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.

Charging Neutral to Develop Trust After Infidelity

Trust after infidelity is very difficult to achieve, but what can you do to make things a little better?

Marriages that have been affected by extramarital affairs will always have a difficult time rebuilding the trust in that’s lost in the relationship. An important aspect that you will have to concentrate on fixing is the way you communicate with each other, especially when there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved which is most likely.

A great way to start rebuilding trust after infidelity this is to charge neutral. The act of charging neutral means that you become aware of how you communicate with your partner, and control it in a way where you will be able to convey what you want to say in a direct, honest and calm manner.

A lot of people have a hard time controlling what they say, especially in the heat of the moment. You can find a lot of different kinds of exercises that you can try to keep this from happening from books or even on other relationship blogs on the internet.

Charging neutral means that you keep yourself from reacting to whatever it is that your partner is saying or doing to you. To develop trust after infidelity, instead of yelling back, being defensive or sarcastic, making snide or rude comments, you remain calm in both your tone and attitude, and you say what it is that you have to say without creating more problems than you already have.

When you remain calm in addressing your problems, you will be able to bring up even your biggest problems out in the open for you to work on without causing a lot of drama. And the best part is, your partner will be able to see the control and the personal power that you have. He or she will be able to rely on this control and trust that you will be able to get through any issues you might have because of it. He or she will know that you will be able to stay calm no matter what, and that you will remain honest and truthful.

Hiding the Details of Infidelity

When infidelity strikes your marriage, do you want your partner to hide it from you? Or for him or her to tell you all about it?

If you find out that your partner is having an extramarital affair, your initial reaction is to ask about the details of what went on during his or her infidelity, where and when.

But what if your partner doesn’t tell you what you want to know? There could be a number of different reasons behind this, and here are a couple of them. Take a look and see if either one fits your situation.

 

1. Some affairs are caused by kind of a dependency issue on the offender’s side, especially in cases where the type of affair is “I fell out of love” or “I want to be close to someone.”

In these cases of infidelity, your partner tends to keep the details of his or her affair from you for fear of how you would react. Your partner cares too much if you’ll get angry or hate him or her for the things he or she did, so he or she ends up not telling you anything at all.

2. If your partner, on the other hand, is involved in an “I can’t say no” affair, his or her reasons for not opening up about his or her infidelity could be totally different.

He or she is hiding these details because he or she is ashamed and guilty over the things he or she did. Your partner doesn’t want you to know what happened because he or she knows how wrong it was and he or she wants to keep those details from you so you won’t get hurt.

There could be plenty of other reasons why your partner would choose to keep the details of his or her infidelity from you. They depend on a lot of factors, some of which include the type of affair he or she went through, the state of your relationship and his or her personal problems. Whatever it is, you have to know and understand the circumstances that lead to your partner’s infidelity to be able to determine how you will get him or her to talk to you about it.