Some of you may be asking “Is it possible to recover from after an affair?” You wonder if your marriage can be salvaged from an affair. The simple answer is “Yes”, it is possible for you to recover from an affair.
Although the answer is simple, the recovery itself is often made more difficult.
First, you will need to accept that truth that recovery is possible. There are many spouses, which may include you that assume that recovery is not possible. You assume that an affair means the end of your marriage. An affair does not have to mean the end of your marriage. If it does, then one or both of you chose to make the affair the end of your marriage.
Let me explain with the story of Nick. When Nick’s wife cheated, he was devastated. Since they had been married for many years, he took the news of her unfaithfulness hard. It shattered his world.
While in the midst of his hurt, Nick decided that his wife’s affair meant that she could never be trusted again. She had betrayed him. He took it personally.
When someone close to Nick betrays him, he washes his hands of them. He decided “I can never trust her again!” He also told himself that “I will NEVER trust her again!” With that decision, there was no hope for his marriage recovering from her affair.
Although his wife confessed her unfaithfulness and was willing to reconcile, Nick wouldn’t have it. She was not trustworthy, so he could not trust her again. Since he was a good church going guy, he bolstered his position by emphasizing the wrongness of what she did.
When he emphasized the evil of what she did, he could ignore the teaching at his church about ‘forgiveness’. He played a head game where he could forgive her, but could never trust her again.
His head game made him feel better, but others could see that he was playing word games with himself, saying he forgave her, but would never trust her, could never trust her.
In his mind, he could not be married to someone he couldn’t trust. She may have chosen to have an affair, but he chose to end the marriage.
Nick could blame his wife and her affair for ending their marriage, without having to consider how powerful his choices had been. He did not see recovery as possible, so it was not going to happen.
The story of Nick will help you see how important it is for you to accept that recovery is possible. When you do not believe your marriage can be saved, it won’t be.
When you believe it can be, the possibility exists that it can be saved. A wayward spouse may or may not come back, yet if the door is shut and bolted regarding recovery, they will never come back, never ask forgiveness, and never work things out with you.
The path of recovery is different depending on whether you were the cheater or were cheated on. Although it is easy to blame one spouse for everything that happened, when it comes to recovering from the affair, each spouse has their own burdens to shoulder.
So the first step in recovery from an affair is accepting that recovery is possible. When you accept that, the door to reconciliation is cracked open. The Affair Recovery Workshop helps you through the recovery process from disclosure, through communication, rebuilding intimacy to getting them to listen to you.
Best Regards,
Jeff
