Key to Rebuilding: Love

The driving force behind most marital relationships is love. It is the most often stated reason given why two people commit themselves to one another in marriage.

It shouldn't be too surprising, then, to realize it is also the driving force of a successful rebuilding of a marriage after infidelity. The inability to love one another and communicate that to one another may be the single determining factor of whether a couple successfully rebuilds.

Let's back up a minute and unpack that concept.

We know there are several things that need to happen for rebuilding to be successful. On the unfaithful spouse's side, they need to be transparent, maintaining no contact with the affair partner(s), working to correct their vulnerabilities to temptations that led them down this path, and their part in any marital difficulties that increased those vulnerabilities. For the hurt spouse, they must successfully deal with the emotions and fear created by the betrayal, and work though the stages of grief to reach acceptance.

So why is love a key?

We make decisions based primarily on emotion. Yes, reason is not absent in the process. When it comes down to a battle between emotion and reason, however, emotion wins out 99% of the time. No, humans are not Vulcans.

This is why affairs happen in the first place. In most all affairs, the love of a particular feeling drives them to ignore all reason not to do it. The consequences of losing their marriage, lives with their children, job, the respect of others, hurting those they say they love, doesn't even factor into the decision.

Often that love for a feeling an unfaithful spouse has is transfered to the one who is giving them that feeling. So they believe they love their affair partner, when the truth is they love how their affair partner makes them feel.

Doing the things mentioned above that a couple has to do in order to rebuild is not fun work. It is usually a struggle for both spouses to accomplish those tasks. If you don't feel passionate love for your spouse, you will have little motivation to do the things you need to do to rebuild. You'll ask yourself, "What am I rebuilding to? Is it worth it?" Without the love, the answer is usually no.

With a strong sense of love for each other communicated and felt, however, you'll have motivation to face the hard task of rebuilding. You'll feel the struggle is worth it and both spouses will find the motivation to not only rebuild, but to invest 100% of themselves into the relationship.

Love is a key because without it, a couple is unlikely to deal with, do, and to move beyond the devastation of the affair.

Unfortunately, this is often overlooked for several reasons.

1. Obviously the presence of the affair is a big hit to the love balance.

Willard Hartley in his book, His Needs, Her Needs, discusses the idea of the love bank. In short, feelings of love for another person come from them meeting important needs that say "I love you" to a person. When that happens, it makes a deposit into your love bank. Likewise, actions or words that say "I don't love you" make withdraws. Feelings of love for someone comes when their deposits exceed withdrawals and the balance builds up to a point causing you to think, "I love him."

An affair is most certainly a huge withdrawal in a hurt spouses love balance. No matter the reasons for the affair or intentions of the unfaithful spouse, such an act says to the hurt spouse, "I don't love you." No spouse in their right mind is going to feel warm fuzzy love when they learn their spouse has had an affair.

Some couples have a huge balance, and the hit, while large, doesn't reduce the balance to zero. Other couples where the love has waned over the years might see their balance go to near zero. Others with a low balance, the affair may send the it into the negative, and they may feel no love whatsoever.

Fact is, after discovering an affair, the hurt spouse certainly won't be feeling much love from or for the unfaithful spouse. Likewise, even if an unfaithful spouse doesn't want to lose their marriage, they often can't flip a switch about how they feel concerning the affair partner.

2. The hurt spouse starts in the emotional ICU, and all marital issues tend to take a back seat.

In the first weeks of discovering an affair, the hurt spouse will be in emotional trauma. All thoughts, resources, and activities are consumed with the fallout of what has happened. The issues surrounding the affair tend to take front and center stage to the exclusion of all else, including what may seem as unrelated marital issues, like love.

I've heard hurt spouses say something along the lines of, "Until the affair issues have been addressed, I won't work on the marriage."

There is a reason for that. As long as their is doubt about the future of the relationship, a person isn't likely to invest in it. Asking a hurt spouse to address love at this point is akin to telling them, "Go ahead. Stick your hand back in the fire. I promise it won't hurt this time."

While a hurt spouse will need some time to recover from the shock and initial fallout upon discovering an affair, it is also true they cannot wait for all the issues surrounding an affair to be dealt with before they address the lack of love resulting from the affair. It will take years to fully deal with the affair issues. If the hurt spouse waits that long, it is not likely they'll have a marriage to save by that point. To go through years of rebuilding requires a sense of love to motivate that rebuilding.

3. The myth that love is an uncontrollable feeling.

Romance novels foster the idea that love just randomly happens, and we don't have a say in whether it shows up to the party or not. It is either present or it isn't, and there is nothing we can do to change it.

Indeed, this idea is often the fuel for the fire of an affair. When "chemistry" kicks in between two people, they feel a draw to each other that seems to come from nowhere. An unfaithful spouse, looking for a justification for what they want, will often take such feelings of love as evidence they don't love their spouse any longer, because they may not have felt like they do with the affair partner for a long time. So obviously the winds of love have picked a new "life-long" partner.

Because of that, either spouse or both may dismiss the idea that they can somehow generate feelings of love for their spouse. It sounds silly to them, like suggesting we could adjust Earth's orbit around the Sun.

As I talk about in my article on love, however, the passionate, romantic feelings of love are based upon someone meeting your love needs, whatever those might be. They are usually different for men and women. In a new romantic relationship, the "chemistry" seems to just happen when two people simultaneously meet each other's love needs. The synergy created when two people stumble upon this event with another creates the illusion of "falling in love" as if Cupid shot his arrows randomly.

Truth is, the same thing can be created purposefully by intentionally meeting each other's love needs. First you have to find out what they are, then invest time with each other in order to meet them. As deposits into the love bank exceed withdrawals, the balance will grow to the point you both feel in love.

Likewise, for the unfaithful spouse, "falling" out of love with the affair partner happens intentionally by reversing that process. Actively shut down thoughts about them. Don't spend time with them in your head recalling what you miss or fantasizing about seeing them again. Triggers happen and thoughts will pop in, but you don't have to think on them or focus on them. By not spending time in person or in your head, the love balance with the affair partner will be whittled away, especially once you begin to see the damage their relationship with you has caused.

More info than I can share here is in Willard Hartley's book, His Needs, Her Needs. You can also find a more involved discussion in my article on love.

In the end, how well a couple is able to renew the feelings of love for one another after an affair will determine the likelihood of their success in rebuilding. A couple who wants to rebuild their marriage cannot afford to overlook this important factor. It can make or break the relationship.

Where is your love balance at? Are you willing to address its lack?

Pull the Trigger on Triggers

Dealing with emotional triggers is a common problem for hurt spouses. Repentant unfaithful spouses establishing no contact also deal with triggers.

What Are Triggers?

Triggers are any reminders of an emotional trauma that renews the negative emotions of that trauma.

For example, someone involved in a wreck with a semi-truck will feel the emotions of fear while driving in the vicinity of a semi on the road. Seeing a semi on the road serves as a trigger to activate that fear and hurt again.

For hurt spouses, triggers vary widely depending on the circumstances. What triggers one spouse may not trigger another hurt spouse. Not everything that could be a trigger becomes one.

Nor do hurt spouses chose what will trigger them. It is an automatic emotional reaction to something that they experience. They cannot will to not feel that way. It just happens. Most of the time, the hurt spouse wishes they did not have these triggers. They don't want to experience that pain again.

There are three main classifications of triggers for hurt spouses.

1. Words used during the affair.
2. Things used during the affair.
3. Events/places that are related to the affair.

Words are grouped into three sub-categories: words/phrases used on the affair partner, used on the hurt spouse particularly during the affair, or words that appear deceptive and non-transparent.

If the unfaithful spouse referred to his affair partner as "Sweetie" and the hurt spouse knows this, and has never been called that before, being called sweetie post-discovery day could trigger a hurt spouse into recalling the betrayal.

If the unfaithful spouse said, "You're my wild flower," during the affair to the hurt spouse, continuing to use it could remind the hurt spouse of the affair.

Telling the hurt spouse, "Hold on. Let me do a couple things before you use my cell phone," can sound like the unfaithful spouse is hiding something, precipitating the suspicions the hurt spouse felt in the days leading up to discovery day.

Things can be any physical object used during the affair. Gifts given to or by the unfaithful spouse and affair partner, vehicles used--including color, make and model--, a bed, mementos retained by the unfaithful spouse, music listened to, or a credit card, just to name a few examples.

Events and places can be any holiday that was tainted by the affair--like discovering the unfaithful spouse was with the affair partner on Easter. The couple's anniversary, a job, the gym, a restaurant, sex, or company picnics.

Unfaithful spouses also have triggers involving two main areas: guilt/desire for the affair partner, and once guilt for the affair sets in,  the same list for hurt spouses can remind the unfaithful spouse of what they did, triggering shame and more guilt.

How To Deal With Triggers

There are seven main ways of dealing with triggers.

One, realize they are going to be there. All hurt and unfaithful spouses will run into these triggers. The main strategy is to minimize and deaden them as much as possible.

Two, remove as many as you can. This might involve getting a new job, a new vehicle, new furniture, avoiding restaurants that are triggers, deleting/getting rid of mementos, moving to a new city, etc.

Three, get back on the horse, even if the affair partner was riding it before. My own example is my wife met the second affair partner at the gym. I started going to the gym with her. Initially, it was awkward and uncomfortable. But after a week or two, I relaxed, and no longer felt triggery about the gym. Creating new memories with her at the gym rendered it ineffective as a trigger.

Four, invest new meaning into a trigger. Anniversaries--both marital and discovery day--tend to be big triggers. As our first discovery day anniversary approached, we'd been successful at rebuilding so that we both had a lot of hope for the future. A year prior to that, I didn't know if we'd still be married by that point. So our first discovery day anniversary became a celebration that we'd made it that far in good shape.

If you can't do that, due to a rough and uncertain rebuilding, treat it as a memorial, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor is nationally. Be grateful for lessons learned and any progress made, no matter how small, while acknowledging the losses.

Five, hang on, they do deaden with time if not reinforced by new occurrences of the affair. Time may not heal the wound, but it will lessen the impact of the wound emotionally. The safer the hurt spouse feels as time goes by without new cheating, the less impact triggers will have.

Six, focus on strengthening your romance. Couples who feel in love with each other will not be as negatively affected by triggers. The book, His Needs, Her Needs is an excellent tool to aid in that process.

Seven, both hurt spouses and unfaithful spouses should realize that feelings are not controlled directly by will power and reasoning. They can influence emotions, but can't turn them off and on like flipping a light switch. It takes time to modify emotions. This is true whether we're talking about feelings of pain and anger from a hurt spouse, or the unfaithful spouse feeling in love with their affair partner. Because a trigger flairs those feelings up from time to time doesn't mean the person has gone back to square one.

There are perhaps other methods of dealing with them. What has worked for you?

Changing Normals: Three Years

This post I decided to write more of a personal note, much as we've done in our book, Healing Infidelity.

This Sunday, May 11th, marks our third discovery day anniversary. Three years ago, May 11, 2011, I discovered, to my horror and total shock, that my wife of 29 years had been having a series of affairs over the previous seven months, both emotional and physical, both online and real life.

Life has never been the same.

I know a lot of hurt spouses will read that as mostly negative. And there are some negative changes. Can't escape all those no matter how well rebuilding goes, no matter how well one heals. There will always be a scar. There will always be that memory of utter disbelief at what I was reading, and feeling my stability crumble under my feet as my worst marital fears materialized:

The intimacy I'd lost with another man in the relationship. The deception she'd hid from me for seven months that I never thought she'd be capable of. The innocent trust that could never be regained. The realization that this could be the end of our marriage.

Some changes were positive.

But we both became less selfish. Our lives and marriage became focused on each other instead of our separate interests. We spent more time together. Sacrificed ourselves for each other. Romance reignited and we learned how to keep it going instead of letting it die.

By year three, the "new normal" isn't so new anymore. I look back at the man I was and I've changed so much, mostly for the better. Like the song says, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I'm much more focused today on what really matters than I was then. That old me seems so foreign now. The old me is dead, and in many ways, that is a good thing.

Lenita has totally changed. Her interests pre-affair and post-affair are like night and day. I know what she spent her time doing pre-affair, as well as during the affairs, is much different than what it is post-affairs. Her attitude toward me, our marriage, and her own life is why we are still together.

You see, when I discovered the affairs, their existence said to me that she didn't love me anymore. How could she do that to me and still say she loves me? While she said it, I couldn't believe it. She'd been lying to me and cheating behind my back for seven months, dead set on keeping that truth from me. How could I trust a word that came out of her mouth? I couldn't at that point.

So what changed my mind that she did love me?

Watching her unflinchingly face what she'd done, own up to it, and refuse to shift the blame onto me or anyone else. Struggle for months with her guilt and wrestling with what was wrong in her heart and soul that allowed this to happen. Seeing her go to confession for almost a year every week. Watch her strengthen her spiritual life, so much so, that she put me to shame. Experiencing her consistent attention, affection, truthfulness, honesty, and commitment to me. Making me the most important person in her life after God.

I saw what lengths she was willing to go to in order to save our marriage and keep me.

That convinced me that her love wasn't merely words, but real. Discovering the affairs said she didn't love me. Experiencing the extent that she went to keep me revealed how much she loved me.

If it wasn't for that drive of hers to do all she could to repair the damage she'd caused, I wouldn't be here writing this blog post right now. We'd not have written a book together on how we not only rebuilt after infidelity, but created a vibrant and stronger marriage in its wake. We'd likely have divorced by this point.

We're headed off on a weekend anniversary trip. Both to celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary (May 15th) and having made it three years since discovery day in not only good shape, but with a renewed and vibrant marriage.

I wish everyone approaching their third discovery day anniversary were in the same boat. Part of my mission with the book and blog is to help as many as possible make that boat before it sails.

On our trip, we'll spend time discussing what has changed in this past year and look forward to planning for the coming years. We've changed. Even during this past year. "Normal" is never a static state of existence. The question is never what should our normal have been, but what will it be in a few months, years, and when we're in a nursing home some day?

I don't know what the future holds, but I know right now, despite what happened, there's no one I'd rather grow old with than Lenita.

Happy anniversaries, Sweetie!

Sex After Discovery Day

One of the more common questions that pops up from time to time is whether and when the hurt spouse should resume sexual relations with their unfaithful spouse once the affair(s) has/have come to light? This is not an easy question to answer simply because of all the dynamics that can exist in a relationship. But I'm going to make the attempt to provide some principles, that while not covering every situation, hopefully most reading this will be able to adapt to their own situations.

What is Sex?

Before we dig into that, it is important to know where I'm coming from when I talk about sex. Sex is a broad term, and can refer to various sexual activity. But I'm using it in the narrower context of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman (required for sexual intercourse that has the potential to create life). So I'm not talking about other sexual activities like oral sex or anal sex in this article, though those participating in those activities would have some of the same issues and concerns. Thus much of this will apply to participating in any sexual activity with one's spouse or partner.

When a couple have sex, they are in effect uniting to each other in marriage or renewing their marital bond.

"What?" I can hear some people crying out. "I thought it was the state and/or church that married people so they could have sex." If you don't understand the above statement, are surprised by it, or think you disagree with it, you first need to read my articles on this topic: What Is Marriage - Biological Basis, What Is Marriage - Biblical Basis, and What Is Marriage - Cultural Basis. It is important that you understand this concept to grasp the significance of the principles I'm about to give you. To have sex with someone you don't intend to marry emotionally, socially, legally, or spiritually is to abuse the union that act creates. This is also why affairs are so destructive to a marriage, because it essentially divorces your spouse and marries another physically.

If after reading the above articles you still disagree with that concept, take that into consideration where I'm coming from as we go through these points, and adjust for you own understanding.

The Hurt Spouse's Considerations

Upon discovering one's spouse has been unfaithful, there are several issues the hurt spouse is dealing with that relate to whether and when they can resume a sexual relationship with their spouse. At the root of these issues are the following.

Betrayal: An intimate trust has been violated. The unfaithful spouse took what was not theirs to take and gave it to another without the hurt spouse's knowledge or consent.

Lies and secrets: The unfaithful spouse has lied to hide their guilt and shame for what they've done to the marriage, their spouse, and their family.

Due to those, trust has been destroyed and the unfaithful spouse's love for him put into question. While the unfaithful spouse may have convinced themselves they could love two or more people, the hurt spouse will not see it that way. From their viewpoint, people who love you don't hurt you by secretly loving another.

The unfaithful spouse's claims to the contrary will fall on deaf ears of the hurt spouse due to actions speaking louder than words. They are not able to trust anything the unfaithful spouse says. Promises and claims of undying love for the spouse will sound hallow in the hurt spouse's ears for months or years to come, depending on how fast the healing takes place.

All of those realities factor into the following issues the hurt spouse tends to deal with.

Has he stopped?

It is near impossible for the hurt spouse to know for sure, that the unfaithful spouse is no longer having sex with other people or continuing an affair. Especially in the early days, but even long after that if trust isn't healing, often due to trickle truth (new revelations about the affair that the unfaithful spouse didn't mention) or reluctance of the unfaithful spouse to talk about the affair at all.

Most unfaithful spouses are not going to be gun-ho on having sex with their spouse if they still suspect the affair is still going on. In my explanation of marriage and sex above, doing so means committing adultery since the unfaithful spouse has united to the affair partner. So aside from the "ewe" aspect of their private space having been violated by another, is the desire to have sex mean more than having a good time, but that it is a commitment to each other. After discovering an affair, that commitment has been destroyed. The hurt spouse will not be ready to commit himself to his spouse in sex until they feel confident that the unfaithful spouse won't do the same again.

Health

Once the hurt spouse discovers the affair, one of the first concerns they will have is whether they've been exposed to any sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). It his highly recommended that both spouses get tested for STDs. Some of them are life threatening. Until the hurt spouse knows the unfaithful spouse is safe, and is not still playing Russian Roulette with their health by a continuing affair, it will be difficult for the hurt spouse to feel safe having sex again.

Remember, if the unfaithful spouse says, "But honey, we used protection," that will not help. One, the hurt spouse has no way to verify that and they can't believe anything you say about this. Two, even if you did, protection is not 100%. Condoms break or slip off. It only takes one drop of fluids to transmit a disease.

Triggers

When an affair involves sex with the affair partner, many hurt spouses have trouble getting thoughts of their spouse and the affair partner out of their mind. Sexual activity of any kind can trigger those thought and shut down desire when visualizing the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner engaged in the same activity.

Related to that, any attempts to do any special sexual and exciting actions can trigger thoughts of "I'll bet he did this with her!" Especially if they had never been done until that point. These kinds of thoughts will tend to destroy motivation for sex.

This is an issue the hurt spouse must get through, and no one has the same time table on it. Unfaithful spouses should not be surprised to discover that their hurt spouses stop in the middle of preparing for sex, because they simply can't get these images out of their minds.

Loss of love

Dr. Willard F. Harley, in his book, His Needs, Her Needs, discussed the analogy of the love bank as it relates to romance, or feeling in love with your spouse. The idea is that through a relationship, people make desposits and withdraws from their spouse or future spouse's point of view. Deposits are actions and words that make the spouse feel loved, and that varies from person to person. Withdraws are actions and words that make the spouse feel not wanted, not important, or even hated. The higher the balance, the more in love a person will feel. If it dips into the negative, however, the relationship is in danger.


There is no question that the affair is a huge withdrawal on the love bank. Some spouses can take the hit and still feel love for their spouse because their love balance was high enough to compensate. For those with a low balance, however, the withdrawal could very easily put the account into the negative. It will take a lot of the unfaithful spouse doing and saying the things that make the hurt spouse feel loved before the negative balance can be restored into the positive.

When I say it will take a lot, I mean it will take more than it normally would have before the affair. Why? Because the hurt spouse doesn't trust the unfaithful spouse. Initially, the unfaithful spouse doing things to make the hurt spouse feel loved is going to feel, in many cases, fake and temporary. It will look like attempts to calm the storm so things can "get back to normal," in hopes he'll get over it. So those don't tend to deposit much at first. But if the unfaithful spouse sticks with it, over time it will accelerate.

But as long as the hurt spouse doesn't feel very loved by the unfaithful spouse, they are not going to be too eager to express a love they don't have by having sex. If they do, they tend to feel used and numb.

In essence, the hurt spouse may love the unfaithful spouse, but at that moment he's not in love with the unfaithful spouse.

Resistance from the unfaithful spouse.

The unfaithful spouse may also be unresponsive to having sex. Many hurt spouses take this behavior as proof they don't love them anymore, or that they are still engaged with the affair partner. In some cases, that evaluation would be correct.

But there are other reasons an unfaithful spouse may not be active in wanting sex. He may feel guilty, and is reluctant to initiate sex, or feel uncomfortable because it reminds him of what he threw away. He may feel such shame over it, he sexually shuts down. If the hurt spouse is having a hard time dealing with triggers, the unfaithful spouse can interpret that as punishing him, so he distances himself from the hurt spouse.

Not feeling the "I want you" from the unfaithful spouse, the hurt spouse may have a hard time generating any desire themselves.


The above is not an exhaustive list, but reflects the primary difficulties a hurt spouse tends to encounter when considering the resumption of sexual relations after discovery day. This, however, will not account for past history of the couple which can also play into this dynamic.

Hysterical Bonding

Hysterical bonding is what many rebuilding couples experience in the weeks and months after discovery day. Initially, after the affair is discovered, if the hurt spouse has some sense that the affair is over, and he is reconnecting to his unfaithful spouse, a period of sexual desire can ensue much like the first days when he started having sex with her.

The motivation stems from the fear of losing each other and the desire to regain what he almost lost. It can also arise due to the hurt spouse's fear that if they don't have sex frequently, the unfaithful spouse may be too tempted to return to the affair partner.

This period typically last for several weeks, even months after discovery day. However, everyone is different. Some may experience little to no such desires, for others it can last more than a year. A lot of factors go into it, including the intensity of the barriers a hurt spouse experiences.

While the period of hysterical bonding may override the above listed concerns, if they are not resolved, they are waiting on the downside of the sex craze. The period is temporary and doesn't mean the above listed issues don't need to be addressed.

Principles to Guide the Hurt Spouse

So how does a hurt spouse go about deciding if and when to resume sex, and how?

The first and primary answer to that is much of it depends on the hurt spouse's comfort level. The following principles may help you to determine that.

You believe the affair is over.

It is difficult to know for sure it is over, but if the signals tell you it isn't, and your gut warns you it isn't, then it would be appropriate to wait. You don't want to enable his behavior by allowing him to have sex from both of you, to put your health at risk from STDs, and send him the signal that you're okay with it all, that you are over it when you are not.

Fact is, you won't feel safe resuming sex until you feel certain the affair has ended.

You are willing to risk "trust on loan."

Let's face it. You don't trust your spouse, and it will take months, maybe at least a couple years before you can regain a working level of trust. That is, you have enough trust in your spouse to have a healthy relationship.

If you don't let your spouse have sex with you until you've regained that trust, that will be a long time for him to wait. The truth is, few couples ever wait until trust has been restored before sex resumes. So they end up sending the unfaithful spouse the message, "Oh, okay. I'm over it now."

Practically speaking, you end up extending trust anyway. You can't keep tabs on your spouse 24/7 short of locking her in her room, which will get you a few years in your own prison cell. If your spouse wants to cheat, they will find a way to do it.

On my own discovery day, I came up with this concept after my wife asked if we could have sex that day. At first, I wasn't sure I could. She had said she'd stop seeing the affair partner or having any kind of contact with him. But those were just words and intentions. They were tested in the coming week.

I knew I didn't have the trust to give her outright, indicating everything was all right. It was far from all right. But I had the following knowledge that helped me. One, I knew everything she'd done, so I knew there were no more gotcha surprises. Two, she confessed to everything. She didn't know I knew everything, but once I confronted her, she spilled all the beans. So I had a sense she was now being honest with me.

So I told her I was going to give her trust on loan. It didn't mean I trusted her, rather I was willing to take the risk she might default in paying it back to give her breathing room to set things right. She would pay off that trust loan by continuing to be honest with me, hide no secrets, maintain no contact with the affair partner, to institute full transparency. As she did all that consistently over time, she would pay it back.

If, however, she defaulted on that trust loan by doing the opposite of those things, then she'd be stuck in a pay as you go trust rebuilding. In which case, sex would stop happening. Doing it this way, however communicated the message "I don't trust you yet, but I want to." It shows you are committed to rebuilding, but you are not giving the unfaithful spouse a free, blank check either. They are still responsible to address the issues that bought the affair about.

That said, if you determine they are still in contact with their affair partner or keeping secrets and not being transparent, I would not recommend giving them trust on loan. You need at least some semblance that they are on the path to paying that trust loan back. Otherwise your no better off than a bank loaning money for a house to someone on the unemployment line. They've got to at least show they have the potential to pay that loan off before they get it.

Sex as a commitment.

The other message I gave to my wife that day is the need for her to understand what having sex with me again meant. Before that day, her last sexual encounter was with her affair partner. In effect, at that point she was physically divorced from me and married to him.

For me to have sex with her was in effect to remarry her. To take her back from the affair partner. But I wasn't interested in playing back and forth. I wanted her to realize that to have sex with me again meant she was committing herself to me exclusively. That going to have sex with someone else was a deal breaker. That by having sex, I expected us to be exclusive with each other.

She agreed. So we were remarried that evening. Thankfully she kept her end of the commitment up to this day. She's repaid the trust loan. I've had a working trust for well over a year, probably close to around a year and a half.

I didn't know then whether she would keep up her end of the deal. I took a risk, and I won so far. But the possibility for default, for failing, is always a possibility.

But the above strategy did two things for me. It ensured that I put the burden of addressing the affair issues on her shoulders. She needed to take responsibility for the bad choices she'd made, and work to address the issues which allowed her to chose a destructive path. It also communicated the reality that while I was giving her a second chance, she was still making a commitment right then to be my wife, and no one else's. If that was broken again, it would be over.

The Risk of Love

The reality is that loving someone is always a risk. The more intimate the love, the greater the risk, the more we can be hurt. Too many couples, unwilling to risk much in love, stick to a superficial, selfish, pleasure-seeking based love. They view sex not as a commitment and life-long union with a person they love deeply, but as one among many recreational activities they like to participate in.

Whether a hurt spouse rebuilds with their unfaithful spouse or divorces and seeks another, it will be a risk of getting hurt again. The difference is in the hurt spouse's perceived level of risk from any one person. If the risk becomes too high of getting hurt again, the hurt spouse will not feel safe loving the unfaithful spouse again. They will go look for a lower-risk relationship to be a part of.

The above is a way the hurt spouse can approach resuming sexual relations. But it is primarily up to the unfaithful spouse to reestablish a safe zone for the hurt spouse, and do the things that rebuild trust over the next months and years. To aid in that, our recommendation for unfaithful spouses is to get a copy of How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald, and do what it says.

As stated at the beginning, there are many factors beyond what we've listed here that go into a decision of when to resume sex with an unfaithful spouse. It is my hope this will give the hurt spouse some ground work on how to reach that decision in their situation.