Returning to your marriage is often easier said than done. It would be nice if it was as simple as entering the door and saying”Honey, I’m home!” followed by your spouse and children welcoming you with open arms. Physically returning is definitely a start, but it is not all there is to it.
Returning to your marriage involves returning physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually.
You have to be ‘whole hog’ in your marriage. There’s no room for fantasies or wandering eyes when you return.
Returning starts the process of healing. In all likelihood, you will re-enter the marriage at the same place that you left it. The issues, hurts and pressures that you left often greet you when you return.
You’ll find that you have fewer emotional and relational supports to deal with them than you had before. You’ll have to do more with less in some ways. Besides coming back to what you left, there will be a time of ‘testing’.
You’ll be tested by your spouse and children to see if you are really 100 percent back. They do not want to be hurt again, so they will be cautious about taking you at your word.
They’ll have to learn to trust you again. If you don’t blow it too many times, it will only be temporary.
Once you pass the “tests of trust”, your spouse and family will begin opening up to you again. At that point, they start the healing process.
They want you to help them through their pain. During this time, they will likely bring up the affair or some aspect of it again and again. It is important that you do not get defensive.
They are functioning like a broken record that keeps skipping until they resolve the issue needing healing. Once they resolve it, the record will no longer skip and the affair starts to be ‘over’.
Yes, you ended it long before this. You have to understand that ending the affair and the affair being over are two different things.
Besides the “tests of trusts”, they will be looking at what you do. They know that promises are cheap and that your word is of uncertain quality. Since words do not mean what they used to, they will look at what you do. They will want to see you love them and show you love them, rather than just tell them that you love them.
Returning is not easy by any means. It is easier than trying to start a new family or new marriage, while your old one is still hemorrhaging in pain from the impact of the affair.
New families and marriages started in the midst of an affair are filled with even more hurt and loss than the family and marriage you left. So, the bottom line is that returning to your marriage is tough, and trying to turn your lover into a functional family is tougher.
In the video, “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery“, I guide you through the things needing changing. You’ll learn what to look for and ways of handling it in your return home.
Best Regards,
Jeff
