Fixing Your Marriage After Infidelity: How Do You Do It?

I receive a lot of emails asking me if it's really possible to "fix" a marriage after infidelity and, if so, how does one go about doing it? Many of the folks who write me really do want to make their marriages work and are doing their best to navigate all of the negative issues that infidelity brings, but they aren't sure how to go about doing this and often their spouses do not believe in their sincerity. So, in the following article, I'll tell you what I believe (based on my own experience and research) is vital if you want your marriage to be one ofthe ones that is able to rebound and survive after infidelity.

Sincerity Is The First Step In Fixing The Marriage After The Cheating: I can not stress what I am about the say enough. Both parties must be absolutely 100% sincere in their commitment to making things work. I would say to the spouse who cheated that most of the responsibility of fixing this lies with you and you must take this very seriously. Your spouse can tell if your heart is really in it or if it is not. If you are even remotely on the fence about your commitment to this person and to your marriage, then you should absolutely wait and evaluate your feelings before you hurt them again.

You must absolutely and completely be over the other person. Ideally, you would have cut all ties with them. If you're not yet at this place, do not ask your spouse to trust in you or work with you on the marriage. This is just too much to ask. If you ask them to place their trust in you again and then you betray them again (even by not telling the whole truth or conveniently omitting things) then you are doing much more damage than good. In order to really fix this mess, they are eventually going to need to trust you again. Don't ask them to do this until you are sure that you are trustworthy.

Helping Them To Trust You Again: If you've read this far, then I'll assume that you are sincere and trustworthy.The next step then is making your spouse believe that they can believe what you say. I must tell you that sometimes this just takes time. But you can help this along by being accountable. You can offer up "proof" of your trustworthiness. Hand over your cell phone. Give them your email and computer passwords. Take them with you on errands and outings when possible. Offer reassurance and reaffirm your commitment regularly. Don't tell them that you're going to be one place and then be somewhere else. They must be able to confirm what you've said on a constant basis. Because the first time they catch you in even a little white lie, alarm bells are going to ring and you've j ust made your job that much harder.

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