.

9. Heal the past hurts. Be a man she’ll know that she can count on. Be dependable. Keep your promises. Part of healing the past hurts also means ‘forgiving’ what she did and accepting her.

REMEMBER: Honesty + Show and Heal

In order to help you with the first step of honesty, the video “How Can I Trust You Again?” takes you through what you need.

Best Regards,

Jeff