Tuesday, April 12, 2011

How to Confront Her About Her Cheating



You've just discovered your wife has had an affair, or is perhaps even still having one. So that big question now is how to confront her about cheating. After all, once you know you can't just ignore it or pretend it everything is fine. Even if it's in the past there were reasons for it, and you have to know what there were and if they're still present -- because it could easily happen again.

How to Confront Her About Cheating

  1. Gain control over your emotions before you confront her about the affair. As you've no doubt noticed, "hot emotions," such as anger, fury, humiliation, and rejection, make it nearly impossible to speak calmly with her. If you've just found out about the affair, don't expect yourself to deal with it rationally. You actually need to release your anger. But not necessarily by screaming at her. (Though if you do this a time or two that's OK. We're all human, and there's no need to criticize yourself for it.)

  2. Take responsibility for your own self esteem. When your trust is betrayed, it's easy to feel completely rejected, deflated, worthless and even depressed. You may experience extreme sadness, which you sometimes cover up with anger, the desire to retaliate, or the armor of extreme coldness to your wife.These feelings are normal and understandable, especially at first. But held for long periods of time they chip away at your self esteem and ability to enjoy life. This is too high a price for anyone to pay - and it's not necessary for you to permanently lose your self esteem or your joy in living because your wife had an affair. Here is what you must accept: whatever your wife did, she did it for her own reasons, and those reasons have nothing to do with you.

  3. Avoid the single most destructive communications habit. This is the habit of interrupting. When you and your wife begin to talk about your marriage again, it's important for both of you to be able to communicate freely and in detail. Interrupting your wife because you hear something that upsets you will eventually cause her to completely clam up and shut you out. Create a "no interruptions" rule for your conversations and help each other stick to it.

  4. Offer this technique to begin rebuilding trust. While it may seem impossible to trust your wife ever again, millions of married men have done it. But how? Fortunately, a technique used by therapists, called "transparency," is a very practical tool. When a spouse has an affair there's obviously a huge a mount of deception going on. Yet, you probably had no idea you were being cheated on. This isn't your fault: it's natural to trust the person you are married to. Now, of course, that trust has been shattered. With transparency, both spouses (but particularly the one who cheated) agree to share information openly - without being prodded for it. That last part is essential. You do not want to be in the position of nagging your wife for information. You want a strong, honest, loving relationship between two people who respect each other.

Ultimately you have a choice to make, too, just as any unfaithful partner does -- whether that's you or someone else -- you have to decide if you want to work it out or end it.

I had to make this choice, too, and for me it was an easy one -- I wanted it to work, so I put in the time and effort to make it work. And I'm glad I did -- because Angela, my wife, and I have been through this ourselves and are now happier than ever.

And now Angela and I would like to share our knowledge and experience with you, so you don't have to make the mistakes we made -- because we've already made them for you!



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