Is Keeping your Infidelity a Secret Really the Best Decision?

A problem that people who have had affairs always have to face is making the decision whether to keep their infidelity a secret or tell their spouses about it.

No matter how many of their friends or family or anyone else they ask advice from regarding this, the only person who can make the decision is themselves. But what are the things that you need to consider before deciding whether or not they should continue to keep infidelity a secret?

Of course, everyone is aware of the obvious and potential consequences that could happen once an extramarital affair is revealed. But there are some things that could happen that you need to consider if you’re thinking of keeping your infidelity a secret from your spouse.

You may think that it would be easier to keep your infidelity a secret from your spouse, but in relationships where secrets are kept from one another, especially for a long period of time, certain changes occur that would degrade the relationship.

Communication, for example, would become limited to the topics that you are comfortable with because you will do anything to try to avoid getting discovered. And even when you think you are doing a good job of keeping your infidelity a secret, your spouse will know that something is going on.

When this happens, the relationship becomes swallowed in this hole of deception and lies that will not be easy to get out of. And it is more likely that all the lying and mistrust that will develop in your relationship will cause its demise, rather than the extramarital affair itself. So whether or not you reveal or keep your infidelity a secret from your partner, there is still a very big possibility that you will both end up hurting each other.

You have to remember that it’s not always the obvious things that can hurt a relationship. Sometimes – most of the time, actually – a strain in communication is enough to cause major problems, especially if it happens for a long time.

So before deciding not to reveal your infidelity, you have to make sure that you will actually be able to hide it from your spouse for the rest of your life. Otherwise, it would be a much wiser choice to come clean and accept the consequences of your actions rather than to continue keeping your infidelity a secret.

Sexual Addiction: How Does it Cause Extramarital Affairs?

A kind of extramarital affair that is becoming more and more common is one related to sexual addiction. The one having the affair has a hard time saying no and instead, feels obligated to say yes when it comes to sex.

Although we all have our limits when it comes to affairs, and will, at some point, eventually say no and mean it, there are those who have a difficult time at doing so. Not because they want to continue the affair, but because they have a hard time saying no to it.

This is why sexual addiction and infidelity that is caused by it is very hard to fix, because it’s difficult to separate one from the other completely unless the addiction is addressed.

In this two-part article about the relationship between sexual addiction and infidelity, you will learn a few identifiers that will help you point out whether or not you should suspect sexual addiction as the cause of your partner’s infidelity, or if it is a different type of affair caused by other factors.

Here are some things that you should take note of:

1. The other person or persons are only seen as objects for personal gratification. Your partner does not develop a real relationship with him or her, and no true intimacy is developed. He or she is used merely for sex.

2. Your partner’s sexual addiction may have stemmed from an experience from childhood that he or she had a difficult time to cope with and hadn’t completely resolved yet – usually sexual abuse in some form.

3. Sex, to your partner, has a heightened role or value in your relationship. The need for sexual gratification is great and should be acted upon frequently. Also, other activities related to sex such as watching porn, going to strip clubs, or having multiple sexual partners is very common.

For more signs of sexual addiction, check back in a few days for the second part of this post.

Simple Ways That You Can Build Trust In Your Marriage

Trust in another person is very hard to gain,  but once you have it, it can be the best thing in the world. So what are the easiest ways you can do build and develop the trust you and your partner have in each other and in your marriage?

Here are just some of the many things you can try:

1. It’s important for you, when it comes to building trust in your relationship, to continue to do or say the things that you did when your relationship began as it goes on. This continuity or consistency will be something that your partner will sort of depend on because he or she will be able to know or expect what you will do in a given situation.

2. Never make any sudden changes, especially in your individual or personal life, without letting your partner know about them. Changes that appear out of the blue especially in your behavior and actions tend to cause doubt and suspicion, and put a dent in your partner’s trust in you.

3. The saying “actions speak louder than words” is very apt in building trust in a relationship. Saying one thing but doing something different is one of the main causes of distrust in any relationship. It also sends the message that you are unreliable and dishonest, which aren’t good qualities in a partner.

4. Never underestimate your partner. Sometimes, when you deal with crises or problems in your life, you usually keep it from your partner because you want to “protect” him or her from it, but this usually backfires. What you see as “protection” usually translates as mistrust to your partner, like you think that he or she is incapable of handling whatever it is that you are going through.

5. Keeping things from your partner, whatever those things may be, is something that should be done with plenty of caution. Most people in relationships believe that everything should be shared between the couple, that there shouldn’t be any secrets, and any information left out is something to be suspicious of.

6. People believe that the only way to nourish or nurture a relationship is to provide your partner’s needs continually, but this is only true to a certain level. Just as it is important for you to provide your partner’s needs, it is also important that your partner provides yours. So make sure that you let your partner know what those needs are. Building trust means knowing that both of you will be there to provide what the other needs.

7. Allow yourself time for self-discovery and reflection. Knowing yourself well is just as important as knowing your partner. Giving yourself time to learn who you truly are will allow you to discover things that you probably never knew. And all the things you find out about yourself, you can share with your partner so that he or she too can know more about you.

8. Allow yourself to say no. There are a lot of people who will ask a lot of things from you, even your partner. Saying no doesn’t always mean that you don’t want to help or that you are a bad person. Saying no means that you are choosing to do something for yourself rather than for another person.

9. Being able to charge neutral in cases of infidelity will benefit you greatly in the long run. Charging neutral means that you keep being consistent in your communication with your partner, you tell him or her what you’re feeling about a certain situation honestly and directly, and you don’t react by bursting whenever you hear something you don’t like or don’t agree with.

10. Do not stray away from a little conflict in your relationship. Avoiding confronting your problems or concerns tend to lead to resentment and is never good for relationships. Although fights are always ugly, sometimes they are necessary for the relationship to be able to function properly.