How To Survive An Affair Relationships That Last
July 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment
After an affair, relationships can be hard to mend. The most essential part of any relationship is trust, and if you’ve cheated this bond is broken. The good news is that it is possible for a relationship to come back from cheating. The bad news is that you are going to have to work for it.
The first thing you need to do is swear off affair relationships. This is not a guide on how to cheat on your partner. If you’re going to continue to cheat, then these guidelines will not be of much help to you. If you’re willing to do the work, then these tips will help you repair your relationship.
The first thing you to need to do is admit your affair. Relationships are built on trust, and you can’t have trust when you’re lying to the other person. Not telling them is lying, a lie of omission. You need to tell them if they don’t know, even though it is going to hurt.
Aside from general honesty, which is always a virtue, there is a practical side to this as well. If they don’t know, they will find out, and it’s better that you take the bullet now rather than add to the pain when they do find out. If you try to keep it a secret, you’re going to torpedo the relationship.
The next thing you need to do is to take the blame. You may feel that your partner did something to drive you to cheat. We also all have natural tendency to rationalize our behavior, to explain ourselves by coming up with an excuse. But the reality is that it is you that cheated, you that the affair. Relationships aren’t built by blaming your partner for your mistakes. Take the blame and move on.
Then you need to apologize. What you’re looking for here is a complete admission and a sincere apology. You need to make sure that they know that you are truly repentant and regret what you did. Don’t try to explain, just let them know how you feel.
Once you’ve done that, you need to give them some space. They are going to react, they are going to be hurt, and you can’t push them into forgiving you any faster than they are going to already. Be there for them, but make sure that you don’t push. They will be ready when they are ready, and if you try to push the issue then you are only going to succeed in pushing them further away.
After an affair, relationships are going to be different. The best thing you can do is to look at it as if you are starting the relationship all over again. You’re going to need to win back their trust, and this is a process that is going to take some time.
Fortunately, there are resources available to you to help you repair the relationship. It may be hard to admit to yourself that you need help, but using one of the systems can be the best relationship move you’ll ever make. Check it out at: http://savemarriagehowto.com/go/makingupmagic-4.html
Infidelity: How “My Marriage Made Me Do It” Is A Cop-Out
March 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Ask someone why they had, or are having an affair and you may hear something like this: “I have a lousy marriage. My marriage is dead. There is no intimacy, no sex, and no excitement. The love is gone. We’ve grown apart. I can’t stand the marriage. There was nothing happening in the marriage and the affair just happened.”
These statements are rationalizations and fail to “get at” the underlying issues.
Key points:
1. It’s as if a marriage is an animal gone bad. A marriage does not have a life of it’s own. In reality, there is no such thing as a “marriage.” One is “married” as a result of making some promises and signing a paper at one point. After the paper is signed, two people continue communicating and acting toward one another in particular ways that they hope will help them get what they individually want. Just as there is no “marriage,” there is no such thing as a “relationship.” There are, however, ways of relating for which each person is responsible. Remember the comedian Flip Wilson (that dates me) and his “The devil made me do it” skit?
2. We idealize “marriage” or “romantic relationships” with the expectation we will get what we want, without much effort to boot. The movies, popular public press and romance novels/stories don’t help much here. A “marriage” is behind the eight ball from the word go. “IT” can’t win.
3. From day one most of us don’t have a clue about how to get, build, nurture and maintain healthy and intimate ways of relating. We need ‘love 101’ and it’s not there. We rely upon experimentation or bad models.
4. If the “marriage” is dead, why in the world would one choose to have an affair? Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It really is stupid. You add a whole layer of deceit and shame that eventually will result in consequences more dire than approaching your spouse and saying, “I’m really unhappy. What I’m doing with you obviously is not working. I want out.” Oh well, maybe some people need more problems and suffering.
5. If the “marriage” is bad, obviously, I don’t have to look at me. I can blame “it” or the other. Some of us find it difficult to look at me. Some of us don’t know how to look at me. Some of us never think of looking at me.
Tip: If your partner/spouse is having and affair and blames it on the “marriage,” don’t buy into it. The “marriage” is not the problem. You are not the problem. Your spouse/partner chose the affair out of ignorance, fear or inadequacy.
The “My Marriage Made Me Do It” is just one of 7 affairs outlined in my E-book, “Break Free From the Affair.” For more information on the issues behind the other kinds of affairs and tips for dealing with them, go to: http://www.break-free-from-the-affair.com.
Infidelity: Why The Need To Know Is So Strong?
March 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment
When you discover that your partner is immersed in infidelity, you may have a powerful need to know. You want to know the details. Maybe ALL the details. When? Where? How? How Often? What was it like? etc.
No. there is nothing wrong with you. In working intimately with hundreds of people like you, ravaged by an extramarital affair, the need to know is very common.
Here are six reasons why you might want to know.
1. The need for validation. If you tend to be intuitive, that is, soak in the signals from others around you and try to make sense of them, you may have this powerful urge to go back and find out what really happened.
Your partner says, “Yes, I was with him/her on that day.” You think, “Oh yes, I remember having a feeling at that time, an awful feeling. Now I know what that was about.” Or, “I asked you if you were having an affair and you denied it…or turned it back on me with your anger. I thought I was going crazy. Now I know I wasn’t.
2. You question your adequacy (and who doesn’t when confronted with marital infidelity) and a part of you wants to heal/change those thoughts and feelings.
And so, you venture into the comparative game and ask/think: “What did they do? Was he she better? What was he/she better at? What didn’t I do or give? Where do I get stuck emotionally/sexually?”
Sexual interaction is a “window to the soul.” Be kind to yourself when you compare. Learn. Often their sexual interaction leaves a lot to be desired. Know as well that your partner’s inadequacies will shine just as brightly with the OP (other person) as with you.
3. How bad is it? You want to know what you are up against. What is the extent of the boundary violation? How deeply embedded is my partner in this web? Do I throw in the towel? Will it be possible for me to forgive? How long will this take? How long will I hang in there?
This question is important for the “I can’t say no” and the “I don’t want to say no” types of affairs. Infidelity behaviors worsen over time with these kinds of affairs. You want to know where in this process is your partner.
4. I get turned on. Yes, knowing the details for some is sexually arousing. Frequently, upon confession of the affair for a couple, there is a discharge of sexual energy.
I hear someone say, “This is weird, but sex for us is better, more frequent and more intense than it ever has been.” Knowing the details of what happened with the OP may in some cases be very titillating and stir up hidden fantasies.
5. It’s a connection – maybe one of few. There may be a great deal of distance between you and your spouse. Conversations may be minimal. The affair, however, is front and center and becomes a focal point.
You ask questions, probe and want to know because it is perhaps the only point of connection. Something is better than nothing.
And your spouse may bring up the affair because it meets a need for drama. This is especially true of someone who “fell out of love…and just loves being in love.”
Or, your spouse may encourage talk about the OP because in some rather unconscious way s/he carries a load of revenge and wants to “twist the knife.”
6. You want to care for your self. You may have concern about STDs. You need to know the extent of the behavior and protection used, if there was sexual activity, for your own physical well-being.
The need to know is very powerful for some people in the midst of an affair. Examine carefully your situation and see if any of the above circumstances fit you.
About the Author: Dr. Huizenga, the Infidelity Coach, offers infidelity help and relationship advice for coping with extramarital affairs and marital infidelity at: Break http://Free-From-the-Affair.com and http://Infidelity-help.com. Get articles and free downloads on emotional infidelity, coping with infidelity, the cheating spouse, signs of an affair, surviving infidelity and more.