Although every relationship is different, these steps are crucial to help restore a broken marriage:
1. First, the affair must end. This includes any and all interaction and communication with the lover. Make a commitment to your spouse to never see or talk to the lover again.
Block potential communication with the lover (change e-mail address, home phone, cell phone, pager, even change jobs and relocate if necessary). True reinvestment of yourself in your marriage can’t happen without this.
2. See a marriage counselor immediately. This is a marital emergency. Find a Christian marriage counselor who will help you restore your marriage.
Seek help from a Pastor or a Marriage Counselor who is experienced in dealing with infidelity. Avoid counselors and therapists who see an affair as the end of marriage.
3. Determine your shared goal. It may take some time to sort out what’s happened and make the decision to move forward and work on healing your relationship.
If and when you both agree that you want to mend your marriage, express that desire to each other. If you both agree on the goal of reconciliation, it is important to know that restoring the marriage will take time, energy and commitment.
4. Accept responsibility and be accountable. If you are the wayward spouse who had the affair, accept responsibility for your actions, whether it was an emotional or physical affair.
If you are the wayward spouse, you should be prepared to have patience, answer questions and make a complete confession. That will be difficult and wearisome.
But a vital part of healing your relationship and restoring trust is being willing to be patient and tell the truth. Your betrayed spouse needs to hear openly and honestly what happened, and to be able to ask questions – no matter how difficult talking or hearing about this may be.
It is important for a betrayed spouse to know the extent of the relationship. For example, was it an emotional attachment, or was there sexual intimacy involved?
5. Talk about it. You both are adjusting to this new reality. Again, understand that you may need the help and objectivity of a marriage counselor to work through the events of the crisis and talk constructively about it.
If you are the betrayed spouse, once the initial shock is over, you may likely need to talk to your spouse several times about what happened. This is normal for a spouse who has experienced betrayal.
It’s only normal for anyone who has experienced betrayal by their spouse to have the need to try and make sense out of a world that was not what it seemed.
6. Identify the issues. Infidelity often reveals underlying problems in your marriage. Examine your relationship to understand what has contributed to the affair.
Seek to understand what each of you needs to do to prevent it from happening again. If you were the spouse who who was betrayed, consider the role you may have played in your spouse’s unhappiness and reasons for straying.
7. Give it time. If you were the one betrayed, you should have the freedom to set the timetable for recovery.
Often the person who has been unfaithful is anxious to “put all of this behind us” to help cope with his or her guilt. Allow each other enough time to understand and heal. I’ve seen estimates that it takes two years to process through all the issues.
8. Forgive. For many people, this is the hardest part of recovering from an affair. Forgiveness isn’t likely to come quickly or easily – it may be a long process. But if you’re committed to your partner and your marriage, forgiveness tends to become easier over time. But forgiveness is not trust.
9. Restore trust. The first step in rebuilding trust is confession and forgiveness and it doesn’t just suddenly return automatically after the betraying spouse confesses and forgiveness is granted.
Trust is something that must be earned and rebuilt, and can only begin after confession has been made and forgiveness granted. Rebuilding trust requires a decision on the part of both spouses. Then both parties need to make a serious commitment to rebuilding the marriage.
The party that was unfaithful needs to take bold initiatives to demonstrate through actions, “I am committed to you.” “You are safe with me.” Go to counseling together to help visibly confirm your commitment to the restoration process.
Be transparent and talk openly about concerns to prevent secrecy from continuing to erode your relationship. Offer to have your cell phone, voice messages and email monitored by your spouse.
10. Recommit to rebuilding a better future- an even better, open, real relationship than what you had before. What you’re going through is emotionally devastating.
But know that a crisis like this often makes people and marriages stronger than ever before. 6 months later after I had helped a couple recover from an affair, the wife wrote me and said, “My husband’s affair turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She went on to say how it had also been the hardest thing she had ever endured, and for a while she wondered whether or not she’d be able to get through it. But the point is they did more than just recover.
Remember Love is Natural ā£ļø
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