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Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Staying Together after Infidelity

This is really tough to do and, ironically, you may find yourself having to defend the choice to stay. Your friends and relatives will tell you to just end the marriage. But you love him…or you have a history and/or kids together. Maybe you secretly think this is all your fault.

I'm going to have to disagree . You don’t have that kind of power.

Infidelity not only rips up the intimate fabric of a relationship, it signals that something was wrong in the relationship in the first place. Don’t let yourself believe everything was perfect until one of you woke up one day and decided to do the mattress mambo with someone else.

Infidelity doesn't just spring up in a relationship and moving to heal can be excrutiatingly difficult.

Sometimes you just can’t get over the betrayal of the infidelity and it’s really a personal choice whether you get the heck out or stay and try to fix the relationship. If you’ve still got love in your heart for your mate, stay. But there are a few things to consider if the marriage is going to survive.

Is the affair over? This is a big thing. There’s no point in trying to figure out what went wrong in the marriage if the one who strayed still has one foot in the other camp. You have to let go of the other person(or persons) and put all your focus on the marriage.

Can you work on not beating the cheater up all the time? This is a question only the betrayed spouse can answer, but if you’re too mad and too hurt to seriously reevaluate the marriage, get out. There is an almost universal period of grieving that’s very normal, however. After all, the cheated-on spouse probably never thought this would happen. An affair is a blow. For some time, there’ll be questions. When were you two together? What did you do with her/him? And the big one, do you still see or talk to him/her? If your mate works with the other person and can’t change jobs, this is a big on-going issue.

Can you move beyond the betrayal to actually fix the relationship? This is the goal. If cheating happens, then there are problems in the relationship and, since you sure the heck don’t want a repeat, you’ve got to fix the issues between the two of you. First off, get professional help and make sure the therapist you work with has both a belief that couples can heal after cheating, and experience in aiding this.

Then you start looking for resentment. And estrangement. These are difficult issues because they can imply that somehow the cheating spouse had justification for going outside the marriage. So not true. There is no justification for cheating. It hurts everyone and is destructive on all levels. Even when you think you’re in love with an extra-marital partner, you’re just deluded and lying to yourself.

Healthy, happy relationships don’t start as infidelity. Say you cheat, break up with the spouse and end up married to your lover. Even if you tell yourself that you and your extra-marital flame were soul-mates, you’ve always got guilt looming over you. You, also, have the very real possibility, when things get tough in this relationship, whoever cheated once will do it again. So, don’t think it’s all going to be hunky-dory if you can always be with your lover.

Healing the damaged marriage requires you to look at the issues that broke it down in the first place. You can’t just gloss over the transgression with determination and promises that I’ll never do this again. Look at the problems. Look hard, and find someone who can help you fix these.

If you are both working on the relationship, you need to acknowledge the power shift. Suddenly, the wronged spouse is pure and lily-white and the cheater is dirt. If you stepped out on your spouse and see the massive grief and pain this cause, you will probably find yourself groveling and guilt will be your constant companion. We can’t do much about the guilt--you've earned it--but fixing the relationship requires you both to talk about what was happening to you before the affair. What went wrong.

You have to learn to communicate and to resolve issues. This sounds simple, but it’s massively complicated. Most people don’t know how to resolve issues in a marriage, which is why the divorce rate continues to climb. It can be done, however, if you are both determined to learn how to have a different experience.

Think of this as weight lifting for your character. Staying in a troubled marriage and just tolerating the problems isn’t good for anyone, but fixing it, can be the most amazing, empowering experience in your life.