The question that I first think about is: What do you want him/her to talk about?
And most people, when they discover that their partner is having an affair, need to
talk to their cheating partner about the affair. They need to know.

There’s a desire to know: How bad is it? What am I up against? They need to know
about the relationship. What’s this relationship like? What is it about and what’s
happening in this relationship that hasn’t happened with us?

Those are some typical underlying questions that a person wants to get at. Or when
they say, “I can’t get him or her to talk, ” they want to pull from him or her some
kind of assurance, some kind of affirmation, some kind of hope that the marriage,
perhaps, is still intact – or that, at some level, there’s still a desire for the
cheating partner to, perhaps, look at rebuilding the marriage. So those are
typically underneath the question: How do I get him or her to talk?

Let’s look, briefly, at reasons why the cheating spouse clams up or finds it
difficult to talk. First of all, the cheating spouse may be suffering from guilt or
shame. One part of them may feel terribly badly about what’s happening, and so they
believe that if they start talking to you about it, they’re going to be scolded or
somehow made to feel awful about what they’re doing.

Another reason a cheating spouse may clam up is that s/he is not a very good
communicator. S/he is not very good at disclosing or engaging someone in effective
communication.

And a person then says to me, “Well, they obviously have good communication going on
in the affair relationship. Why can’t he or she do it with me?”

And I typically reply by saying, “Affair relationships have very, very poor
communication in reality.”

And they say, “What?”

And I say, “In essence, communication in an affair relationship is based upon
building up the illusions each have.” So it’s not really effective communication;
it’s communication that each wants to hear to build illusions of who he or she
thinks he or she is.

Another reason that the cheating spouse my clam up is that you may be a better
communicator. You may be verbally more precise or more sophisticated. Your partner
may feel like he or she is one down to you; and therefore, may feel inadequate in
terms of engaging in communication with you, or may feel trapped communicating
because there’s a sense that you’re one up.

Here are some tips of how you can open the lines of communication.

Briefly, I have three tips.

Number one is: Never ask a question. I’m not going to get into the reasons for that
right now, but rule number one is: Never ask a question.

Instead of saying, “Will you pass me the potatoes?” say, “I want the potatoes.” Now
think about that and try to apply that to your situation.

Rule number two: Never use the word “you” when talking to your spouse.

This is extremely difficult to do, but it ties into rule number one. Never use the
word “you”. Instead, you want to make short, declarative statements, which get at
the truth. That will be your most powerful communication, and then you wait and see
what kind of response your spouse will give to your declarations.

And remember that if your partner was not a good communicator or talked much before,
he or she probably is not going to talk a great deal now.

In that case, you might have to be aware of body language. Notice body language
closely or the various types of non-verbal communication, which give cues and clues.

Getting him or her to talk is a very complex situation, but three rules, again.
Never ask a question. Never use the word “you”. And pay attention to body language
if you can’t get anything else.

Video: http://www.break-free-from-the-affair.com/blog/?s=get+him%2Fher+to+talk%3F

My response is very direct. You can’t. You cannot stop the affair.

The affair was his or her decision in the first place. He or she chose to have an
affair. And it must be his or her decision to stop the affair, not yours.

Let’s take a look at this scenario. If you had the power to stop the affair, if you
made him or her stop the affair, what would you have? You would have someone who
would be with you because they had to be with you, not because they wanted to be
with you. And of course, who wants that?

But you can influence the course and the progression of an affair. Let me explain
that a little bit more. I would say about 80 percent of the people that I talk to
who are having the affair – the cheating spouse, the cheating husband, the cheating
wife – 80 percent of those know that the affair is not really what they want.

Most of them know that the affair is not going to work out in the long run. Most of
them know that they are on the slippery slope of self-destruction, and they see it
happening frequently. And most of them know that the affair relationship is
temporary. It will only last for a certain length of time. This is especially true
for types of affairs, “I want to get back at him or her”; “I need to prove my
desirability”; and the third kind, “I fell out of love and just love being in love.”

Those affairs are temporary and the person involved in the affair typically knows
that it is temporary. So 80 percent of the people out there having an affair,
really, one part of them doesn’t want to have it. So what you can do is you can
employ very subtle, very indirect methods of influencing the course of the affair
and the progression of the affair.

And I outline things that you can do in my e-book, “Break Free from the Affair”; I
take each of the seven kinds of affairs that I outline, and provide strategies and
tactics for each kind of affair. Once you employ these strategies and tactics, you
can influence the direction of the affair, not directly but indirectly.

Video: http://www.break-free-from-the-affair.com/blog/?s=stop+affair

The first way to help minimize the pain is to not try to get rid of it, but to
acknowledge it. Acknowledge your pain. Know that it’s there. Know that it’s going to
be there. For example, you’re in the process of losing your world, or a great
portion of your world.

Your sexual identity is at stake here. You wonder about yourself as a person, as a
sexual person. So, you’re going to have pain. And as well, you feel ripped off. You
feel like someone has invaded that which is sacred and that which is private. You
feel like you’ve been raped. So, in every sense of the word your pain is normal.
It’s OK. It’s there.

The second way to look at the pain is to know that your pain is telling you that you
want something. Your pain is distress, which is saying to you, “Something is
extremely, extremely important to me that I don’t have, and I want it.” So pain, in
some ways, is an indicator of lack. Just pay attention to that, and ask yourself,
“What is my pain telling me in terms of that which I want most desperately, most
dearly?”

Another way to get rid of the pain is to learn about infidelity. Now, most people
don’t know much about infidelity at all, other than what you see on TV, or in
romantic movies, or over the grocery counters in tabloids. So dig in, and learn a
lot about infidelity.

I have people write me, email me, talk to me, call me constantly about how they felt
relief. How they felt the pain kind of fade away once they read my eBook “Break Free
From The Affair,” and discover that there’s seven kinds of affairs, and affairs are
very complicated.

And in a certain kind of affair you can do certain things, and in other kinds of
affairs you do other things. All of that was really, really helpful in opening a
whole new world and minimizing the pain.

Another thing you can do is get support. I have a chat room online. I have a support
group online, and every so often people email me again to say, “the chat room has
saved my life,” or “the support group has really, really helped me because I no
longer feel like I’m alone in this awful, terrible process.” So, seek out support
wherever that may be for you.

Another thing that I sometimes recommend in terms of dealing with the pain is to get
a timer. A kitchen timer will do, any simple timer, and set it for two minutes. And
when you feel the pain most intently, get out a piece of paper and pencil and write
down everything you’re thinking and everything you’re feeling. When the two minutes
is up, put it aside. Say to yourself, OK, I’ve paid attention to my pain. Now, I
have to go and do something else.

And later on, 5, 10 minutes, two hours later, you start to feel that pain again. Get
your timer and go through the same process. It will give you a sense of being in
control of the pain, and acknowledging the pain and seeing the patterns of the pain
at the same time.

The last thing you can do is if you’re really, really scared, and if the pain seems
overwhelming and you’re fearful sometimes that you might kill yourself. Or you have
those thoughts and you’re not sure that you can control those thoughts, get some
professional help. See your doctor. See a psychiatrist. See a psychologist. See
someone who can, perhaps, give you medication. There’s nothing wrong with that for
temporarily addressing the pain in your life.

Video: http://www.break-free-from-the-affair.com/blog/?s=rid+of+pain