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How to Survive Infidelity – Can a Marriage Survive?
How to survive infidelity doesn’t mean that an extra marital affair spells the end of a relationship. Can it be salvaged? Here we explore the fabric of a marriage after a partner has strayed.
There are marriages and there are marriages. You can expect and demand the sun, moon and the stars or almost nothing. It’s a question of personality and perspective. But there is no doubt that the most important thing in a marriage, as in any other relationship, is honesty and a real understanding of each other.
In a marriage of the kind we all yearn to have, fidelity is vital. It implies a commitment that’s total and complete. You seek the closest intimacy possible from no one else, so sufficient is the love you receive. What could be more reassuring, more meaningful? But a relationship that intense, comes with a price tag.
And infidelity in a relationship based on such love can be shattering. Nothing can fix that first fine careless rupture. Trust is ruptured forever.
Infidelity is a betrayal that leaves you feeling painfully inadequate:
You look back through the prism of time and realize how wonderfully didactic you were in your youth! At 25, black and white could never co-exist. But then, life happens. And you realize that grey exists, and it is often a zone that needs far more maturity and understanding than you ever dreamed of.
When you’ve been married a number of years, the first lesson you learn is that marriage is a relationship which, like human beings themselves, is constantly morphing and evolving. It’s an equation where the variables change the answers constantly. People sometimes lead married lives together with infidelity between them. Children, autumn love, companionship allow such relationships to survive.
But at the end of the day, it’s really what you want from your marriage and partner. You can survive infidelity (don’t we survive everything?), but that’s the right word, isn’t it? Survive. If you want more, you have to sacrifice something. That my friend, is the nature of the beast.
How to survive Infidelity emotionally: A KEY Tactic to Save the Marriage:
Learn the one important technique to possibly save your marriage if your partner is having an emotional affair.
Hearing that your cheating spouse is “in love” with someone else is devastating. We often hear, “I can handle her (or him ) having sex with someone else. I think I can live with that. But, for him/her to give herself/himself emotionally and “love” someone else…, that’s hard.”
What can you specifically do to increase the odds of saving the marriage?
So often the offended spouse reacts with intense feelings and pulls out all stops to “win her or him back.”
He or she applies pressure. Begs. Cajoles. Makes promises. Gets in her or his face. Sends flowers. Arranges for dates. Talks to her or his family and friends. Calls on the phone. Asks questions… daily, sometimes hourly.
It doesn’t work. Why? Well, for one reason she or he has found all the stimulation and excitement she supposedly needs in the new found “love.”
At a deeper level this is confusing enough for the cheating husband or cheating wife. Any additional input will be overwhelming and she or he is liable to close the door on the marriage even further.
Plus, she or he is really looking for some stability, some solid centered core that will hold her or him firm when the wind of drama entices and blows around him or her.
If you bombard your partner with your neediness, you are certainly not the person who can help in ways they really seek.
She also is liable to create a polarity and begin comparing you to him. With your neediness dripping all over you, you don’t stand a very good chance of coming out on top. Sorry!
Here’s a tactic that helps solve the dilemma and gives you a greater chance of saving the marriage. It’s called “back off!”
Stop pressing. Slow down the pace. Be silent – most of the time. Stop making requests. Cease asking questions. Do not try to wiggle out some assurance. Stop being a pain!
Remember, this “in love” state will fade. You need to have the confidence that it will. You need patience. The relationship will run its course.
She or he needs the space. She or he needs some quiet moments to truly hear themselves and face the emptiness within. There will be a voice within that says, “This will not last. Is this what I really want? At some time I must live in the real world. Where is this taking me? Is this where I really want to go? Why am I so dependent on him (or her) ? Why do I feel this empty pit in my stomach when I’m not with him (or her) ? What does this say about me?”
This is her opportunity to learn about TRUE love. Don’t get in his or her way.
I know. I know. This is easier said than done. But, you must do it. It is vitally important that you learn to quiet yourself, control yourself and keep on the straight and narrow path.
At this point there is a skill called “back off.” Use that skill. This will take some effort. It might take some coaching or therapy. It most likely will demand that you get to know yourself better, that you gain more confidence in you – apart from what she does with him – that you build a strong foundation under yourself that can weather any storm.
This is your opportunity to grow to another level.
Oh, by the way. She or he will notice! And….she or he might like it.
Backing off does not mean that you don’t have anything to do with your partner Quite the contrary. You want to maintain your contact. but it will be QUALITY contact. It will be contact that does honor to you, confronts your partner with the reality of their decisions and works toward resolution for the marriage.
Less often means more when facing emotional infidelity. Learning a specific skill such as “backing off” enhances one’s chances of saving the marriage.
The reasons for divorce are diverse
How to survive Infidelity: How “My Marriage Made Me Do It” is a Cop-out
Learn why you shouldn’t believe your spouse when they say, “I had an affair because we have a lousy marriage.”
Ask someone why they had, or are having an affair and you may hear something like this: “I have a lousy marriage. My marriage is dead. There is no intimacy, no sex, and no excitement. The love is gone. We’ve grown apart. I can’t stand the marriage. There was nothing happening in the marriage and the affair just happened.”
These statements are rationalizations and fail to “get at” the underlying issues.
How to survive infidelity and fix a marriage – Here are some key points:
1. It’s as if a marriage is an animal gone bad. A marriage does not have a life of it’s own. In reality, there is no such thing as a “marriage.” One is “married” as a result of making some promises and signing a paper at one point. After the paper is signed, two people continue communicating and acting toward one another in particular ways that they hope will help them get what they individually want. Just as there is no “marriage,” there is no such thing as a “relationship.” There are, however, ways of relating for which each person is responsible.
2. We idealize “marriage” or “romantic relationships” with the expectation we will get what we want, without much effort to boot. The movies, popular public press and romance novels/stories don’t help much here. A “marriage” is behind the eight ball from the word go. “IT” can’t win.
3. From day one most of us don’t have a clue about how to get, build, nurture and maintain healthy and intimate ways of relating. We need ‘love 101’ and it’s not there. We rely upon experimentation or bad models.
Don’t Jump from the frying pan into the fire
4. If the “marriage” is dead, why in the world would one choose to have an affair? Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It really is stupid. You add a whole layer of deceit and shame that eventually will result in consequences more dire than approaching your spouse and saying, “I’m really unhappy. What I’m doing with you obviously is not working. I want out.” Oh well, maybe some people need more problems and suffering.
5. If the “marriage” is bad, obviously, I don’t have to look at me. I can blame “it” or the other. Many of us find it difficult to look at me. Some of us don’t know how to look at me. A lot of us never think of looking at me.
Here’s a How to Survive Infidelity Tip:
If your partner/spouse is having and affair and blames it on the “marriage,” don’t buy into it. The “marriage” is not the problem. You are not the problem. Your spouse/partner chose the affair out of ignorance, fear or inadequacy.
To achieve infidelity recovery stages you’re not alone any longer. How to survive Infidelity experts are here to help you sort through this terrifying experience and understand exactly what you SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do to cope with the aftermath of an affair and get your marriage back on track again, if that’s what you decide you want to do.
For more information on the how to survive infidelity issues behind the other kinds of affairs and tips for dealing with them, visit: How to save a marriage after an affair
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