Your spouse’s affair was so brutal and it brought you tremendous pain; in spite of this, you decided to stay in the marriage and gave your spouse a chance to turn over a new leaf; and it is undeniable that he/she has made great efforts to improve the relationship with you; however, the pain is so deep that it feels irreparable; maybe, till now, at the mere thought of your spouse’s affair, you get a hair-trigger temper – You make your spouse feel that you anger with little or no provocation, and you have to admit that you easily take offense at him/her. You may also feel a sense of remorse over it; and now, you are eager to know how to forgive betrayal and move on in your marriage.
But to be honest, there is no magic formula for permanently healing from the betrayal in a long-term relationship; recovering from infidelity is certainly a tough task. Fortunately, a lot of marital relationships that have been devastated by extramarital affairs do not come to an end; on the contrary, they get enhanced and thrive afterward; but inevitably those couples have to go through a long and painful process, whether they are a cheater or victim.
If you decide to embark on the long road to healing from your spouse’s betrayal, here are some basic tips:
(1) Know the details of your spouse’s affair:
To let go of past hurts, first, you need to be aware what leads to the hurts; surely, having an affair is your spouse’s fault; but on the other hand, it reflects a series of underlying problems in the relationship, probably your spouse’s affair can be associated with some unresolved issues that may have been neglected for a long time. To avoid repeating past faults, it is necessary to know your spouse’s affair from A to Z and draw lessons from them; Understandably, your spouse certainly feels uncomfortable talking about the unpleasant past, and meanwhile, it also makes you feel terrible; by asking your spouse targeted questions about the affair, you can quickly get as many factual details as you want. Here are some examples of questions you can ask him/her:
- “How often did you date your lover/mistress?”
- “When did you cross the line between a friend and a lover/mistress?”
- “How many times have you had sex with your lover/mistress?”
- “Where did you meet/know your lover/mistress initially?”
- “How much money have you spent on the affair?”…
Surely, you may change your questions moderately or stop questioning in time according to your spouse’s emotions and moods. In particular, when noticing your spouse gets very upset about the affair, you had better stop discussing for the moment.
Furthermore, you have to be aware that you are both responsible for the development of the relationship; surely, it does not mean that you need to take responsibility for your spouse’s cheating behavior; specifically, you might take the initiative to undertake the responsibility for your role in what happened to the marriage before his/her affair; probably, the seeds of his/her affair deeply rooted in certain serious relationship problems, such as lack of connection, lack of passion, lack of mutual respect, and so on. When your spouse feels fairly treated and respected rather than take all the responsibility, naturally he/she is more willing to open up to you.
Before you ask him/her certain particularly sensitive issues, let him/her know them in advance:
If you want to ask your spouse certain particularly sensitive issues that are linked to his/her affair, it is inadvisable to corner him/her and then question him/her unexpectedly. This will be a recipe for his/her hostility or passive-aggressiveness, just like lambasting an unsuspecting person. It is better to let your spouse know in advance that you want to figure out an affair-related issue that may touch his/her raw nerve. And probably he/she may still feel stress in the conversation; so you should also try to maintain this type of conversation in a productive manner, rather than turn in into an interrogation; in doing so, your spouse is more likely to give you a prompt, detailed response.
But anyway, make sure those questions can be related to your major marital issues so that it can make more sense for the two of you to fix your marriage – By asking your spouse targeted questions, you may better understand why your spouse was pushed or pulled into the affair, and you may find a fatal weakness/flaw hidden in your relationship…
Only after you have known all of the facts, you will also not be so obsessed with how he/she had an affair, and thus you will be more willing to focus attention on how to deal with the current situation.
(2) Don’t go to extremes:
It is easy to lose your temper upon learning your spouse’s affair; actually, your spouse is also trying to empathize with what you are going through, I bet that you also feel that he/she becomes more tolerant to you than he/she used to be; after all, your negative emotions arise from his/her infidelity; but extreme emotions or behavior (e.g. lashing out, crying and screaming) can have a negative impact on your spouse’s willingness to survive infidelity.
For your spouse, every time you show your extreme emotions or behavior in front of him/her, he/she can strongly feel that you are pushing him/her away, especially when your accusation degenerated into personal attacks on his/her character along the way.
As a cheater who does not want to give up on his/her marriage, he/she desires to get positive psychological suggestion from his/her spouse; therefore, the more he/she gets your positive psychological suggestion, the more he/she is motivated to go on to repair the relationship. In other words, the more you bring him/her down, the more you dishearten him/her on the way to recovering the marriage. Especially when a cheater has greatly reformed himself/herself for his/her spouse but still feels that his/her spouse regards his/her betrayal as a sin that can never be forgiven, two sides only feel miserable in the relationship, so probably the cheater will lose the hope of recovering the marriage.
You spouse will not be willing to reveal all the affair-related things unless he/she feels that you really can manage your emotions. From the point view of a cheater in a marriage, your spouse tries to cover something up because he/she is afraid that things will get out of control (probably, he/she doesn’t know how to respond to your emotional outbursts).
(3) Keep an open line of communication
Currently, the most important thing is to keep an open line of communication; at this point, probably the two of you are feeling disconnected because you both feel at a great loss in your married life; in particular, an unexpected emotional outburst can greatly discourage your spouse from going to communicate with you at the moment. Therefore, to forgive betrayal and move on in your marriage, you need to ponder over how to re-establish the emotional connection with your spouse. And the post below may give you more insights:
how to survive an emotionally disconnected marriage.
For more tips on how to better communicate with your spouse, you might go on to read the posts below:
How to have effective communication in marriage.
4 annoying habits that cause communication barriers in marriage.
(4) Don’t forgive betrayal too soon or too early:
If you forgive your spouse too soon, as a consequence, you will both not experience enough pain to reflect on what went wrong in the relationship; don’t just see the bad part of pain caused by your spouse’s infidelity; actually, it also promotes self-exploration that can drive the two of you to make positive changes to better protect the marital relationship.
Moreover, you should let your spouse actively ask for forgiveness, instead of forgiving your spouse simply; if your spouse wants to give you an apology from the heart, he/she will not just say “I’ m sorry”. To show you true remorse, not only should your spouse spend time on words, but should spend time and effort on actions. Therefore, when it comes to whether your spouse qualifies for your full forgiveness, the premise is that your spouse is honest enough to you and uses practical action to prove that he/she can be accepted as a trustworthy partner again.
Furthermore, you had better not simply agree to forgive him/her unless you are really ready. After all, you can hardly forget your spouse’s affair although the painful memories can fade as time passes. Forgiveness means moving past the rage and pain and then reconciling with your spouse. So take this crucial step only in case you are ready to let those past heartbreaks be bygones.
(5) Have a clear sense of what you want during conversations with your spouse:
It is very necessary to have several conversations about your spouse’s affair. And make sure to give each other uninterrupted time to share each other’s concerns during those conversations. Neither of you will hear each other really if you two criticize each other back and forth during discussions; what is worse, you may easily miss some important subjects that you should have discussed with your spouse, and vice versa.
And when it is your turn to speak, be aware that what you should talk about include: letting your spouse understand your frustration and hurts, and expressing how his/her disloyal behavior brought a destructive impact on the relationship; likewise, you should also allow your spouse to explain his/her behavior that is associated with his/her infidelity. After full communication, probably you will dramatically realize that you have misunderstood some of his/her motives from the very beginning. As you clear up more and more misunderstandings through open communication, you tend to move the relationship forward in the right direction.
The final word:
Betrayal produces painful tension and friction in the marriage. But when it comes to how to forgive betrayal and move on, you should put this in perspective; forgiving your spouse is not just giving your spouse permissions, and don’t think forgiving him/her is just like letting him/her off the hook; even forgiveness is also not primarily for your spouse, it is for you; now that you decide to keep the marriage alive, you do not have to go on to carry the heavy emotional burden and great pain around with you.
For more marriage-saving tips, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience helping many unhappy couples successfully repair their marriages after infidelity:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
6 tips on how to survive in an unhappy marriage without divorce.
How to save your marriage after your spouse cheats.
6 tips on preventing extramarital affairs – Protect your marriage.
How to be happy in a miserable marriage – save your marriage.