After Adultery - How To Restore Your Marriage After Trust Has Been Destroyed

After adultery has shaken the foundation of your marriage and your relationship has slowly started to mend, you begin to wonder if you'll be able to completely trust your spouse ever again. Months later you still find yourself demanding, "Who were you talking with on the phone?" Why were you at work so late today?" You start to become suspicious that your spouse may be cheating just as before.

Once adultery has taken place, the trust you once had in your marriage is at risk of being broken forever. As a consequence, it's now more important than ever to understand the delicate nature of this bond.

1. After adultery, the expectations an injured spouse has of the offending spouse are often altered forever. Expectations become more heightened and sensitized after adultery than they were before the affair occurred. And when influenced by a complex range of emotions such as anger, anxiety, and betrayal, it's not difficult to understand why one spouse can easily jump to conclusions and be suspicious of an after-work telephone call from the other's co-worker.

2. Infidelity is much more complicated than just the affair itself and the apology that accompanies it. After adultery, trust has to be re-established. And surviving the emotional devastation that adultery leaves behind is a process that takes understanding and a sincere commitment to your marriage.

3. After adultery, trust is fragile and must be gradually re-established before it can ever be restored in its entirety and your marriage made whole again. But it's trust that a spouse needs more than anything else in order to be able to heal and to feel that the relationship has a chance again. Understandably, the injured spouse is afraid to trust. After all, he or she never wants to go through the devastation, the hurt, the humiliation ever again.

So how does a spouse re-gain trust after adultery? Just as trust was established over time by the interactions and communication the two of you had before you married, that same trust will take time to develop again. And, after adultery, it will be much harder. After all, the confusion, shock, and disbelief that your spouse has had to endure after adultery will have to be worked through first. Then and only then can the trust you used to enjoy have the chance to re-establish itself.

But this means open and honest communication as well as communication on a different level. After adultery each of you will need to be open to your spouse's questions and concerns and be sensitive to each other's feelings. Circumstances that may appear suspicious will need to be explained to the injured spouse, and special care must be taken to listen carefully and to try to understand why infidelity ignites unexpected questions.

Over time given patience, understanding, on-going and sincere communication, you both will eventually come to realize, even after adultery has occurred, that trust can return to your marriage. And the emotional and physical intimacy you both shared in the past can once again become the foundation of your marriage.

But before communication can begin in earnest and trust can return to your marriage after adultery, you both must agree on what adultery actually is. Interestingly enough it may not mean the same thing to both husband and wife. And since effective communication is the key to surviving the emotional turmoil left behind after adultery, you want it to happen in a way that gives you the best chance for a positive outcome in your relationship.