After the Affair: Healing the Marriage

January 8, 2009 by Leave a Comment

What do couples do to heal the marriage after the affair? One of my readers wrote what worked best for them:

First “I” sat myself down and asked myself if saving my marriage was what I really wanted or was the pain of the affair blocking my judgment. Second; We, my husband and I took a long drive to a park over looking a river. There we calmly listened to each other; step by step he reveled what happened and from there we began to heal. Third; it is now almost four years later, we are enjoying a new kind of life with each other, bought a boat we always wanted and a new home. We kept family and friends out of our process of healing; to much advice is not a good thing. This was the hardest thing I had ever done, still at times I feel like walking away yet I know it is only my ego that is hurt, he after all stayed with me not her. I had not begged or demanded for his return, I just kept talking to myself; who knows me better than ME?. After A four year affair, things have turned out to be a strange blessing, my husband and I have never been so interested in what the other is doing, it is pretty nice knowing he finally wants to know about my day. One last thing; DO NOT bring up the affair after you have had that long talk at your favorite place, get out all the questions you feel you need to know at that time and let the rest go……….if you don’t you wont be able to end the affair for either of you!

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Healing after Infidelity: 2 Critical Factors

December 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment

In this case study the person talks about the importance and effectiveness of charging neutral – a skill I coach and teach and vital to coping with infidelity.

What helps makes charging neutral effective for her are two critical factors:

1. Her spouse seems to be pretty much on board in terms of wanting to repair the marriage. Taking her reactivity out of the equations helps the healing process. This can be true for an emotional infidelity or other types of affairs.

2. She talks about her affair years earlier. This fact gives her empathy and understanding for the plight of her husband. Charging neutral then is an easier skill to employ.

After my initial shock of finding out my husband had been having an affair for about 2 years and after I acted like most people yelling screaming throwing things. I stood back and decided I really wanted our marriage to work. He had made the decision to break away from the affair when I did discover about it so I think that sort of made it easier for me. I think I used the “charging Neutral”method by sitting down with him and acting very cool and just stating the way I felt and what we both must do to try and make it work. I stated the facts like we have been married for 30 years and we do still have a good relationship that we can make it happen again as long as he wants to. I had also had an affair 10 years ago and at that time I told him face to face he did not find out any other way just me telling him. So we bought that up again and discussed the fact that he felt like me all that time again and we made it work again once so why not this time. Maybe my circumstances are a little different to most but it has now been 2 years since his affair was discovered and I think we are through it. I do still get moments where I want to check a few things out to make sure he has really made a clean break but I think that is normal!

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Practical Tips on Healing the Marriage after Infidelity

November 19, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Healing the marriage after infidelity is a daunting task.

Read these practical tips on how to heal the marriage after the affair:

1. List 2-3 things you did to help you as a couple heal the wound.

Wound STILL healing but holiday away together helped us. Text messaging each other just once a day with ‘how’s your day going’ type comment makes me feel like he cares again. Breaking out of our routine and being spontaneous – just going out for a weekday meal instead of arguing over who was going to cook it (and leaving food in fridge, chores etc when HE suggests it)

1. Talking about the affair. 2. Finding time to be together 3. Read your book and Dr Gunsburg’s books and articles.

Initially split and took time living apart to understand each other, “dated” during this period so we were not allowed to be judgmental. This helped us both regain our self confidence, and see what it was in each other that initially attracted us. When we got back together we allocated specific times when we could ask each other questions, sometimes hurtful, but we had to promise to listen and not be reactionary or judging.

1. Told my husband that our marriage was over, and that what we were working on is a new relationship. With all the expectations of any new relationship, and we have both put together a list of non-negotiable rules for the new relationship. 2. We each have a notebook in our bedside tables to list good/bad issues in, and we discuss them each Tuesday night, when we have a two hour break from children in the house. 3. I have learned to “bite my tongue” rather than become angry when he says he doesn’t know why he had an affair, that he has always loved me (!) and is sooooo sorry for what he did. It is just not helpful to tell him that if he loved me he would not ever have hurt me the way he has. I am learning accept that he doesn’t really know what he got out of the affair. 4. We accept that our marriage became bogged down in achieving material wealth (both of us), me helping our son who has a learning difficulty, running our business etc. Our relationship lost its romance and intimacy – and was not ever based on trust. I accept that no marriage will ever be truly happy under those circumstances.

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