If You Want To Save Your Marriage After An Affair, Read This
If You Want To Save Your Marriage After An Affair, Read This
Excerpt: Huffington Post
It's not affairs that break up marriages: It's the unfaithful spouse's inability to be honest about what happened and leave the affair behind them, says Caroline Madden, a Burbank, California-based marriage therapist who specializes in affair recovery.
"When I see couples divorce after an affair, it's not usually because of the infidelity itself: The betrayed spouse simply gave up trying when their husband or wife continued to be selfish, shady, and untrustworthy," said Madden, the author of Fool Me Once: Should I Take Back My Cheating Husband?
If you're the partner who cheated, how do you prove to your spouse that you're committing to regaining their trust? Below, Madden and other experts share their best advice.
Be upfront with your spouse about the extent of the affair right from the start, said Madden. She's seen firsthand how damaging it can be when an unfaithful spouse withholds information after the initial confession.
"Spouses repeatedly tell me that what made them leave the relationship wasn't the affair -- it was the drip, drip, drip of the truth that slowly leaked out over a long period of time," she said. "They would just get used to the facts that had been revealed, start to adjust and trust again and then boom -- more information would surface."
The best approach, said Madden, is ripping off the Band-Aid all at once: Share vital details about the affair -- how long it lasted, what you told your affair partner about your marriage -- at the beginning so your spouse can decide if he or she can forgive "with eyes wide open."
Answer every question your spouse has after you've come clean about the affair, said Michele Weiner-Davis, a Boulder, Colorado-based marriage therapist and the author of Divorce Busting: A Step-by-Step Approach to Making Your Marriage Loving Again.
"Be willing to do whatever your spouse needs to feel more secure in the relationship, whether it's sharing information about cell phones, texts, Facebook posts or credit card bills," she said. "It might also include sharing detailed information about one's whereabouts whenever needed. This period of increased accountability shouldn't last forever, but it proves you're committed to doing whatever it takes to get the relationship back on track."
It should go without saying that you need to break off contact with the other woman or man. But you also need to 'fess up if they reach out to you, said Madden.
"If you get an email, text or any form of initiation from your affair partner, tell your wife or husband right away. Why? Because if you hide or delete evidence of that contact -- and your spouse finds out -- it will be a nuclear winter for your marriage," she said. "Your spouse will sense that you're withholding information and doing things behind their back. All the progress you made will be lost."
Taking full responsibility for the affair also means getting tested for any sexually transmitted diseases you may have contracted, said Madden.
"One of the things I think almost all the women who've come into my office have said is that the most embarrassing part of the affair was having to go to the doctor and be tested for an STD," she said. "If you've been unfaithful, show your spouse the results of your test. If he or she gets tested, ask to go along as a gesture of support."