Why Can’t My Spouse Just Get Over My Affair Already?

Whether sexual in nature or strictly emotional, affairs take place when needs that are to be met inside one’s marriage are sought to be met outside of it.  

It might start as a fairly innocent encounter with someone who appears to be able to provide what pre-straying spouse may feel they lack, be it understanding, respect, excitement, power, desirability, escape, admiration, or whatever the trait may be.  

One thing leads to another, and the lines begin to blur.  Justification starts to take place, excuses, and maybe even guilt.  However, once things are in motion, it is often difficult to find the strength to do the right thing(s)… come clean, make a break, ask for forgiveness, seek reconciliation.  

So, when a straying spouse makes the difficult choices to take responsibility, come clean, and decide to rebuild from the damage, it may be frustrating to be met with hoop after hoop to jump through to prove to their spouse that they have changed and are able to be trusted now.

Research seems to indicate that 60-80% of couples who have experienced an affair are able to recover and stay married.  

While difficult, it is possible to come through an affair stronger than ever.

However, the process may seem to be dragging along too long and feel as if it is just a guilt and bashing session to the offending spouse with little assurance that things will be resolved any time soon.  Why is this?

Some of the reasons for this include:

• While the offender has had time and knowledge of the affair and the events and specifics of it, the faithful spouse likely has been blindsided to some degree with the news well after the fact, and has not been included in the details.

• The unknown details can leave the faithful spouse feeling uncertain as to whether there is more information being currently withheld.

• The unknown details can also leave the faithful spouse feeling like they can’t gauge how safe they are, as they don’t know what they don’t know.

• To feel that the perceived threat to the safety of their marriage is over, the faithful spouse may feel the need to ask questions, verify the answers over and over again to make sure they are true, and basically see if they can muster up the courage to build trust again with someone who previously committed to be faithful. He or she may wonder, “If he/she could do it once, what stops him/her from doing it again?”  “How can I know that I can really trust him/her this time?”

• The initial shock and information is just the beginning of the process for the offended spouse to learn the new terrain they are now navigating.  As time goes on and processing of events happens, your spouse may want to clarify, understand any information that seems to be contradictory, or share further to make sure you truly understand how your behavior has hurt and impacted him/her.

While each couple’s situation is different, the offending spouse will do best to leave the timeframe of the affair recovery process up to the offended party and can expect to the following to make their partner feel safe and able to trust again eventually:

• Express a compassionate willingness to answer any and all questions from your spouse to their level of satisfaction or need.

• Answer each question about affair specifics that your spouse asks without defensiveness or evasion.  This helps your spouse to feel let in on the “secrets” you shared with someone else, so that he/she can feel connected to the once hidden parts of you.

• Explain how things are different now, why you are choosing your spouse over the affair, and what you are doing to demonstrate integrity now.  Actions such as stating where you are going, when you will be home, who you will be visiting, allowing your spouse unrestricted access to your phone or computer, and submitting to becoming an “open book” can help.

• Offer regularly scheduled check-in times each week where the two of you can discuss the topic of the affair and further work on healing through communicating any information that is still needed.  In this way, you and your spouse might be able to get back to a sense of “regular” life while not brushing the affair under the rug but simply “containing” it to an appropriate degree and time and place.

• Become a person of integrity.  Let your words and your actions line up in truth.

• Seek out individual and couples’ therapy so that your needs, thoughts, and feelings, as well as your spouses can be heard in a constructive way, but expect to attend to your spouse’s needs, thoughts, and feelings primarily in the beginning days and weeks.

• Sincerely apologize for and turn away from such behavior and continue to do so as the need arises.

If you could use help for your individual needs or for couples’ work as you seek to work on affair recovery, please reach out to us for counseling by contacting us at: 541-275-0412

A Framework for Relationship Success

When thinking through the 3 C’s of communication (borrowed from www.securemarriage.com) it is important to understand what moves us from the conflict cycle of communication to the connection cycle of communication. As we have outlined a basic understanding of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the last post, you now have a simple understanding of what gets us into the conflict cycle. I’ve thought about what gets us out of the conflict cycle to create connecting communication and have come up with six core relationship values.

The VALUES make up an acronym: Vulnerable, Accountable, Learning, Understanding, Empathy, Shared meaning. These six values are practiced to bring you into the connecting communication where it is possible to build trust, resolve conflict and deepen your intimacy. Let’s briefly break them down as to how they work in the context of a relationship.

Vulnerability is the amount of openness and receptiveness you have in your relationship. In most aspects of life there requires some level of vulnerability or risk. The reason for this is that we require relationships to function in the day-to-day activities for survival. Where there is a relationship, regardless of depth, there is vulnerability. Bringing this back to connecting communication… to build trust, resolve conflict, or deepen intimacy you are required to share about yourself; your opinions, values, ways of doing things. So when you do this you make yourself vulnerable to someone’s evaluation or acceptance of these things. It is requires openness to be known and loved. It requires receptiveness to someone else to know and love.

Accountability is a posture of being proactive, intentional, and responsible. In any relationship there are commitments you make as a function of building trust and establishing reliability. You agree to be intentional with how you consider your partner in your actions. There is responsibility to how you act towards your partner when you are in conflict or in peace. You are accountable to have integrity in who you are in and out of the relationship. Integrity is a way of being regardless of circumstance or emotion.

Learning is established by curiosity for yourself and for your partner. Often when you find conflict in your relationship is because you have forgotten to see your partner as a person to be loved and they become a problem to be fixed. This happens around differing opinions, values and experiences without the sense that your partner's just as important and valid as you. Getting a mindset of curiosity about your partner opens up with vulnerability the acceptance and influence of their perspective. Also you might be focusing on your partner or their actions or the busyness of life and you miss the opportunity to be curious about yourself and how you are growing and changing and developing. Curiosity about yourself and your partner enables acceptance and intimacy in your relationship.

Understanding is the posture of positive regard in trying to see yourself and your partner for who you are and why you do what you do. It is the knowledge of experiences that is either shared or personal. A reflection to wrap your head around what you and your partner might be experiencing. You will get into conflict by assuming you know what someone’s experience is without actually taking the time to talk to them and this leaves your partner feeling judged and misunderstood. Your brain naturally fills in gaps of stories, so this posture is really to gain a sense of perspective. This will increase your understanding of yourself and your partner as you take pause to really understand what you are personally going through and what your partner is experiencing.

Empathy differs from understanding in that you are showing your concern and connection to a person in the midst of their experience. You can do this with yourself by giving yourself compassion for an experience you have instead of condemnation and criticism. This is an important skill to practice because it helps you feel grounded and safe in the middle of an experience. It also helps you not project your own insecurities onto your partner. Showing empathy to your partner is a courageous act of validating your relationship and your connection to them while being with them. It is showing compassion for the emotions they are experiencing, not by trying to fix it, but being present and non-judgmental or critical in your presence. This connecting presence in the midst of communication creates intimacy and builds trust that you can rely on this person to be there for you.

Shared meaning is the sensitivity to plan life with your partner in mind. The way this happens naturally is through a shared joke, or memory, or planning of an event. It is a million tiny moments where you are together in life and showing that you lean toward one another instead of against or away from each other. The Gottman Institute calls these bids for connection. You constantly make small bids for people’s attention, time, and energy. The more you can recognize and respond to such small attempts to connect the more you will build trust, resolve conflict and deepen intimacy with your partner.

Thanks for taking the time to read through these suggested relationship V.A.L.U.E.S. I hope that they ring true for you and that you can build trust, resolve conflict and deepen your intimacy with them. How are you building trust, resolving conflict or deepening your relationships intimacy through these six core values?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you! If you want to process this in your own counseling journey, you can start here.