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.