Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from faithful spouses who are looking for some tips on how to heal. Sometimes though, I hear from cheating spouses who are remorseful and who want tips on how to help their spouses recover or to save their marriage. Often, they are understandably dealing with quite a bit on anger and resistance from their spouse. And, they aren’t at all sure how they are going to begin to break through the invisible shield that their spouse has put up around them.

I heard from a wife who said: “I cheated on my husband with a guy that I met through my job. I’m a flight attendant and its my job to be friendly and nice to people. This guy takes the same flight all of the time and we got to know each other over time and one thing lead to another. I am ashamed to say that the relationship went on for well over a year until my husband found out about it. He gave me an ultimatum and told me that he would divorce me if I didn’t break it off immediately. I didn’t need to think it over. I never wanted to leave my husband for this other man. I just wanted more excitement and companionship in my life because I’m always traveling and never have any real time to spend with my husband. So, I made it very clear that the other man was out of the picture and I had hoped that, since I did this immediately, my husband would be willing to work on our marriage. Well, he hasn’t left me yet but it’s very clear that he’s considering it. He never speaks to me unless it is to lash out in anger or to say something mean. There’s no affection between us. I try to reach out to him regularly but he rejects me. He says he can’t trust someone who lied to him and betrayed him for over a year. He says he can’t live with the constant suspicion and doubt. I have not heard him say one hopeful thing about our marriage in a long time. It’s always how he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel the same about me. I want to save my marriage more than anything. But honestly, if I would have known that my husband was going to be this resistant to me, I would have given ending my affair a little more thought. I feel like I gave up everything and now he won’t even give me a chance. I know I’m in the wrong, but I can’t take back my cheating. How can I save my marriage now?”

I know first hand that it’s by no means impossible to save your marriage after you cheat or have an affair. But, it will require a lot of patience, sincerity, and skill. And often, the most important thing that you can do is to encourage your spouse see that your concern is more for them and less about yourself. I will discuss this more in the following article.

Take Your Immediate Focus Off Of The Long Term And Place It On Immediate Rehabilitation And Healing: Quite often, when the fear takes over after you’ve made a huge mistake like this one, “I need to save my marriage” sort of becomes your mantra. You bring it up every opportunity that you can and you never pass up a chance to tell your spouse how much you want to fix things. But here’s what you might not understand. Your spouse is likely very overwhelmed and confused right now. The thought of what happens in the future might seem like a lot to think about or something that is very far down the road. And they can also feel very pressured which can cause them a lot of frustration when they are already struggling with so many conflicting feelings.

I know that it’s scary to feel uncertain about what is going to happen due to your mistake. It is only natural for you to want to hear them reassure you that they’ll try to work on your marriage. But if you pressure them, you actually hurt your chances of saving your marriage. And isn’t the long term outcome more important than your reassurance?

It is so much better to make it clear that although you ultimate goal is to save your marriage, your first priority is helping your spouse through this and restoring the trust and intimacy. Quite frankly if you can do those things and make your spouse see that they are your number one concern, your marriage will often follow suit.

Make Sure You Identify And Then Deal With Every Issue That The Cheating Has Brought To The Surface: Most people intuitively understand that they will need to work hard to restore the trust. And that is definitely one issue that almost always comes up. But there are often multiple issues that must be dealt with. You’ll often need to look at whether there were any vulnerabilities in your marriage before and whether there are any now. You’ll have to learn and commit to new communication skills. You’ll need to restore the intimacy and spontaneity. This is very gradual process and you will often need to check in with your spouse and take the pulse of your marriage. Some couples are able to do this alone when both people are willing, especially with some self help. But others find that a good, third party counselor is needed to help them to identify and then work through the issues while staying on track.

The bottom line is that you can save your marriage after cheating, but your first focus should be on helping your spouse. If it appears that your primary concern is saving your marriage so that you don’t have to face the consequences, then your spouse is probably not going to be as willing to put their faith in you when it appears that you are more concerned about what you could lose. Instead, you should make it clear that your real goal is to make sure that you both gain a better relationship and a new level of trust.

I could not have been angrier with my husband after he cheated on me.  I was not interested in anything that he had to say at first.  And yet, eventually we were able to save our marriage and we are still married today.  It wasn’t always easy.  But it was totally worth it.  If it helps, you can read that story on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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