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Your infidelity has caused endless tears and worries of a deceived spouse. Can relationships be restored? How to help a loved one and yourself heal faster after infidelity?
Perhaps you were not going to do this, but you were tired, drank too much … And you found yourself after a corporate party in the bed of an employee who had been flirting with you for a long time. Or for years they hid relations on the side from their husband and were not going to interrupt them, but he read your correspondence.
It doesn’t matter what exactly happened. It is important that it was you who broke the oath of allegiance.
Psychologists are sure that cheating does not necessarily kill relationships, but it definitely poisons their clean waters. If you and your partner decide to stay together, you should not shift the responsibility for the atmosphere in a couple to one.
Psychologists Janice and Michael Spring in their book “Marital Infidelity. Therapy after betrayal ”* give tips on how to behave to a cheating partner if he wants to return the love of his other half.
Restoring Trust
“Trust is not a gift. It must be earned. Not only verbal assurances, but also changes in behavior. You, the unfaithful partner, must demonstrate to your spouse with bold and concrete actions: “I am devoted to you. You are safe with me,” the authors of the book write.
This can take a lot of time and effort. You may have to remove passwords from your gadgets and report every step. However, you must remember that the wound your partner is trying to heal causes him to think back daily to the drama that played out in your family.
He does not pretend: the one who has been cheated on wakes up for some time every day with the feeling that his world has collapsed. And if you want to stay with him, you should not demand that the healing come in a week. Only your purposeful work to restore trust can speed up this process.
Behaving proactively
You should not wait until trust, love and warmth will return to your relationship. “At times you will have to act like you feel more love, protection, or forgiveness than there really is,” note Janice and Michael Spring.
When we behave in this way, we speed up the healing process of love wounds. Yes, it will take effort, but it will help to “reflash” your attitude towards the one with whom you chose to stay. And certainly it is more useful for contact than endless scandals and quarrels.
We talk about what happened
There are two unproductive ways to build communication after cheating: hush up what happened or yell at each other without controlling your lines.
The first does not help to survive the trauma of the relationship. By pretending that nothing happened, we simply postpone the meeting with the problem. The second aggravates the feelings of both partners, but does not speed up the process of reconciliation. “When you are silent, you shut up your discontent; when you rage, you pour it on your partner,” Janice and Michael Spring explain.
Cheating is often based on discontent, dissatisfaction — and if the «culprit» is not ready to open his feelings to his beloved, he becomes more vulnerable to repeated betrayal. Therefore, it is worth taking responsibility and starting such conversations yourself.
Saying goodbye to passion
It would seem absolutely obvious that in any story there should be a point, but some people prefer ellipsis. The reason for this is the unwillingness to hurt oneself or another, to face one’s own guilt and feelings of shame.
But attempts to save the family may fail if you are not completely sure of your choice or have not told your lover about your decision. If the deceived partner knows that you simply stopped communicating without explaining to your passion that you are making a choice in his favor, he will doubt if you have left a loophole for resuming side relationships.
“Don’t try to defend this person with soft words; leave no room for doubt. Make it clear that you want him or her to move on to a more secure relationship.
We choose frankness
Often a deceived person needs to know all the details of your relationship on the side. And if he asks you to share them, go to meet him.
“If you try to hide or soften the truth to protect your partner’s feelings, you may be considered a liar,” warn Janice and Michael Spring.
Of course, honesty should not be confused with cruelty. If a husband asks if a former lover has a prettier body, no one will feel better if you say yes, even if this is the pure truth.
But you can answer something like: “Of course, his press is more pumped up — but he devotes much less time than you to work, and besides, I was attracted not by the form, but by the very fact that our relationship is“ a forbidden fruit «. So you won’t lie, but you won’t leave the deceived partner alone with his feelings.
Recovering from infidelity is a job for two. You should not think that simply ending a relationship on the side will cross out the suffering that your partner experiences because of your infidelity. Do not wait until a loved one «turns on» in the healing process: initiate it yourself.
You are at the beginning of a long journey, and sometimes it will seem that you cannot return your old love. But if you have the courage, honesty and motivation, you will have a completely new relationship, which may be stronger and better than the old ones. Although the characters in them will remain the same.
* Centrograph, 2017