After the Affair: Barriers in Saving the Marriage

What do you need to know to save the marriage after the affair?

Rebuilding a marriage after the affair is very difficult, even with all of the information you can have, because no matter how much you read on the matter, it will still be your personal barriers that will keep you from making any real changes.

The following are three most common barriers that people encounter while going through this situation after the affair:

1. Your partner refuses to open up and talk about the affair. You try to get him to talk, you ask questions, you try to peel back the layers your partner is hiding from, but you don’t get anywhere. And it seems that the more you ask about it, the more your partner pulls away. You have a hard time trusting him or her, or getting past the betrayal, because you imagine all these things that he or she did with the other person. And the worst part is that you don’t know for sure what happened because your partner refuses to answer your questions about it.

2. You are afraid. You’re scared to demand anything from your partner after the affair for whatever reason, and you try to stay out of his or her way. Maybe you don’t want him or her to feel pressured or stressed by you because you don’t want him or her to find comfort outside your marriage again. You only try to analyze what his or her actions mean and you are never sure if what you think is right or wrong. You keep your struggle inside rather than opening up to your partner what you really feel.

3. You are focused on the other person, and how he or she compares to you. You want to be able to be the person you were before the affair, but you’re just always unsure of yourself now. And it’s worse when your partner isn’t giving any indication of what he wants – whether it’s you or the other person – because it just makes it all the more confusing.

Why Are You Really Staying in the Marriage?

When you discover that your spouse is having an affair, what would be your reasons for staying in the marriage?

A lot of people tend to be confused about what their next step should be when they find out that their partners have been involved in extramarital affairs. There’s the pain and confusion of being betrayed by someone you loved who you thought you could trust. But there is also the hope that everything you worked for and everything you believed was true can still be saved. This is the cause of the internal struggle you experience with infidelity crises — are you leaving or staying in the marriage?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having doubts, and everyone has their reasons for doing so. But if staying in the marriage after the affair is the decision you choose, are you sure that you are doing it for the proper reasons?

The following are some reasons that have come up in some cases. Read through them and find out if you really want to save the marriage or…?

1. Are you tired of confronting your partner and fighting about his or her actions and behavior all the time? Are you tired of always being the one bringing up the conflict in your relationship? Have you decided that it’s much easier staying in the marriage and letting him be rather than fight?

2. Are you hanging onto your religious and moral beliefs of making your marriage work no matter what? Do you feel like you will be judged or ridiculed by your friends or family if you don’t stay in your marriage?

3. Are you only staying together for the kids? Do you think that your kids need you and your partner to be together, even when he or she isn’t behaving the best way? Or that they wouldn’t be able to cope if you weren’t together?

4. Are you afraid of being on your own and starting over without your partner by your side? Does the thought of making decisions on your own and living a new life without your partner scare you?

Common Barriers Faced When Working on the Marriage

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.