With the holidays, many of you will be watching football. In some cases it’s by choice in other situations, your spouse wanted to watch it.
In playing football, another one of the important things coaches drilled into me was the importance of continuing playing until the whistle blows. This stressed the importance of not giving up too early.
Many games have turned around when players continued running, tackling or chasing until the whistle blew. Games are lost when players give up too soon.
When you have this mindset, you continue exerting effort in the face of adversity and tough going. That is what wins games. It’s also what turns marriages around.
Some spouses make the mistake of thinking the affair is over when the cheater returns home. Once they return home, there’s still plenty to do.
On returning home, your marriage is different. Thinking the two of you can go back to the way it was before will only have you recreating the mistakes you made before.
Once the cheater returns home, the two of you need improved communication. It needs a better foundation than ‘just trust me. That no longer works in a ‘post-affair marriage’ as one author puts it.
This is not a time for returning to your old bad habits. It may be familiar to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
The two of you need more awareness of each other’s needs and clarity in expressing your needs. There will be times of exhaustion and weariness.
Daily life needs more verification and honesty than before. Each of you has changed, and it changes your marriage as well. Things like affair relapse prevention are now important.
Members of the Restored Lifestyle site have access to the video “Preventing Affair Relapse”. In it, you’ll find many of things you need a better awareness of in order to keep your marriage healthy and keep the cheater from being one of those ‘always a cheater’ types of situations.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
