You've Been Betrayed by Your Cheating Spouse
Your spouse cheated and lied, and now you're left angry, deeply hurt and disappointed. After you've been betrayed by your cheating spouse you wonder if there's anything worth saving. Your friends and family have their ideas of what you should do, but they can't possibly have all the information you have about your relationship. You are the only one who can make the decision.
If you want to repair your marriage.
If you want to put your marriage together, you should think about making it better than it ever was. There are steps each of you should take to help the process. I will list some of the important considerations and some of the steps you can do to move your process along.
Some steps to success.
There are some people who will read this and take in the information and follow the steps and succeed. However, most of you will need additional instruction such as I provide in my self-help program How to Survive An Affair. Others of you will want individualized help and instruction that you get from working with me directly.
- You can't make a better history for yourself, but you can create a better future.
- Even though your spouse had the extra-marital affair without your knowledge or permission, you will both have to make changes.
- Treat information from the extra-marital affair as your wake-up call and look to yourself for some of the solutions. For example, even though it may not be the truth, you should find out what your spouse perceives to be missing in your relationship and cover that perceived gap even though you think you've been doing that all along.
- You probably don't feel like satisfying any of your partner's emotional needs after discovering the infidelity. This is a normal feeling, but if your goal is to save your marriage, your best chance is for each of you to be an active participant in improving your relationship.
- You could get started by signing up for a free e-course on How to Survive an Affair.
Watch out for this one.
I want to caution you about one of the most common problems the betrayed spouse presents in my practice.
The person who was cheated on often uses the affair and its associated hurt as a "trump card", which means using the emotional pain as if it were a valid reason to take charge of a decision. For example, demanding which restaurant you have to go to just because your spouse owes you after all the hurt that's been brought on you by the unfaithfulness. Another common way this is used is to demand something, usually of significant monetary value, in exchange for the hurt. For example, demanding a diamond necklace, or a two-week vacation, even though you cannot reasonably afford these.
Negative feelings are normal.
Many strong negative feelings are normal responses to marital infidelity. It may seem difficult to even imagine right now, but if your spouse turns his or her character around, and together you do the other repair work involved, you will learn to trust your spouse again. Your love will return and the intense bad feelings you've been experiencing will fade to the background, and probably sooner than you think.
I encourage you to check out my self-help program for detailed instructions for repairing your marriage. If you want to work with me directly, please give me a call at (410) 654-1300 to schedule an appointment. My current charges are based on $260 per 60 minutes.
I wish you personal strength and a willing partner in your quest for healing your marriage.
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Repair Infidelity
