A Common Problem when Healing the Marriage

August 14, 2012 by 1 Comment

Couples who are trying to heal the marriage after an affair usually have so much problems and issues that they have to face.

There’s the affair itself, the trust and betrayal issues that come with the affair, and so many others.

One of the issues that couples have to address during this healing process is how their actions and words generate negativity within each other. This actually happens more than people think.

Most of the time, you may not see anything offending or bad about the things you say or do. But what you don’t know is that they may actually be affecting your husband or wife in a negative way. Your spouse could be insulted or hurt by something that will keep you from healing the marriage, and you may not even understand why that is so.

Here is an example:

During your affair, you made it a habit to your husband a present of some sort after every meeting you have with the other person, such as flowers or a new tie for example. Whether it is done consciously or unconsciously, this has become your practice. After your spouse discovers your affair, he or she realizes what those presents mean – a kind of guilty present for your affair. Your husband or wife will relate those presents with the betrayal of your affair from then on. So, even after you end your affair and begin to heal the marriage, whenever you give your husband or wife presents, he or she will look at a bouquet of flowers or a bottle of his favorite in a negative light.

That present, which is now a sign of your love and devotion to your spouse that you hope will help in healing the marriage, becomes a reminder of the pain and betrayal that he or she felt caused by your affair because he or she still sees it as the sign of guilt that it used to be.

What your spouse needs to do is to try to stop associating your giving of presents as a sign of guilt and accept them for what they are – as apologies. He or she needs to heal this part of him or her, and see how it is affecting your current relationship. Letting go of those feelings of betrayal, focusing on what you are trying to have now and accepting those presents will help more effectively in healing the marriage.

Of course, just forgetting about your affair won’t be easy at all for your husband or wife. What you can do, on your part, is to be a little more sensitive with regards to giving your spouse presents. If you know that he or she won’t have the response that you hope for, try to find other ways that you can express your love for him or her. Don’t force this kind of practice in your relationship because you know that it will only cause more harm than good. This way, you are helping each other heal the marriage.

Filed Under: After the Affair, Infidelity and Tolerations, Infidelity Coaching, Infidelity Decisions, Infidelity Fears, Infidelity Help, Infidelity Humor, Infidelity Impact, Infidelity Quickie, Marriage Makeover, Personal stuff, Recovery From Infidelity, Relationship Tips, Relationships: Marriage, Stopping the Affair, Surviving Infidelity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Common Barriers Faced When Working on the Marriage

August 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

What do you need to prepare for when you decide on working on the marriage after infidelity?

Couples who decide on working on the marriage after a bout of infidelity, especially those who are in a “polarized” relationship – where one is open about talking things through, and the other wants to forget about it and move on – usually find themselves stuck at one point or another from moving forward in their relationship.

Here are a few possible issues you might encounter if you are working on the marriage after infidelity:

1. Rebuilding and working on the marriage after infidelity usually implies that each individual is required to act, feel and think in a specific manner in order to achieve their goal of fixing the marriage. Whether it is out in the open or not, there is a certain kind of pressure on both parties not to do anything that will cause a halt to the progress they are making. And this pressure makes you act or behave in ways that you don’t necessarily want to act or behave.

2. You also feel kind of forced to be nice to each other and to put your best foot forward because you see conflict of any kind as the worst possible thing that could happen in your already rocky relationship. You try to keep things positive, but avoiding conflict means ignoring and hiding from your problems and issues that you need to address, which will only add to the issues that already exist in your relationship.

3. Most couples try to find a middle ground – a common factor – that will hold them together, and become frustrated when they discover that there is little or nothing there. But this lack of common ground between the two of you doesn’t have to be a bad thing. On the contrary, it could be just the thing you need to develop something new that could make your relationship stronger and better. Discovering each other and learning new things from each other may very well be one of the best things that could happen to you while you are working on the marriage.

People who are working on the marriage tend to become very cautious and careful versions of themselves, and this should never be the case. The more open, honest and clear you are about who you are, what you want from your partner and what you want from your relationship, the better it will be when you are working on the marriage.

Filed Under: After the Affair, Infidelity Coaching, Infidelity Decisions, Infidelity Help, Infidelity Impact, Marriage Makeover, Recovery From Infidelity, Relationship Tips, Relationships: Marriage, Surviving Infidelity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Developing Trust: Share Who You Are to Your Partner

August 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

Does your partner truly know who you are? Do you allow him or her to know you?

Let your partner know who you are completely. Most people get scared or embarrassed to show who they really are to the significant people in their lives, especially their partners.

Trust in any relationship is strengthened by what we know or learn about the other person, but more importantly by what we allow the other person to know about ourselves.

It is not easy to be completely open with someone else. One reason being that we are afraid they won’t accept us, and another being that we may not really know ourselves as much as we think we do. Most of us don’t really take the time to reflect on ourselves and realize what is important to us. We go through our daily lives not really thinking about what we are doing and only focusing on what we have to do. So a lot of us tend to doubt the things we believe in and become afraid of being open about them, even to our partners.

This isn’t exactly what tears down trust in relationships, but it is one of the factors that hinder it from growing deeper. It is best that you make time for yourself every now and then for you to be able to discover or learn things about yourself that you wouldn’t know otherwise.

There is a lot to learn about oneself every day. What dreams and goals do you have in your life? What things drive you toward these goals and dreams? What values are close to your heart or are the most important to you? These are just some of the things you might get to learn about yourself in your reflections. And when you’ve found out something new about yourself, share it with your partner or other people who are closest to you. Trust them with this information about you.

It may not be easy to do, but try to find the courage to open yourself up and allow the people in your life to get to know you better. This will not only deepen the relationship and trust you have in each other, it will also generate respect from your partner.

Filed Under: Infidelity Coaching, Infidelity Decisions, Infidelity Fears, Infidelity Help, Marriage Makeover, Relationship Tips, Relationships: Marriage Tagged With: , , , , ,
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