Is Keeping your Infidelity a Secret Really the Best Decision?

September 20, 2012 by 1 Comment

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.

Filed Under: After the Affair, Infidelity and Tolerations, Infidelity Coaching, Infidelity Decisions, Infidelity Fears, Infidelity Help, Infidelity Impact, Marriage Makeover, Recovery From Infidelity, Relationship Tips, Relationships: Marriage, Stopping the Affair, Surviving Infidelity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Developing Trust: Share Who You Are to Your Partner

August 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

Does your partner truly know who you are? Do you allow him or her to know you?

Let your partner know who you are completely. Most people get scared or embarrassed to show who they really are to the significant people in their lives, especially their partners.

Trust in any relationship is strengthened by what we know or learn about the other person, but more importantly by what we allow the other person to know about ourselves.

It is not easy to be completely open with someone else. One reason being that we are afraid they won’t accept us, and another being that we may not really know ourselves as much as we think we do. Most of us don’t really take the time to reflect on ourselves and realize what is important to us. We go through our daily lives not really thinking about what we are doing and only focusing on what we have to do. So a lot of us tend to doubt the things we believe in and become afraid of being open about them, even to our partners.

This isn’t exactly what tears down trust in relationships, but it is one of the factors that hinder it from growing deeper. It is best that you make time for yourself every now and then for you to be able to discover or learn things about yourself that you wouldn’t know otherwise.

There is a lot to learn about oneself every day. What dreams and goals do you have in your life? What things drive you toward these goals and dreams? What values are close to your heart or are the most important to you? These are just some of the things you might get to learn about yourself in your reflections. And when you’ve found out something new about yourself, share it with your partner or other people who are closest to you. Trust them with this information about you.

It may not be easy to do, but try to find the courage to open yourself up and allow the people in your life to get to know you better. This will not only deepen the relationship and trust you have in each other, it will also generate respect from your partner.

Filed Under: Infidelity Coaching, Infidelity Decisions, Infidelity Fears, Infidelity Help, Marriage Makeover, Relationship Tips, Relationships: Marriage Tagged With: , , , , ,

Trust Building: Focusing on Your Needs and Not Your Partner’s

July 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Trust building  in relationships is very tricky to do especially when something wrong has been done in the relationship by either of the partners. When this happens,  what do you do to earn trust back and make it stronger than before?

Do not be afraid to let your needs be known. This is especially true in situations where one person in the relationship feels the other backing or pulling away from him. Most of the  time, in cases like this, the person who doesn’t feel like his partner is paying attention to him or the marriage goes on an all out crusade to win his partner back.

He does everything he can, everything he thinks his partner wants from him, providing her every need, all in the hopes that she will come back to him. But what usually happens is that she starts to feel smothered by all the attention, or even resentful that he is only doing this now that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, and his efforts to try to win her back backfires. It doesn’t work. Because his motive, whether consciously done or not, of meeting her every need in the hopes that she will return the favor and meet his, doesn’t work. At the end of the day, this kind of tactic is still manipulation. And manipulation is not how you go about in trust building.

The thing is, she avoids or prevents herself from confronting him about this because he is being so nice and caring. And all this avoiding and pretending destroys the trust in the relationship.

So rather than focusing all the attention on your partner, focus on you instead and assess what your needs are that you want your partner to meet. This is one of the ways you can start re-developing the trust you lost in your marriage. Let your needs be known clearly and directly, but always be open to hear out your partner’s needs as well. Be self-centered, but not selfish.

Filed Under: Infidelity Help, Marriage Makeover, Personal stuff, Relationship Tips, Relationships: Marriage Tagged With: , , , , ,
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