A woman wrote to me, expressing her views. She made it clear that “Cheating is a deal-breaker” for her followed by how “once trust is gone, the marriage is over”. She’s not alone in cheating being a deal breaker. I’ve come across many of you who feel that way.
She also expressed skepticism about the ‘forgiving and staying together’ mindset. I understand her having concerns with that approach. There’s been many disappointments and heartaches using this approach.
This is why I advocate a different approach in affair recovery. Honesty from both spouses starts things going. Forgiveness is good, yet it’s an on-going process requiring both honesty and accountability. It’s not an once and done proposition.
I believe that an affair does not mean the end of the marriage. An affair does mean that there are problems needing attention in your relationship, but it doesn’t mean the marriage is over.
For affair recovery to succeed, changes are needed in the marriage relationship, in how the two of you talk with each other and how the two of you resolve problems together, down to the root level. For recovery to work, the issues need attention in the right sequence. One big mistake happens when people do them out of order.
If you don’t think the right sequence matters, try Christmas assembly of toys in the wrong sequence and see what response you get. Then imagine what happens in your marriage.
Recovery needs both of you working on changing the patterns in the cheater’s brain. Without that kind of accountability, “in the end it doesn’t work”. When you only forgive and stay together, you put window dressing on your marriage.
Forgiving without the accountability and making changes leaves recovery half-done. The broken promises have to be dealt with, and the relationship has to be re-built on a NEW foundation. I advocate building a new foundation on communication, since the old one of pure trust’ is broken.
Trust can be repaired when you have all the correct pieces. My experience is that many people don’t know how to rebuild trust or understand how it works. They know when its’ working, they just don’t know how it works or why it does what it does. You know if you ‘trust’ or don’t trust, but have likely never considered ‘how’ that happens or how to rebuild it.
That’s why I cover those foundations of trust in the video, “How Can I Trust You Again?” It can help rebuild what you thought was totally gone.
Best Regards,
Jeff
