Fixing A Marriage After Infidelity

Many people email me to ask if it's possible to "repair" a marriage after infidelity and, if so, how to do it. Many of the people who write to me express a sincere want to save their marriages and are making every effort to deal with the problems that infidelity presents, but they are unsure of how to go about doing this and frequently their partners do not trust in their sincerity. As a result, I'll explain what I think—based on my own research and experience—is essential if you want your marriage to be one of those that can recover and endure after infidelity.

Genuineness Is The First Step In Repairing The Marriage After Cheating: I cannot emphasize enough what I am about to say. To make things work, both parties must have a true desire to do so. I would advise the cheating spouse to take full responsibility for making amends and to treat this matter seriously. If your heart is truly in it or not, your spouse will be able to tell. You should wait and consider your sentiments before hurting them again if you are even the slightest bit unsure about your devotion to this person and to your marriage.

You must absolutely and completely be over the other person: In a perfect world, you would have severed all relationships. Do not ask your spouse to have faith in you or to cooperate with you in working on your marriage if you are not yet there. Simply put, this is too much to ask. You will cause much more harm than good if you ask them to put their trust in you again only to betray them once more (even by lying or missing information on purpose). They will eventually need to regain their trust in order for you to truly fix this situation. Before you are certain that you can be trusted, don't ask them to do this.

Helping Them To Trust You Again: I'll presume that if you've read this far, you're sincere and reliable. The next stage is to convince your partner that they can believe what you are saying. I have to admit that sometimes this simply requires patience. But by taking responsibility, you can facilitate this. You can present "evidence" that you are reliable. Give up your smartphone. Give them the passwords to your computer and email. When you can, bring them along when you run errands or go on excursions. Regularly express certainty and reiterate your commitment. Don't promise to be somewhere and then turn out to be somewhere else. They must be able to consistently verify what you have claimed. Since you've just made your work more difficult, the first time they discover you telling even a small white lie, warning bells will go out.

I often have people who tell me things like: "It quickly becomes tiresome to continually check in and out. I feel like a young child who always needs to check in with my parents." Yes, it might not be all that enjoyable to be you when the affair is discovered, but these are the cards you've dealt yourself, so if you think what you're going through is difficult, try putting yourself in your spouse's position. How would you feel if you were betrayed in this manner? What would happen if the ground beneath your feet was suddenly lifted? When you become tired of the continual checking in, try to keep all of these points in mind. Because you'll eventually prove that you're reliable, and frequently your spouse won't need these guarantees as much. But you should offer them as long as they require them.

Creating Something That's Better: Making something that both people can get passionate about and commit to is the best approach, I frequently advise people, to mend a marriage after infidelity. This frequently necessitates a close examination of your marriage and an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses by both of you. Then you must cooperate to solve every issue and protect your marriage from potential future troubles. It may not sound very enjoyable when I use the word "labor," but the reward is enormous in this case.

Many people who stay to work through an affair are really happy they did because they ultimately wind up with a marriage that is much better than what they had before. This is the entire key, in fact. Because it doesn't take much persuading to keep a couple together when they are both happy and enthusiastic about their marriage. No one needs to go elsewhere or entertain misgivings because both parties are content.

I'm not suggesting that you pretend to be here if you're not. That won't work either. However, you shouldn't try to patch up the relationship you had before because it was obvious that it had problems. Instead, you should aim to improve upon what you already had while replacing it with something that will benefit the two of you much more.