Recovering from an affairs

Here's another useful tips from Focus on the family website which some are applicable in our marriage too.

When the affair comes to light :

• Do not make any quick decision to end the marriage - Begin the process of healing your heart—identifying your emotions and grieving the impact of the affair.

• Take your time - If you are the offending spouse, admitting the exact nature of what happened without concealing critical facts is important. However, a fuller picture of the essential details will take some time and guidance to prepare. Tell the truth, but don’t rush into the intimate details immediately. Minimizations, omissions, and unnecessarily graphic information can do additional harm. Be truthful, be patient, and seek guidance on how to appropriately engage in full disclosure.

• Give each other individual space - The revelation of an affair can be very traumatic and intense. Take a time - out when you need to de-escalate emotions

• Seek support - Surround yourself with those who make you fell the safest, such as a same sex friend or a trusted family member.

For the offended spouse

• Embrace managing your own emotions even when they are overwhelming - you may be shocked when your deep pain emerges. However, let your painful emotions matter to you — like feeling betrayed, rejected, worthless, unloved, disrespected, failed, etc. Attempt to make healthy choices around managing those emotions. 

• Be honest on how you feel - be willing to express to your partner how much you are hurting, by sharing openly and honestly, you will keep the lines of communication open between you and your spouse.

• Request total honesty and transparency - When recovering from an affair, you cannot control how your spouse conducts himself or herself; however, you certainly can request total transparency and honesty. You may want to seek permission to have access to his or her call history, email, text messages, and social media accounts. You might also ask to make a plan for handling potential and unexpected contacts from the other person

• Own how your behaviour may led difficulties in marriage - Although you are in no way responsible for your spouse’s choice to have an affair, it is important to look at how you may have influenced the marital system. In fact, it can be empowering for you to consider how you may have played a role in the previous emotional climate or challenges that existed in your marriage. 

• Seek to forgive your spouse - Forgiveness will be a process and a journey. It likely will not come quickly or easily. Study what forgiveness is and what it is not. Choosing to extend forgiveness to your spouse does not mean that you will immediately forget the pain and devastation brought on by their unfaithfulness. However, it is more about the state of your own heart.

The unfaithful spouse

• End the affair completely and permanently - Cease all private meetings, phone calls, texts, or social media contacts with the other person. Cut all ties—period. Be transparent with your spouse about any chance meetings or any attempts on the part of the other person to contact you—before your spouse finds out about it on his or her own.

• Take good care of your heart and practice self care - Separate your hurtful actions from who you are. Often the unfaithful spouse reports experiencing shame, guilt, embarrassment, depression, anxiety, or grief.

• Own your choice to be unfaithful and accept responsibility for your unfaithfulness - No excuses—you chose to be unfaithful. Regardless of the state of your marriage when you cheated, there is no room for excusing the behavior. Do not blame the influence of others, a negative environment at home, or other factors that drove your temptations. Just own your choices.

• Commit to be faithful and trustworthy -Trust has clearly been broken within your marriage due to the affair; therefore, do all you can to rebuild it. Being consistent in both what you say and what you do is essential. Your spouse will be watching for inconsistency. Choose to show them in a way that’s not defensive that you are working at becoming trustworthy—moment-to-moment and choice-by-choice. Trust is never earned once and for all. This is an opportunity to show your spouse that you are serious in this commitment through continued choices every day. You are not trying to convince your spouse to trust you; you are trying to be trustworthy. When you try too hard to convince, sometimes you become untrustworthy. For example, you might be tempted to hide certain information because you want your spouse to trust you. But the very act of concealing information is untrustworthy.

• Understand what led to affair ? - Was there something your marriage was lacking that you desired to see improved upon? Were you searching to meet a need ?

• Seek wholehearted forgiveness - One important key to seeking forgiveness is to understand how the affair affected your spouse. Through empathizing with your spouse, allow the Lord to move your heart to seek forgiveness wholeheartedly. Also remember that asking for forgiveness doesn’t mean your spouse needs to be ready or willing to forgive you. Humbly ask, and then let your spouse decide when, if, and how they will forgive. Be willing to fully accept his or her decision and position. Remember, forgiveness is never deserved and should not be demanded. It is not a simple, one-time event. And forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation

• Express gratitude towards your spouse - he or she will recognize your true repentance and choose to seek reconciliation. This is certainly what we encourage in order to recover from an affair—we believe this reflects God’s heart toward the truly repentant. If this path is chosen, you are being shown one of the greatest acts of love—and it does not come easily. Show your husband or wife great gratitude both in word and deed. Thank him or her for choosing to engage in the hard work of trusting you again and restoring your marriage.