Most people believe that cheating
is a surefire way to end your marriage. Affairs happen with such
frequency that the divorce stats would be even higher if that were the
case, says Rosalind S. Dorlen,
a clinical psychologist, who is affiliated with Overlook Medical Center
in Summit, N.J. Some studies suggest that 45 percent of marriages
experience an affair, and others are even higher, she adds.
While affairs
certainly put committed relationships in crisis, they can actually
signal a new beginning rather than an end. "Sometimes, affairs can be a
trigger - a wake-up call if you will - to repair the marriage, says
Dorlen, who has been married more than 40 years.
If both people are committed to moving forward with the marriage
and putting the affair behind them, then the marriage can survive and
maybe even come out stronger. But there's lots of work to do - by both
partners - to make it work. Here are the steps to keeping your marriage
intact after one of you has been cheating:
1. You must end the affair.
To most
this seems like a no brainer. But some spouses think they can keep up
both relationships after the affair comes to the light. If you're
serious about saving your marriage, then you have to completely end the
other relationship. This means that you have no more contact with this
other person - no texts, no chats, no phone calls, no meetings. If you
work with this person, then you get another job. It's that simple and
that extreme because you have to be done with this relationship and
focus on your marriage. There must be an honest commitment to end the
affair, says Dorlen, or the marriage is doomed.
2. Get over the resentment.
This is one of the most challenging aspects of recovery. Certainly, the faithful spouse has anger to work through both toward the offending spouse and his or her ex. Even if the ex is no longer part of their lives, he or she has had an impact and that anger can be poisonous.
You have to get it out. But what most don't realize is that the
offending spouse is often even more upset and full of resentment than
the, for lack of a better term, victim.
No one ever wants to take responsibility, says Dorlen. "Affairs happen because people need to outsource what's taking place in their marriage,"
she adds. In other words, the offending spouse felt the marriage was in
some way lacking, and the victim needs to fess up to the role he or she
played. For instance, a husband, whose wife repeatedly rejected him
sexually, turned to a colleague, who admired him and pumped up his
weakening confidence. Their relationship developed into a sexual affair,
and now the married couple is trying to pick up the pieces.
Talking
about why the affair happened and coming up with a plan to address
those issues is how couples free themselves of the anger. The answers
are different for every couple. For some, it means spicing up their sex
life or working on reasons that sex wasn't satisfying one of them. For
others, it is about spending quality time together and injecting a
little fun into a marriage that had grown stale. The approach is unique
to the couple.
3. Rebuild trust.
After any sort of betrayal, couples have to learn to trust
each other again. This is particularly hard on victims of affairs, who
initially have to simply have faith that their spouses are going to
re-commit to their marriage vows. While being suspicious of a spouse -
and acting on it - before an affair can come off as jealousy or even
craziness, it is perfectly natural afterward. Not only should offending
partners expect their spouse to check their phones and e-mail and
question them about their whereabouts or any out-of-the-ordinary
behavior, they should offer up the info themselves. Frankly, those who
have been scorned would be foolish not to do a little research and
investigation in the days just after an affair, says Dorlen. Still, it's
possible to get back to good despite the affair.
"There must be a
real wish to stay together and improve the relationship," she adds. "If
you fix what needs to be fixed, you have a good chance of staying
together."
By Francesca Di Meglio
Newlyweds Expert
