Work to get past an affair

After the affair is over, the next step you're going to have to start working on is trying to get to the bottom of the reasons your spouse had the affair.  You're going to need to understand what emotional and physical needs you weren't meeting, and learn how to meet them for your spouse.  In return, your spouse is going to have to work very hard to meet your emotional and physical needs as well, as you start to recover from the hurt and anguish the affair has caused you.  You're going to have to be in this together, and totally, or you don't have much of a chance.  This process is going to have to become the highest priority in both of your lives. This process is going to test your communication skills, your patience and your commitment. You might even have to go learn some entirely new skills for expressing yourself, you and your spouse may need outside help from a trained professional who has experience in helping couples get through what you're going through.

And ultimately, you're going to have to forgive your spouse.  You may find that once you get the honesty, and proof that the affair is over, and once you begin to learn what was missing in your relationship, that understanding may help lead you towards forgiveness.  Don't worry if it doesn't come right away, it's perfectly normal to wonder if you'll ever forgive her/him for breaking your trust.  Just try to understand that you are passing through a perfectly normal emotional reaction to this type of situation, and that the grief will pass with some time and some effort.  But also understand this, forgiveness will benefit you as much as it will your spouse.  When you forgive, you unload a burden from your own shoulders.

Finally, on this subject, let me just say that I do not believe every marriage can be saved.  You might have to face the reality that your marriage is doomed.  It's no better to stay in a relationship out of fear of the unknown, clinging to false hope that "things will work out somehow" than it is to go ahead and make the decision to terminate the marriage and move on with your life.  And as I said before, only you can ultimately make that decision.  However, I do think that in a lot of cases, people choose divorce as what they believe to be the easier, faster way to get over the problems that stem from infidelity. I've known people who thought they would be happier once they divorced, only to find that the source of their unhappiness was somewhere within themselves all along, and the marriage going bad was only a symptom of that.  What a waste that is!  To tear a family apart, put yourself through the heart wrenching process that is divorce, only to find that yourbasic unhappiness is still with you long after the divorce is final.

Infidelity doesn't necessarily have to end a marriage. It will stress it for sure, take it as near the breaking point as possible, but a couple that can honestly work through an affair will most likely come out of the experience with new skills for communicating with each other and a new appreciation of the needs, both physical and emotional, that their spouse must have met in order to be happy. But meeting the needs of your spouse, having your own needs met, these are the best things we can hope for out of our marriage! I truly believe that if you can work through an affair instead of letting it break the marriage up, you stand an excellent chance of ultimately becoming a much more compatible couple.