Healing After Infidelity: Is Trust Possible Again?

Discovering that your husband or wife cheated on you, and making the decisions that will make healing after infidelity possible, can be one of the most difficult times you can experience. And the one issue that almost everyone goes through when this happens is figuring out if they are capable of letting this betrayal go and trust their partner again.

They always want to know whether they can go back to the way it was before the cheating happened and be able to trust their husband or wife the same way, or if they will be paranoid and cautious about what everything their partner is doing.

Making that choice of healing after infidelity and staying in a marriage to rebuild the relationship and the trust that was shattered is a difficult one to make. And there are plenty of things that you need to take care of within yourself and within your relationship before you can be able to make this decision.

The first step in healing after infidelity is always to look into yourself and understanding and realizing what it is that you want to happen in your life. Envision your life, and look at where you want it go and who you want to be with then you get there.

What would it mean for you to trust your partner again? What would it require of you? What would it require of your partner? What are the things that you need to happen for you to be able to trust your partner again? What are the things you think you need to make healing after infidelity possible for you? And what changes do you need to see in yourself before you can be able to do that?

Think about these things and once you’ve figured out the answers to these questions, communicate them to your partner. Talk about what you need from each other, and once you’ve done that, decide whether you can provide each other these needs. If you decide that healing after infidelity and staying together to work things out is what you want, then both of you need to make a conscious decision and effort to do everything you can do to restore the trust you lost.

But always be mindful of what is happening in your life at the moment as well. Don’t just focus on healing after infidelity and providing what your husband or wife needs from you. Always pay attention to your present and trust your instincts. Do not put your pain and suffering at the core of everything you are doing. It may not be easy, but this is what you need to do.

Make clear decisions on things that you will and will not tolerate when it comes to your partner. Be aware of what is going on in his or her life, and how it affects you and the marriage you are trying to rebuild. Set limits. And let him or her know what those limits are. Most importantly when it comes to healing after infidelity, stick to those limits.

How Do You Know If Your Spouse is Cheating?

A cheating spouse sees sexual encounters as conquests that he or she needs to pile up, so it’s very common for there to be more than one other person.

Usually, that relationship only lasts for a night up to maybe a few weeks at most. These relationships are not established to form some kind of intimacy or romance. The sole purpose of these relationships is to satisfy his or her sexual urges.

Seeing as how your partner wants the affair to happen, he or she will experience little to no internal turmoil or conflict regarding his or her actions. This is the main difference between the I don’t want to say no type of affair and the other six types, especially that of I can’t say no. Your partner believes that he or she actually deserves to be cheating and play around, to have the affair or affairs that he or she is having, and that it’s not wrong at all to indulge in his or her urges.

You will notice that the people around your partner like friends or people from work will, most often than not, remind you of him or her. This is because your partner will actually find people who will encourage and support him or her in doing the things he or she is doing. They will be in their little bubble, telling each other that cheating and everything else they’re doing is right and they shouldn’t be sorry for it.

There is also the possibility that you will have encounters with the other person or other persons that your partner is cheating with. You don’t really know what kind of promises your partner is giving these other people to keep them from leaving him or her. There are some people who would really believe in those promises, and would not be above hurting you or getting you out of the way to make those promises reality.

When you discover that he or she is cheating, don’t expect to hear any talk of divorce or separation. You will not experience plenty of conflict either. Your partner will not want to do anything that will mean losing you because he or she wants you there to keep the balance in his life. Although he or she wants to play around and be with other people, your partner looks to you to provide the quiet, family life that he or she is comfortable and familiar with.

One thing that could be a problem, though, is getting older. Your partner could have that mind set where he or she deserves to be with someone young and attractive – that he or she needs to be with someone like that – to prove that he or she is in turn young and attractive. And if he or she deems you to be incapable of providing that specific need, then there is a huge possibility that he or she will look for someone else who will.

Lastly, you will notice his or her fear and hatred of failure, and he or she will do everything just to avoid it. The idea of getting everything you want and not having to ask for anything drives your partner, and he or she will not think twice about bending the rules to achieve just that. But when the consequences of his cheating and all his other actions catch up to him or her, you will be expected to be there, supporting him or her, holding his or her hand through everything and helping to build himself up again.

Letting Go of Old Resentments to Save the Marriage and Yourself

There are plenty of people who go through their lives without really sorting out their problems and old resentments. They ignore the importance of resolving these problems before moving on with their lives, and downplay how these problems affect them.

This can be very evident in couples who are trying to patch things up in their marriage after infidelity. Couples who decide to “forget about everything and just start over” usually don’t go anywhere. In most cases, what happens is that all the old resentments and problems that they encountered in their past go with them to the new relationship they’re trying to build and it all happens all over again. When nothing is resolved, everything will remain the same even if you decide to let go of your past. This is what Stephen Covey meant when he said that “old resentments never die.”

It doesn’t even necessarily have to happen with the same person who you have problems with. There are those who are either separated or divorced from their spouses who take these old resentments with them in their new relationships with other people. Although the details or specifics are not exactly the same, there could be similarities with the circumstances that could be related specifically to the past.

So how do you stop yourself from hanging onto old resentments?

First of all, you need to identify what it is that makes you remember those problems and all the negative feelings associated with them. Whenever you start getting that bad feeling or are reminded of those old resentments, try to notice what it is that triggered it – who made it happen, when, and what events or circumstances led you to feeling that way? Identifying the problem is the first step to solving it. Look into yourself and try to get as specific as possible with regards to these triggers.

Once you know what those triggers and other details are, compare the differences of the circumstances of the past and the present. What happened in the past that created these problems and issues in you? Why are these old resentments bothering you now? Should they still be bothering you now? What’s different from now and then? Knowing the difference of what was in the past and what is in the present is a vital key in resolving these issues.

One more important thing that you have to deal with is to forgive the person who caused these issues and old resentments in the first place. You won’t ever be able to truly move forward with your life and into a new relationship if you continue to hold a grudge against the person who hurt you. Accept that all the things you went through with that person occurred and are a part of your life, and that you can’t change any of them. Learn from these experiences and forgive the ones that hurt you in any way. Only then will you be able to really let go of your old resentments and open yourself up to a new relationship and a new life.