It is devastating to know your spouse cheated on you. You may have never thought about that, but after awakening from this nightmare of his/her infidelity, you still want to maintain the marriage and move forward. Infidelity is the highest level of challenge in the marriage, it is crucial for you to consider what changes that you are willing to make to survive infidelity. But now, your marriage has already been plagued with tons of problems now, and you have become confused about how to save your marriage after your spouse cheats.
If you have no idea to go through this big marital crisis, the basic guidelines below may be of some help to you:
(1) Stop believing that a marriage will be certain to be terminated by infidelity:
For most couples who are still at the initial stage of marriage, they firmly believe that infidelity will kill the marriage relationships once it happens. In some cases, it could spell the end of the married life; but most of the time, it is far from the truth, in the world, you can see so many married couples still living happily in spite of their previous infidelity crises. Even a small number of people still choose to forgive their spouses who developed a pattern of cheating over and over (generally, it is inadvisable to continue a marriage who has already been devasted by multiple affairs), but their marriage relationships get enhanced and back on tracked after they draw lessons from their heartbreaking experiences.
However, saving your marriage from cheating is never an easy thing – Healing from infidelity is a time-consuming process in which couples have to learn to make positive changes, no doubt, it takes hard work. Although saving your marriage after your spouse cheats is a rather challenging thing, it doesn’t mean it is impossible; marriage is so precious for everyone, marital happiness is hard-earned but easily spent; in general, it is worthy to do your utmost to salvage the relationship.
(2) Understand your reactions:
When you are anxious to learn how to save your marriage after your spouse cheats, probably you are beyond the initial shock that you imagined. Even if you believe that you can endure the big shock caused by your spouse’s cheating now, his/her infidelity certainly places strain on your marriage and thereby causes a certain temporary insanity; this form of insanity is similar with PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), at least it can make you temporarily lose your mind, thus you will feel dopey and unable to concentrate on other aspects of your life; when you experience this, probably you will feel that nothing seems real and you keep getting disconnected from many parts of the normal life (e.g. your family, your friends, and your job) – Unconsciously, you tend to look at all the things through a dark lens of infidelity that breaks up your marriage.
Those feelings mentioned above are normal and authentic and can go away on their own. Therefore, there is no need to rush to hire a divorce lawyer after you catch your spouse cheating; at this point, you might follow the next tip.
(3) Make sure that your spouse’s affairs have stopped:
In most cases, your spouse’s affairs may have fizzled out naturally since your spouse confessed the extramarital affair to you – Probably your spouse will take the initiative to put an end to the affairs, as long as he/she wants to stay in the marriage; usually, your spouse is also willing to work together with you to end them unless his/her lover/mistress still pesters him/her.
From a cheater’s point of view, affairs are exciting in the beginning because an affair brings him/her a novelty that has already worn off in his/her marriage, hence, an affair becomes quickly addictive. Judging from this aspect, your spouse wrongly uses an affair to renew and excite his/her life, yet probably the extramarital affair will deteriorate soon, why? Because both your spouse and his/her lover(s)/mistress(es) may be unwilling to fully accept each other, as each other learns more and more about each other’s real situation, such as emotional baggage, financial status, marital status, quirks and hobbies, and so on. Long-lasting love grows only when one party fully accepts all the pros and cons of the other one.
To save this broken marriage, you need to open up your spouse’s heart and let him/her honestly answer your questions about his/her affairs. Again, the marriage can go ahead only if your spouse can frankly talk to you about all the facts of his/her affairs and his/her true feelings before and during his/her affairs.
(4) Console yourself with the fact that you are not alone:
Unfortunately, whether a marriage is happy or unhappy, infidelity is likely to happen to married couples. This phenomenon may not make you feel better when you are deep in the sadness and anger after finding that your spouse is cheating on you; but once you can take control of your negative emotions, you might take some comfort by telling yourself that an affair has become a common phenomenon that a lot of couples have to learn to deal with.
(5) Don’t be in a hurry to make a conclusion or decision:
Understandably, you may have become quite emotional after knowing your spouse cheated on you. But the more emotional you are, the more necessary it is to think deeply about your spouse’s disloyal behavior. So try to calm down yourself as much as possible, probably you will find out that there exist some long-neglected issues that are more urgently needed to be recognized and resolved.
In a nutshell, your spouse’s infidelity can reflect a series of underlying relationship problems that need to be improved; yet your extreme emotions only cloud your judgment. In addition, both you and your spouse need some time and space for self-reflection at this critical juncture; so don’t rush to conclusions about what kind of person your spouse and make a hasty decision about where your relationship should go.
(6) Aim for forgiveness:
The word “forgive” is easier said than done. For most people who were betrayed by their spouses, they could hardly forget about their spouses’ infidelity, after all, being cheated on by the beloved person is so traumatic. However, the trauma can fade ultimately as time passes; and hence, you should allow yourself to heal your pain and dampen your negative thoughts at a slow pace; and meanwhile, you should establish a more positive outlook on marital life to get out of the bonds of those traumatic memories, rather than allow yourself to stay depressed for long. If you always harbor a grudge that ties your spouse to his/her previous cheating incidents, the broken marriage can hardly heal, and the two of you will get hurt more deeply.
Forgiveness is required for the recovery of any marriage that is shattered by an extramarital affair; only after you learn to forgive your spouse, you can get an opportunity to make your love flourish again.
For more tips, you might go on to read the post below:
How to forgive betrayal and move on in your marriage.
(7) Adopt more advice that helps get your marriage back on track:
I bet you’ve had some ideas about how to save your marriage after your spouse cheats on you. Anyway, all the expected changes can not happen overnight, how to deal with your spouse’s infidelity is a complicated problem that you can hardly resolve at one time. Certainly, you should not simply give up your marriage just because of its arduousness; and instead, it is better to seek external help to work through this dangerous stage of your marriage.
When it comes to how to deal with infidelity in marriage, a lot of couples tend to seek advice from experienced people (e.g. friends, family members, and professional relationship counselors). After all, a spouse usually has limited experience in dealing with extramarital affairs; for many people, this kind of problem may only occur once throughout their whole married life. And the lack of experience may make the recovery progress of their marriages suffer more delays and setbacks that exceed their expectations.
The final word:
Nobody wants an extramarital affair to happen to their relationships; but now that your spouse’s affairs have occurred and you are sure that you don’t want to end your marriage this way, you need to take positive measures to resolve this marital crisis; anyway, you do not have to be too pessimistic; now it is the time to look forward – the positive side, you might view it as the catalyst for “a new beginning” that makes your marriage more solid than before; and you should focus on what you can do to affair-proof your marriage.
Too many spouses had ever felt that divorce was inevitable for them, but unexpectedly, they saved their marriages eventually; maybe, you also feel that you have tried everything else; or maybe you have been tired of endless fights, disappointment, and anger… but probably, you still do not miss the last chance to survive your spouse’s affairs and make your marriage thrive again.
If you want to seek more marriage-saving advice, 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; it may give you many valuable insights into how to save your marriage after your spouse cheats:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to deal with infidelity in marriage – Protect the marriage
6 tips on preventing extramarital affairs – Protect your marriage.
What to do when your marriage seems hopeless – Save your marriage.
Should you divorce your spouse – Top reasons for divorce.
Is your spouse cheating – Signs your spouse is having an affair.
How to deal with a spouse’s emotional affair – Save the marriage.