Infidelity is like the last nail in the coffin for many relationships- and also the proverbial last straw. It is painful and breaks everything a couple has taken time to build. According to a survey done by the Austin Institute, unfaithfulness in a marriage accounted for roughly 37% of divorces in the United States. It’s not simple to recover from this. Some couples try to make it work despite the infidelity of one partner. This does not mitigate in any way the pains the victim of an infidelity feels. However, if both you and your spouse desire to take the required efforts to recover from an affair, it is possible; the journey would be long and painful, but it isn’t impossible.
Here are some helpful hints on how to repair a relationship after experiencing infidelity.
Accept accountability for your choices
Avoid putting the blame for your marital problems on your partner. There is never a valid excuse to cheat on your partner. Admit that you are at fault and make an apology to your partner.
Make a choice
Do both you and your partner wish to keep the relationship going? If yes, then you have the same aim – if you both want to stay together. Make a decision with the understanding that you’ll both have to work hard to re-establish trust and communication. This is not a choice that one party or outsiders should make for the other. Both of you must decide that you want to make it work once more. Only then can the rebuilding begin.
Ascertain that there is remorse
This point cannot be overemphasized. A sufficient measure of regret is required. There has to be a strong sense of sorrow and remorse for what transpired, not just because the cheating party
wants to feel good in his or her conscience, but for hurting the other party. If your spouse has cheated on you and you don’t sense regret, that’s something you should look for as a starting point for getting back on track.
Remove anything that can rekindle the affair
If the affair is genuinely finished, taking tangible actions to cut off contact with the individual and establish boundaries is critical to your partner’s recovery. “Contact information will need to be deleted, numbers will need to be blocked, and social media contacts will need to be
removed,” says Dr. Brandon Santan, a registered marriage and relationship therapist in Tennessee. This would help in building the trust that was broken as a result of the infidelity, not all of it, but a block. Rebuilding trust is essential, else the mental strain will not be able to managed short of locking your partner in a chastity belt.
Move forward with frankness and caution
For the relationship to move on, the individual who cheated must be brutally honest about everything. This includes being forthright with replies to every inquiry concerning the affair. This degree of transparency must be maintained for as long as it takes to re-establish confidence and build trust. In order for the relationship to have a fresh, strong, and new foundation, the person who cheated will have to put other things aside for a while and pour into it.
Discretion
It is not everybody you should both speak to, whether together, or individually. It may cloud your judgment in making decisions, and sometimes it makes things worse. A problem shared often gets worse except it was told to the right person.
Work with a qualified Therapist
It might be difficult to know what to do or where to begin after an affair. Consider talking with a competent therapist who can assist you
through the process, more especially if the chats you’re having with your partner are not going anywhere. The therapist is one of the right people to seek help from.
Wrap Up
It may take time, but try to focus on the future of your relationship rather than the past. it is not impossible to repair a relationship from infidelity. Both the party guilty of infidelity and the other party must be willing to put in the work required to build the relationship again.