Monday, April 18, 2011

After the Affair - What You Must Do First Before Saving Your Marriage



After the affair, when a spouse has been cheated on, the first thing that they do is to try and understand why the affair happened. This is instinctual and very common according to most studies. The injured spouse cannot stop thinking about what happened. They spend all their time and energy thinking about the details of the affair. They visualize their spouse with the other person in every possible situation. They try to understand why their husband or wife did what they did. They wonder if they can ever trust again.

These kinds of thoughts and behaviors are very normal. It is in our nature to look for reasons. We always want to rationalize what happens and we look for these rationalizations in order to satisfy our befuddlement and lack of understanding. IN this case, the injured spouse is trying to "square a hole" at any cost.

The term for this behavior is called externalizing according to the experts. This is when people start looking for outside reasons in order to satisfy emotional issues that are occurring within. Basically they are worrying about the other person rather than themselves. Another way of looking at externalizing is that we are unknowingly making excuses for what happened.

Before you can start working on your marriage after the affair you need to sort through your emotional problems and start healing. Before tackling the more specific, and difficult issues of the affair itself with your spouse, you need to look within. You must focus on you.

This will allow you to focus on personal healing which is imperative if you want to survive an affair. This change in focus will allow you to be honest about the facts. What does this cheating mean to you? With this shift, you will be more grounded in order to look at the issues objectively and be able to formulate good, sound strategies on how to cope with your feelings and thoughts.

With this strength you will be better able to ask the hard questions to come and more importantly, you will be better able to deal with the answers as well. There are several phases that must be dealt with in order to have a chance at success A good solid foundation, meaning you, is very important for the process. The process of saving a relationship after the affair is hard and long but with a stronger "you", you can overcome the issues and greatly increase your chances of a successful outcome.



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