Saturday, August 20, 2011

3 Steps to Surviving Infidelity and Regain an Emotional Connection

One of the most important elements in surviving infidelity in your marriage and begin the healing process is to deepen your emotional connection with your spouse. If both spouses are not committed to working on maintaining and strengthening their connection to one another, it makes it almost impossible to move forward.

Right now you might not think that it's possible to get an emotional connection back with your spouse, or maybe it's too soon for you to think about it. You might be asking yourself, "My marriage is a mess, how can we ever get it back?" Or maybe you don't want to move forward because you feel like it will be letting him off the hook too easily.

After a spouse cheats, the other spouse might doubt that they can achieve a strong and trusting relationship again. Is it possible to trust somebody again? It won't happen overnight, it will most likely take months, but if you're willing to try to get that emotional connection back, you could be on the road to an even more satisfying relationship that you had hoped. You have to decide to not let the affair define you or your marriage. You can move past it.

Here are 3 steps to help you begin to get that emotional connection back.

Step 1: Complete, 100% Honesty

The first rule to getting the emotional connection back in your marriage is complete honesty. You can't learn to trust each other if you have any doubts. It does no good to say "It's nothing, everything is fine." We've all heard that before, and did we believe it? No. But we've all let that comment slide by a time or two. All that does is make you question the honesty of the person that said it. By following the rule of 100% honesty, there won't be any doubt on either spouse's mind during the conversation.

Step 2: Set the Ground Rules for Questions

After the commitment of 100% honesty, there might be some questions that you can't yet handle the truthful answers to. Or, there's the temptation to ask a question that you already know the answer to, but want him to say it out loud so you can rub his nose in it. Is it satisfying? Yes. Is it helpful to moving on in your relationship and start the healing? No. If your goal is to move beyond the infidelity, you and your spouse will need to come up with a list of questions that are okay to ask. You can start small, you're not trying to take over the world here, you're just trying to start an honest dialogue.

Step 3: Arrange a "Talk" Date

It may sound a little silly, but let's be honest. You could possibly be at the point to where you don't even want to look at your spouse, let alone talk to them. Maybe you're fine right now relegating him to a different part of the house. You might even be thinking, "What's the point of talking to him because I'm not going to believe a word out of his mouth anyways?" That's a totally valid point, but if you've committed to doing Step 1 and Step 2, then Step 3 is where you can put them in action, and start to remove the doubts.

Talking to your spouse after an infidelity is not going to be 100% productive all the time, especially at the start. By arranging a talk date, you can both prove to each other that you're committed to the repair of the relationship. This happens just by you showing up. Setting a date also helps both of you to prepare yourselves mentally and emotionally to having an open conversation. You both come to the table for the specific reason to talk, and with that, you can each focus better on each other.

Getting an emotional connection back with your spouse after an infidelity will take work. The connection was damaged before the infidelity, during, and now after. The 3 steps of 100% honesty, setting ground rules, and arranging a time to talk, will take time and patience to implement. If done, you will now be able to move your marriage forward, surviving the infidelity, and emotionally connecting with one another.


Infidelity All Rights Reserved

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Blog Archive