Are You Weak for Staying?

One common feeling that hurt spouses have when they discover an affair and decide to stay to rebuild with their spouse is they feel they are being weak. Weak because on the face of it, society would suggest that if you don't have the strength to toss them out or leave them after such a betrayal, you are too weak to do what needs to be done. You are accepting their behavior.

Added to the fact that many hurt spouses already have a self-esteem attack due to the affair, such feelings can magnify that effect. They feel that giving the unfaithful spouse a "pass" by forgiving them gives the unfaithful spouse no "punishment" for what happened. They get to have "fun" while the hurt spouse suffers.

The problem with that perspective is it doesn't paint the whole picture. It only describes one path a rebuilding attempt can take. Certainly it can be a bad perspective if that is what is going on, but it doesn't define all rebuilding situations.

So what really makes a hurt spouse weak or strong?

What makes a hurt spouse weak has nothing to do with staying or leaving. It has everything to do with whether the hurt spouse hides from reality to preserve a fantasy, or faces the hard choices and seeks to deal with it in a constructive way to resolve the problems whether or not they stay or leave.

Before we break that down, first we must make an important distinction. For rebuilding to work, both the hurt spouse and the unfaithful spouse have to be strong. Much of what I'm about to say applies to the unfaithful spouse as well, but on the other side of the coin. So in addressing the hurt spouse on this issue is not to indicate the unfaithful spouse gets a free ride. As a matter of fact, if the hurt spouse follows the following perspectives, he or she will require the unfaithful spouse to be strong as well if rebuilding is to be successful. In other words, just because the hurt spouse is strong in the following ways does not mean the rebuilding will be successful. That requires the unfaithful spouse to be equally, if not more so, strong.

In what ways is a hurt spouse strong or weak in rebuilding?

1. A hurt spouse is strong when they refuse to accept blame for the affair.

Having an affair was a decision of the unfaithful spouse and in most cases, their affair partner. The hurt spouse was totally left out of it and had nothing to do with them making that decision. The unfaithful spouse, and in most cases the affair partner, are 100% responsible for taking that action and need to own it.

"But what if the hurt spouse is a horrible spouse, doesn't respect me, doesn't seem to love me, or even abuses me?"

First, if real physical and emotional abuse is going on, first thing you need to do is contact your local social services and find out what support and help you can get to leave the spouse. That is the correct response to such abuse. Having an affair is a weak response as well as further destructive to the unfaithful spouse as well. The old childhood saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right" applies here. I can understand the need to be loved, but first you have to take yourself and any children out of danger. Resolve that before you dive into another relationship.

The fact is that while an unfaithful spouse may feel justified in having an affair because their spouse is (fill in the blank) in our marriage, it is not a solution to any real or perceived problems in the marriage. Rather it is like throwing gasoline onto a fire. It only complicates or makes the problems worse. It is a running away from facing the reality of those problems by indulging in a fantasy life.

In short, having an affair is rarely, if ever, a solution to any marital problem. It is always a wrong choice.

This is why a strong hurt spouse will refuse to accept blame for the affair. The unfaithful spouse may say, "I had an affair because you never tell me I'm pretty and look down on me." Whether there is any validity to their feelings in whatever they say or not in what motivated them, the decision to violate their marital vows and bond with the hurt spouse is the path they chose to deal with it, not the hurt spouse's.

How do hurt spouses accept blame for the affair? Primarily through accepting any blameshifting from the unfaithful spouse or doing it to themselves. In the grieving process this is known as the bargaining stage, right after denial and anger. The motivation to accept some or all of the blame is often encouraged by society at large. "Well, if he had taken better care of her, she wouldn't have run off with that man." It may have been a message communicated from your parents during childhood by word and/or deed.

Indeed, hurt spouses often think to themselves, "If he had an affair because he wasn't getting enough sex from me, if I start having more sex with him, he won't stray." Sounds logical but it doesn't work that way. Sounds appealing to the hurt spouse because if true, then they see an "easy" way to fix the problem.

But that is the problem. It fails to address the real problem which is with the unfaithful spouse's failure to respond to their issues in a constructive manner. Instead, it sweeps those real issues under the rug and attempts to fix the disease by treating a symptom of a different problem. Consequently, it allows the unfaithful spouse to also be weak by not facing their real problems and it all stays under the rug--enabled by the hurt spouse--festering until the next episode of "Who wants to have an affair?" rears its ugly head again.

A strong spouse will realize the problems in a marriage are an issue to deal with, but that the unfaithful spouse's decision to deal with them by having an affair was a wrong and destructive choice they made. The hurt spouse will not accept the blame for the unfaithful spouse deciding to have an affair.

2. A strong hurt spouse will honestly evaluate their own participation in marital problems and work to address them.

Doing so isn't an admission that a hurt spouse is to blame for the unfaithful spouse's affair. Rather, if the unfaithful spouse is going to do an honest evaluation of their issues and decision to have an affair, among other things, it will be one-sided improvement of the marital relationship if the hurt spouse does not cooperate in that process.

Using an affair as an excuse to hide from the demons of the hurt spouse as it relates to the relationship is a road to rebuilding failure. Just because an affair is a really big fire in the relationship-house does not justify ignoring the smaller fires which can also threaten a marriage.

For example, let's say a spouse is hiding from their better-half some financial purchases and/or often does not consult them on purchases of significance. That is a non-transparent relationship trust issue that can destroy a marriage as well. Then the other spouse ends up having an affair, maybe even citing the lack of trust and disrespect by the secretive financial dealings as a reason the affair happened.

The hurt spouse would be correct that the financial secrecy issue did not "cause" the unfaithful spouse to have an affair. The hurt spouse would be wrong to say because of that, they should ignore that fire and focus only and exclusively on the infidelity fire before the rest is addressed.

Let's qualify that a little. When a hurt spouse first discovers an affair is happening or happened, it often puts them into the the emotional "intensive care unit." The shock of discovering it and the emotional fallout can be massive, and they will not be able to focus on much else than the infidelity for weeks to come. To use our analogy above, a firefighting team would focus on the biggest part of a fire first. Then they work down to putting out the smaller fires.

A strong hurt spouse will not hide from the fires they have created in the relationship just because the unfaithful spouse's fire is bigger. Indeed, maybe not right at first, but if the hurt spouse does not join the unfaithful spouse in evaluating the whole marital picture whether it played any direct or indirect motivation in where the marriage ended up at currently, any rebuilding effort will fall flat. The whole marriage is being rebuilt, not just renovating a room.

A strong hurt spouse, while demanding the unfaithful spouse will not rug sweep, will refuse to do so themselves and instead, pull the rug up and deal with whatever is under it.

"But what if I fix all my part of the marital problems and he doesn't fix his and we end up divorced anyway? Haven't I done all that for nothing?"

To ask that, assumes that improving one's relational skills and themselves is a waste if it doesn't save their current relationship. It should be obvious that whatever improvements a hurt spouse make to themselves are going to carry over into the rest of their life and any future relationships. While one short-term goal of working on one's marriage and fixing their part in any problems is to save and make the current marriage work, if it doesn't, the effort itself is of value to the hurt spouse personally. It makes them a stronger person, and aids in being more successful in future relationships. That isn't a waste, it should be a way of life.

3. A strong hurt spouse will place the responsibility for healing the wounds of the affair on the unfaithful spouse.

One of the big reasons I believe our own marriage rebuilding was so successful is because I did this at the very beginning. I'd not read any books that told me to do this, it just seemed natural and obvious to me.

Within the first week after I discovered the affair and we decided to rebuild, I told my wife, "My healing from this will be in direct proportion to your healing." This didn't mean I didn't have any part to play in my own healing--there are attitudes and behaviors I could have done to make her efforts ineffective. It did mean if she didn't heal herself, there was no way I could heal from what she did.

It should be obvious why this is so. The bottom line as it relates to what an affair does to the marriage is it creates a lack of trust in the hurt spouse as it concerns the unfaithful spouse. Trust is what makes love possible. It is the oil of a healthy marital relationship.

But trust is a fragile thing. It is so easily broken in seconds, but takes months and years to rebuild. The fact is the unfaithful spouse is the one who destroyed that trust and love-bond, they are the only one who can repair it by being faithful, loving, transparent, and trustworthy in all areas as it concerns the relationship. It is impossible for the hurt spouse to rebuild that trust within themselves because it is based upon an experience of being able to trust the unfaithful spouse. If the unfaithful spouse doesn't provide that foundation due to secrecy, non-transparency, remaining emotionally closed to them, the hurt spouse has no way to generate trust out of thin air.

One of the craziest things an unfaithful spouse can say to a hurt spouse, especially within the first year or two of rebuilding and longer if the unfaithful spouse has done nothing to rebuild that trust, is to say, "Why can't you trust me?" Often said when a piece of incriminating evidence is discovered by the hurt spouse. The answer should be obvious. It is because the unfaithful spouse has failed to or yet to rebuild that trust again.

Without the unfaithful spouse working hard to rebuild that trust by addressing head-on their own short-comings and failures, especially as it relates to the affair, it is impossible for the hurt spouse to heal and for the relationship to heal. If the marriage is going to be saved, it starts with the unfaithful spouse doing what they need to do to heal themselves, as I've laid out in "Healing Steps for the Unfaithful Spouse" on this blog-site.

For this reason, the strong hurt spouse will both not accept blame for the affair, nor for fixing the direct damage it has done to the marriage. It is the primary responsibility of the unfaithful spouse to repair that damage in a way that enables the hurt spouse to also begin healing and addressing their issues.

Hurt spouses, this means you cannot fix the unfaithful spouse. If they refuse to heal the cancer they caused, you cannot make them do it.

4. A strong hurt spouse will give the unfaithful spouse motivation to heal instead of viewing it as a punishment.

It isn't usually a matter of the unfaithful spouse plotting and conniving to hurt their spouse. There are some that do, but most often it was a matter of opportunity meeting inner self-based desires that countered rational decisions and assessing the consequences of those actions. In the heat of a moment, a person can find all kinds of ways to justify why they should have something they desperately want, even if internally they know it is wrong.

In most cases, not all, the unfaithful spouse is sick and needs healing rather than a criminal that needs punishing. Even in the other cases, it could be said their punishment should be motivation for healing rather than to seek revenge and to destroy them.

Which is easier? To endure the pain of cleaning out a wound so it can heal, or to be scolded and left to rot? For the hurt spouse, it is obviously an easier route to avoid assisting in the cleaning the rot out is to leave rather than staying and helping. For the unfaithful spouse, it is easier to ignore it and hope it heals on its own in time, because to even touch it creates a lot of pain, not to mention taking a cloth and antiseptic, and scrubbing it clean.

One of the most painful things a hurt spouse can do to and for the unfaithful spouse is to create an environment that motivates the unfaithful spouse to go through the struggle of cleaning out their wounds and healing them.

Providing them the promise of your love and support for them to heal themselves is not saying to them, "What you did isn't that bad, I'm okay with it," but that hurt spouse is providing them motivation to do the right thing both for themselves and for the hurt spouse. A promised reward for going through the pain of healing themselves.

Indeed, if this is combined with the other strong points, it continues to keep the ball in their court to heal. The hurt spouse is simply on the sidelines cheering them on. Of course, this is assuming the hurt spouse still wants their spouse to be healed and for the marriage to survive, that they still love them and want what is best for them.

A strong hurt spouse will not be a punisher, but desire the redemption of the unfaithful spouse and act accordingly.

5. A strong hurt spouse will not be an enabler, but a loving partner.

This means two things.

One, if the unfaithful spouse is cooperative, the hurt spouse will reward and encourage the unfaithful spouse's efforts to heal and celebrate their victories in healing.

Two, if the unfaithful spouse is not cooperative, the hurt spouse will provide corresponding consequences that encourage the unfaithful spouse to change directions and begin to heal, the opposite of enabling. By "corresponding consequences" I mean, as discussed in "Healing Steps for the Hurt Spouse - Uncooperative Unfaithful Spouse" article, that for each wrong direction they take, the hurt spouse responses in kind. That includes up to if they continue the affair after adequate time has passed to stop, that the hurt spouse be willing to leave and if necessary, divorce.

"But I love my spouse! I don't want to leave him? I want to save our marriage."

If one loves a person, they want what is best for that person. That includes refusing to participate with them in behaviors destructive to them and oneself, and any family. It is selfish and unloving to enable their acceptance of having an affair because they "know she won't leave me."

Even the father in Jesus' parable of the "Prodigal Son," didn't refuse to give his son his inheritance even though he knew it was the wrong thing to do. The father let the son leave. He didn't force him to stay. Was it unloving of the father to do that, or should he have refused and locked the son up in his room so he couldn't escape? Even though it broke the father's heart, he knew his son had to go through the pain of losing it all before he'd come to appreciate what was important.

Likewise, when a spouse has an affair, whether they intend for it to happen or not, it is a call to end the marriage. If physical intercourse is involved, it is the equivalent of divorcing and remarrying the affair partner. No matter the intentions, the practical outcome of an affair is to damage and tear apart their current marriage. To respond in kind is in essence to acknowledge that damage, that they refuse to take the steps to heal it, and accept their call for a divorce because mentally and physically, they've already divorced the hurt spouse.

A weak hurt spouse will either be too focused on their own pain to be an encouragement to the unfaithful spouse to heal, and/or make the tough decisions to respond in kind whether it is due to a lack of transparency or not discontinuing the affair. It takes a strong person to decide to leave when they so desperately wanted the marriage to succeed. It also takes a strong person to accept the unfaithful spouse's efforts and successes in healing despite the pain they caused the hurt spouse. A weak person ignores and hides from either route, but takes the route of least resistance.

A Hurt Spouse is not necessarily weak by staying to rebuild a marriage destroyed by infidelity.

Are we getting the picture here? Staying to rebuild in and of itself doesn't make one weak, nor does leaving make one, by default, strong. It isn't a matter of whether the hurt spouse is "letting them get away with it" or not. That only indicates a misconception that what they did was good for them. Like getting sick enough in the head that they would accept an affair that is destructive to them and their marriage is a good thing they "got away with." Like the hurt spouse is thinking, "I never got to do that! No fair."

The reality is more that the hurt spouse is attempting to keep them from stabbing themselves and their spouse because they are sick and need healing and redemption. Running away from that task is easier, weak, and selfish if all it boils down to is avoiding the pain of healing.

Rather, the hurt spouse is strong when they face the reality of what is going on, painful as that may be, and seek to find a way to heal themselves through either encouraging their spouse to heal with them, or to heal without them, because the hurt spouse can't stay bonded to someone who continues to bond with another and expect to heal either the unfaithful spouse or themselves.

If you're staying in a relationship and healing is happening for both spouses in the wake of an affair, it is because you are both being strong enough to face the damage and work to repair it. Likewise, if you're leaving a relationship because the other spouse would not be strong enough to face their shortcomings, you are still being strong, doing what is ultimately in the best interest of both by not enabling and participating in their destructive behavior.

Being weak is hiding, ignoring, and sweeping under the rug the core issues of each person in the relationship that are contributing to the breakdown of the marriage. No one can ignore a cancer for long. They either attempt to heal it or they die. Simple as that. Ignoring marital problems, especially infidelity, by either spouse, will kill the marriage and any other relationships if not dealt with.

Now, go out and be strong.

Evaluating the Why

I've dealt with the "why" question before in How Could He Have Done This to Me? article. Hurt spouses often want to know why their unfaithful spouse cheated on them. I've talked about this in my book as well.

As we've noted before, there is no answer to the question of "why" that an unfaithful spouse can give that will cause the hurt spouse to say, "Oh, I see. That makes sense. I can see why you did it."

This is compounded by the fact that often an unfaithful spouse doesn't know why they did it. While sometimes there are identifiable motivating factors that led them down that path, rarely does an unfaithful spouse understand themselves enough to identify why they chose that path.

The decision to have an affair is usually made based on emotions and desires, not rational, logical thought processes. If it is the latter, you have a psychopath on your hands. Consequently, few are the unfaithful spouses who sat down one day thinking they weren't happy in their marriage so they decided to seek out an affair partner. Rather, they are drawn into it emotionally, step by step, until desire takes over and reason is thrown to the wind. Damn the consequences. Few unfaithful spouses have rationally evaluated why they had an affair, other than justifications they may have come up with once it was underway.

One might conclude from that, then, that seeking out a why is a pointless exercise. If most unfaithful spouses don't have a clue why, and no answer would satisfy a hurt spouse, then why seek for a why?

We don't need to know the why to justify the affair or to make sense of a senseless act. We need to find out the why in order to heal both spouses from the damage of an affair.

It's like when your car breaks down. The first thing you want to verify is why it broke. What broke. So you'll know what needs fixing and take preventative steps to keep it from breaking again if need be. You don't want to know why it isn't working because you need closure or make sense of the car's motivation and reasons it decided to stop working. You don't need to know why so you can justify why the car broke down, decide who is to blame for it doing so. The goal is to diagnose and fix it.

There are two levels of why an affair happens that need to be understood to diagnose so you'll know what needs to be addressed for healing in both spouses.

1. The Unfaithful Spouse's Choices

Some angry hurt spouses put the reason the unfaithful spouse cheated is due to a selfish and uncaring attitude that it is all about me, me me! Indeed, for most people interacting with a person in the middle of an affair, that seems to be the case. While understandable that a hurt spouse would feel that way, it isn't so much the underlying principle that is wrong as it is the judgmental assigning of motives to an entire group of people. Makes it easy to "diagnose" when it is all due to one solitary reason.

But there is one overarching reason why an unfaithful spouse has an affair.

Desire met opportunity and the spouse was tempted to fulfill a "need" the desire created in an inappropriate manner, and they gave into it.

Was selfishness involved in that process. Most surely. Was uncaring an issue here? It would be hard to classify such an act as caring to the hurt spouse and the family, so yes. But that doesn't really tell us why. We can all be selfish and uncaring at times. Often in small ways, occasionally in bigger ways, so we're only speaking in degrees of selfishness.

Saying it was selfishness translates into saying they did it because that's who they are. You can't fix stupid, so there is nothing further to discuss. In essence, they are saying the degree of brokenness is so great the engine is trashed and only good enough to be thrown away. It is a diagnoses of why they are abandoning the person, not a diagnoses intended to address the cause of the breakdown and heal it if possible.

No, if you get to a real why, you get to what needs to be dealt with. Moving it from a wrong motivation to an objective evaluation of what happened brings the focus on understanding it enough to know what the medicine needs to be.

It should be noted that a lot of unfaithful spouses want to accept the why as being "I acted like a selfish and uncaring person." Because that means they don't have to dig any further. It means all the unfaithful spouse has to do is to start being more caring and less selfish, which can often be done for a period of time. But if it never goes any further than that, it ends up being as superficial as the diagnosis, and the unfaithful spouse will not make the real changes they need to avoid another round with an affair partner.

Admitting that the unfaithful spouse was tempted and gave into that temptation implies two major conditions.

One, the unfaithful spouse exhibited weaknesses and poor choices that led to giving into a temptation.

Identifying what those are and how they led the unfaithful spouse into giving into an affair will identify what areas of the unfaithful spouse needs work and what boundaries they need to hold firmly to in order to not go down that road again.

By way of example, since it is in the book, Lenita and I identified what her weaknesses were and what temptations she had that led her to cross one boundary after another until she was so tempted to cross the final sexual boundaries in her affairs that she stopped resisting. By so doing, we applied solutions to address her weaknesses and what boundaries she needed to hold fast to in order to avoid that level of temptation again, and flee from it if it comes again instead of running to meet it.

Two, knowing the cause, you can find a solution.

Identifying, for instance, that Lenita was attracted to men's attention, that she has a weakness in that area, she is more fully able to both guard her mind from thinking or caring about wanting that attention, and avoid situations that would led itself to that attention. She had been doing and saying things to encourage men to notice and appreciate her. Now she knows she can't encourage that kind of attention without consequences.

Just saying someone is selfish does not give a direction on how to fix it. It is too general. Rather, you want to know what selfish actions specifically led to allowing an affair to happen. When a couple focuses on what is wrong with what happened rather than on what is wrong with each other, then direction for healing can be evaluated.

By the way, you can fix stupid. It happens every day. If that were true, none of us would be fixable.

2. Evaluating the Needs of the Unfaithful Spouse

This is where some hurt spouses will tend to push back. They fear that in identifying the unfaithful spouse's needs, we are blaming the hurt spouse for the affair. It doesn't help that society often takes that view as well. I've had more than one person talk to me as if the affair happened because I wasn't doing my part as a husband.

That is an erroneous conclusion as will be made clear as we go. But we need to discuss the issue of blame in general as it relates to infidelity so we're all on the same page.

Blame Isn't a Seesaw

Too often, we view blame as a seesaw: the more you can blame one person, the less blame the other person carries. So the hurt spouse may feel anything identified as a need is something they failed to fulfill, making them to blame for the affair, therefore reducing the blame and responsibility on the unfaithful spouse. But it doesn't work that way.

Blame and guilt is more of merry-go-round. If you get it going fast enough, everyone will fall off. Whose to blame for it? Depends on how many and who were pushing. If only one person, then only one person's fault. If four, then it is all four's fault for the event. Among the four maybe one or two pushed harder or longer than the others, and so bear a greater degree of the blame.

Sometimes I'm asked who's fault was it for the affair, my wife's or her affair partner's? What percent goes to her and him? 50%/50%? No, that is a seesaw way of looking at it. They both decided to do it, even if enticed into it, so both are 100% to blame, except in cases where the affair partner was deceived by the unfaithful spouse as to their marital status.

"So, if I failed to meet my spouse's need that led him to have an affair, then aren't I to blame for the affair as well?"

No. True, you may have contributed to their temptation, but you can only be to blame for your decisions and that which you have direct control over. Not meeting a valid need may mean you are to blame in part for the condition of your relationship. But you cannot control whether your spouse has an affair or not. That is a decision they made unknown to you. They bear the full blame for that action. Any contribution you made to the negative condition of the relationship did not force them to have an affair. They had more ethical,  honorable, and effective options available to them to respond to marital problems.

I've only see a couple instances when I would lay part of the blame for the affair on the hurt spouse. In both instances it involved the hurt spouse introducing another sexual partner into the relationship via a threesome, resulting in an affair between the other two. Does the fact they did that relieve the unfaithful spouse from blame? No. They are still 100% to blame. They could have said no to the threesome. They could have said no to an affair. Just because the hurt spouse is in part to blame doesn't lessen the unfaithful spouse's blame for the affair. Both pushed the merry-go-round.

Keep in mind what we said earlier. We're not seeking who is to blame in order to point fingers, but to identify what needs fixing. If the generator belt in your car starts squeaking, but you blame the power steering belt, you'll never fix the squeak no matter how many times you change out the power steering belt or the pump. Same here. If the unfaithful spouse decided to allow an affair because they enjoyed the attention too much, it will do little good to focus on getting the hurt spouse to wash the dishes more often. History will likely repeat itself.

That understanding leads us to more objectively examine another truth.

All Affairs are Driven by Unmet Needs

I'm not prone to making near absolute statements. There is almost always an exception somewhere. In this case, such exceptions would be very rare, so I feel safe in stating it this way.

Again, some hurt spouses will not agree, but that is because they tend to have the following incomplete definition of a "need": something needed for one's survival or wellbeing. Therefore they interpret the above statement as saying all affairs are based upon needs that need filling. Generally assuming it is needs the hurt spouse has failed to meet, thus they are to blame. If you think that, go back to the last section and re-read it.

Needs, as I'm using them here, are more broadly understood. Needs can be classified in the following categories.

• A valid need that is realistic.
• A perceived need that is realistic.
• A valid need that is unrealistic.
• A perceived need that is unrealistic.

Let's break that down.

A need can be a valid or perceived need. A valid need is a need required to be met for survival or one's well being. Food is an obvious example. A vacation might be as well for an overworked employee.

A perceived need is a desire for a non-valid need elevated to the level of a need as perceived by that person. These tend to be called addictions. "I need chocolate!" would be one benign example. It's not that the person really needs it to survive, but they want it so bad that it becomes, in their eyes, equivalent to a valid need.

Also, a need can be realistic or unrealistic to meet. It is realistic to meet the need for food in most cases. Our days are numbered if we don't. It is realistic to expect the boss to give us a week's vacation when we've earned it. Same with perceived needs. It is realistic to expect to obtain some chocolate at the store in most cases without too much cash, effort, or ethical violations.

A need can also be unrealistic to be met. Dinning at the most expensive restaurant in town when funds are limited may be unrealistic to meet. In most cases, it would be unrealistic to expect your boss to give you a 6 month paid vacation no matter how much you felt you needed it. A failing heart may not find a replacement in time; if there are none available, it would be unrealistic to expect one or to kill someone to get it.

More common, however, perceived needs can be unrealistic. Cocaine is unrealistic because you have to break the law to obtain it. If you didn't have the money for chocolate, so you shoplifted a bar, you've stepped into an unreasonable means of meeting that perceived need.

I'd add a fifth category: when meeting either kind of need is impossible. It's a silly example, but gets the point across: you have a perceived need to fly like Superman. Impossible while on Earth.

Any one particular unfaithful spouse will have most all of these. We all do. When it comes to affairs, a very high percentage of them are driven by unrealistic perceived needs. Every once in a while you'll run across an affair that blossomed from an unmet, realistic, valid need, but those are rare.

This is complicated by the reality that these needs tend to overlap at times, which is why some unfaithful spouses will say, "It's because you didn't ____________." In reality, though, that only played a minor role.

To illustrate, I'll use our example.

My wife had a valid need that we all have: to be loved, desired, and wanted. I met that need in her when we married in 1982. According to her, while I've not always effectively showed it, she felt I didn't fulfill that valid desire, even during the affair.

But due to her childhood, being ignored and made to not feel wanted, she developed a perceived need for attention. At first, I met this need too. Then as we had children, they met that need. By the time our youngest was headed into his senior year of high school, she feared feeling lonely in part because I tended to be wrapped up in my world and she in hers.

Add onto that her weight loss, and the attention she was able to attract from men by being flirty, her perceived need for attention grew into attention from men. It then became unreasonable, because she was advertising something she originally didn't intend to give.

Likewise, for me, it became impossible for me to meet her upgraded need. I could have given her all the attention she could want and it wouldn't have changed anything because by that point, she knew I wanted, desired, and loved her for over 28 years. My attention couldn't generate in her the same excitement and infatuation that another man's could, because mine was old hat.

Eventually, someone took it further than flirting. Gradually, it generated in her more perceived needs that were unrealistic to meet, right up to wanting sex with someone other than me for the experience.

We traced in her how a valid need was expanded into a perceived need, then into an unrealistic to meet perceived need and impossible for me to meet need that could only be met by other men. She now knows where her weaknesses are and what to avoid in order not to find herself headed down that road again.

So getting to the why in order to address the problem in the end involves evaluating the root needs that drove it: valid and perceived, realistic and unrealistic or impossible to fulfill needs. Once you've identified the root needs that drove the decision to allow an affair to take place, only then can they be addressed and healed.

That's why all affairs are driven by the need of the unfaithful spouse, and the majority of those are unrealistic to meet perceived needs. None of which blames the hurt spouse, nor let's the unfaithful spouse off the hook of responsibility. But it does show you how to fix it.

Healing Steps for the Hurt Spouse - General

This is a chapter excerpt from our book, Healing Infidelity: How to Build a Vibrant Marriage After an Affair. You'll find not only other helpful articles in that book, but our story of how my wife entered the affairs, how I found out, and how we successfully rebuilt.

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While true that the unfaithful spouse carries the bulk of the work to rebuild from an affair, what types of things aid a hurt spouse in this? It is tempting to sit back and think the hurt spouse doesn't need to do anything to help heal from the hurt, that it is the unfaithful spouse who needs to change and fix everything. But this is not true. If rebuilding is to work, both spouses need to invest in the rebuilding 100%, or it will likely fail. That means the hurt spouse also has to be on board with making the necessary changes. In this section for the hurt spouse, we'll examine the actions and principles that the hurt spouse needs to heal from the affair.

I need to add some disclaimers before we start. One, everyone's situation is different. I will be, of necessity, speaking in more general terms. But something here may not apply to certain situations, or I may not list something that is needed in others. So take these as guides to check and make sure you are doing the things that will benefit you and your rebuilding efforts the most. Not as hard and fast rules to follow. Adapt, adjust, or throw out as needed.

Two, I've broken this up into three areas. A general area, when your unfaithful spouse is responsive and cooperating, and when he is not. The approach between the two are different, and when an unfaithful spouse becomes responsive, it may require a shift in approach if you determine it is genuine. But you will have some unfaithful spouses that are also cooperative at first, but later shut down. Some cooperate in certain areas, but not others. So depending on the situation, you may need to apply one set at one time, another at another time, and sometimes, a mixture. This chapter will be the general steps most hurt spouses will need to take into consideration.

1) First, realize you are not at fault for your spouse's affair. Many times an unfaithful spouse will attempt to say you are, and no doubt in their mind that is how they justified their decision to give into temptation, but the truth of the situation is the following. Despite whatever issues they had with the marriage or with you, cheating doesn't fix any of them. It only complicates and destroys things further. Therefore, the decision to cheat is never a good response to marital problems. Because of that, it is never your fault, no matter how bad of a spouse you've been or how difficult the marriage has been. Take responsibility for your part in the problems of the marriage, but not for their decision to cheat.

2) Don't automatically assume you have been rejected, and that there is something wrong with you. It is natural to feel they chose the other person over you. Because obviously as far as actions, that appears to be the case. It is usually a source of confusion to the hurt spouse why, if the unfaithful spouse says they love them, they could do something like this. How could they risk the marriage, the family, your sexual health, etc., on a fling? On a secret lover?

But the bottom line is this: in most cases, the unfaithful spouse never says to themselves, "You know what? I don't like X and Y, so I'll just go find someone else to have sex with." It happens, but the majority of cases is the unfaithful spouse becomes vulnerable due to their personal issues and needs, and gives into temptation without thinking about the consequences. As a matter of fact, the mind that is being tempted in this way is not rational at all. If it were, the person wouldn't do what their desires are wanting.

This state of mind is called a "fog" for good reasons, because the unfaithful spouse can't see anything other than what he wants right now. Though somewhere buried in the back of his mind he know this will hurt the marriage and his spouse, the strong desires he has, which may be sexual desires, ego stroking, attention, companionship, or a mixture of those, the desire for meeting those perceived "survival" needs blinds him to taking a serious accounting of the potential consequences. The stronger that desire is, up to an addiction, the less the later consequences play into the decision.

What happens for many unfaithful spouses is they give in at a moment of temptation without thinking through the consequences. As a result, they often come away feeling the victim, that it just happened, and so they start looking for reasons why. Often the finger is pointed at the spouse because he didn't do X, Y, or Z. They often don't feel like they consciously made a decision to cheat. What they miss is failing to recognize the decisions that led to the temptation to cheat, like choosing to flirt, believing it to be "innocent fun."

Often he didn't intentionally reject you by having an affair. He was tempted and let it happen. He gave in to his desires. That is often why he doesn't bring up his desires and needs with the spouse, because he doesn't identify them that way. Not too many unfaithful spouses wake up one morning and think to themselves, "Wow, I really have a need for intimate conversation with my spouse. I could talk to them about it, explain how desperately I need this, and we could go to marriage counseling. Or I could have an affair. Hum...the affair sounds like the best option." Usually those needs are ignored or erupt in anger and fights instead of constructive cooperation, and the unfaithful spouse isn't always directly aware they have become more vulnerable to temptation because of them.

So even if the unfaithful spouse says things like, "She made me feel better than you ever did, that's why I cheated," don't give into the lie that he chose her or him over you. Chances are the unfaithful spouse is coming up with reasons because he is too deep in the fog to believe it is his fault and accept blame for it. People cheat because of their own character shortcomings, not being able to deal with their problems in constructive ways. It is more a rejection of who they are than you.

"But she said she loved him, and she can't stop thinking about him." Yes, that happens. Unfaithful spouses all the time mistake infatuation for true love. They often get in it so deep they have a hard time realizing what they feel isn't love, but a feeling they enjoy and desire. Wearing the rose-colored glasses of infatuation, their love for their spouse will seem to pale in comparison on the passion level. But that isn't the fullness of love, and it cannot compete with real, unconditional love for each other if your relationship is based on more than passion and friendship, but a self-sacrificing love for each other.

In short, what he is often in love with isn't the affair partner, but in how the affair partner made him feel. He is in love with a feeling.

3) Realize that the healing process and rebuilding trust will take time. Two years minimum, maybe longer if the unfaithful spouse isn't fully cooperative, or you have trouble getting past issues. During that time, you'll have periods when you're making progress, and periods when it feels you've sunk back to day one. Even the best of rebuildings will experience periods of depression and a sense of loss on a recurring basis. Don't expect even two or three years down the road to be "past this." As time goes buy, assuming you both are dealing with the issues instead of shoving them under a rug, incidences of feeling the loss and the hurt will become less and less, duller and duller. But that takes at least two years or more, about the amount of time it takes for a couple to feel the changes in their life have become the "new normal." Even if the rebuilding goes well, don't expect the pain and hurt to be totally gone even at two years.

4) Know the stages of grief so you can work through each stage, avoid getting stuck, and find acceptance. You can read up on them in this article. Realize that these emotions and struggles are normal and needed to heal, as painful as they are. Bottling them up and ignoring them can prevent healing.

5) Work toward a healthy and strong sense of self. Affairs can be big blows to one's self-esteem and sense of knowing who you are. The affair changes the relationship significantly from what it was before. Both in how you look at your spouse, but also in how you perceive yourself through your spouse's eyes. It will never be what it was prior to the affair.

Get individual counseling, read good books, and keep the following in mind. While you may have blame for some marriage problems, you are not to blame for the affair. That is fully owned by the unfaithful spouse and his affair partner. The reason they cheated, no matter what he claims the reasons were, are due to his inappropriate responses to issues he is facing within himself. There is a character flaw in him that allowed, maybe even sought out, the affair as the way to deal with his needs. It is not a lack in you, it is a lack in him that is the problem.

Therefore, to get your view of your self through him is going to be a very distorted picture. Don't rely upon it. Assume his view of you will be filled with distortions and exaggerations. He has proven himself untrustworthy in hiding the affair from you, he will be untrustworthy in other areas until he takes ownership of his wrongs and gets out of the fog enough to think clearly.

6) For those of faith, seek out spiritual counseling from your pastor/priest, or spiritual leader, or even a close friend who you feel is strong in the faith. While generally this is a tragedy not readily shared, especially among church members, and there can be some shame felt even by the hurt spouse for the fact it happened to them, you will need someone who is not emotionally impacted by the affair to keep your feet on solid ground.

For those of faith, this can be a time of faith crisis. Why did God allow this to happen? Why did my prayers for him not get answered? Approached the wrong way, some could lose their faith in God over this. Or, they will find their faith a firm foundation in the midst of the raging sea of emotions, hurt, and struggles to rebuild. Having someone that can give input and guidance to what you are going through can make the difference between healing and letting the pain crush you. If nothing else, you need a listening ear. You don't want to carry this struggle alone. Also your spiritual life is just as important, if not more so, than your emotional life, because it will impact your emotional life and can be the difference between a successful rebuilding or ending in divorce.

A disclaimer. Not all pastors or priest are adequately trained in dealing with affairs. Don't expect them to be marriage counselors unless they have a degree or certification in that area. But hopefully they can provide spiritual guidance. Some have unhelpful ideas about marriage and affairs based on their interpretation of the Bible. If one pastor or priest isn't helping you, seek out another who can. Some communions have more resources to deal with these things, or the pastor will know good counselors you can contact.

7) For successful rebuilding, you will want to eventually reach a stage of empathy with the unfaithful spouse. This won't happen quickly, certainly not right away. You are going to be too focused on your own pain, and your anger at what they did won't allow much empathy to take place. But in due time, as you work through the stages of grief, and if rebuilding is going to be successful, eventually you'll need to get there.

Notice, I did not say sympathy for them. Two different things. Sympathy is "feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune." Empathy is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." Sympathy says you have pity on them and feel sorry for them. Empathy says you understand that their pain exists, even if you can't care about it or deal with it adequately right now. Empathy acknowledges that the other person has real needs, concerns, and difficulties in this journey as well. But for the hurt spouse to move past an obsession and focus on self and their own pain, they have to reach a place where they are able to understand the pain the unfaithful spouse is going through.

I’m not talking here about understanding the why or reasons for the affair. I'm talking about his hurts and pains. Believe me, he has them. Some of them are good at covering them up, even from themselves, and not focusing on them or dealing with them. While some unfaithful spouses are good at fooling themselves so that they seem to be immune to sorrow and repentance, they are just as damaged by the affair as their hurt spouse is. In some cases, even more so.

He has to deal with the reality that he committed an act against the one they love (if that's the case) and who he doesn't want to lose. He has been spiritually and emotionally damaged by living in the fog. As the Scriptures say, unlike other sins, fornication and adultery are sins against one's own body and person. He may try to cover up that pain by blame-shifting, gas-lighting, sweeping it under a rug and refusing to talk about it any longer, sticking his head in the sand by keeping busy, etc. to avoid facing up to it, but it is there.

He also has the initial pain, if the affair was ongoing when discovered, of breaking off a relationship he was enjoying, usually before he was ready to do so. One of the hardest things for the unfaithful spouse to do is break that relationship whether or not he felt he was "in love." Think back to an early relationship that broke up of your own, and how emotionally devastated you were.

Except here, there is the added hurdle to overcome, that he shouldn't talk about it or show those feelings to the hurt spouse because it further hurts them. So many unfaithful spouses struggle through that alone. Many cases, it leads them to reconnect with the affair partner. But the unfaithful spouse who successfully breaks that contact will experience a major loss. Though that is not what the hurt spouse wants to hear, that's the reality of the situation. He could no easier not feel that loss than if they had lost one of their parents to a car accident. It is one of the many negative consequences for being unfaithful.

For the unfaithful spouse who really puts forth the effort to fix themselves, he must endure the painful and slow process of facing his sins and misdeeds, owning them, staring their guilt in the eyes, repenting, and working on himself to ensure the sin doesn't happen again. Rebuilding for the unfaithful spouse is a painful process if he really invest himself in it. It too will take years, not weeks or months, before it is conquered. He will always live with the reality that he did this to the one he loves, and face her everyday with that knowledge.

Until you reach a stage of empathy for the unfaithful spouse, until you can find the ability to care for what they are going through, rebuilding will not happen. For what you are rebuilding to isn't just an existence with each other, but a rekindling of the love you have for each other. Without empathy, that will never happen.

8) Don't obsess over the affair partner. I know, it is natural to do so. Most hurt spouses at one point or another expresses anger over the other person who their spouses cheated with. They are convenient targets of hate, because you are not trying to rebuild with him. To express that blame and hatred to the spouse would be counter productive to the rebuilding. Also sometimes unfaithful spouses will not tell the truth about their affair partner, to deflect blame from themselves. "But Honey, she seduced me when I was depressed."

So often hurt spouses will want to meet the affair partner and tell them what for, or punch them, or destroy their property and lives. But this will not be productive. It will only destroy you and keep you from healing, and take your focus off where it needs to be: on your spouse.

The only concern you should have about the affair partner is to make sure your spouse has broken all contact with him and then treat him as if that person doesn't exist. The affair partner becomes invisible. The goal should be to get him out of your lives as cleanly, quickly, and as forcefully as possible. The more you stir things up with him, the more likely he is to reestablish contact with your unfaithful spouse and stay in the picture, and continue to seek after what he once had. Because the only way the unfaithful spouse can break the bond he has with the affair partner is to go for a long time with no contact. The more contact he has, the less likely he'll break that bond, and the more likely he'll return to the affair partner.

9) Guard your thoughts. This is something that is learned. Many hurt spouses have instances of flashbacks, can't get the picture of their spouse in bed with the affair partner out of their head, imagine all sorts of scenarios that probably never happened between the two, usually blown out of proportion. But these thoughts tend to be obsessive. They intrude into your daily life, sex life, and when something triggers your memories of the affair. At first, these will be strong and need to be faced. But at some point, they become obsessive and can prevent the hurt spouse from healing. To do that, the hurt spouse (and the unfaithful spouse for other reasons) needs to learn the art of guarding your thoughts.

One method is to use distraction. One simple way is to have a phrase you say to yourself when those thoughts arise. For the more religiously inclined, a simple one to remember is what is known in ancient Christianity as the "Jesus prayer." The simple form is, "Lord have mercy," which is a response in prayers at many churches. The fuller form of it is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." But even if you are not religious, you can find a phrase that can help distract you. A saying like, "Que sara, sara." That is, "Whatever will be, will be."

A second form of distraction is music or talk radio. Get your mind engaged in a song or discussion so it won't wander to the wrong thoughts. Strike up a conversation with someone. Give someone a call.

Another form of distraction is to do something physical. Many use exercise of some form. But that alone may not occupy your mind, though it can help burn off some steam. My wife was instructed to use a rubber band around her wrist, and when thoughts she didn't need to be thinking of arose, to snap it so that the pain would distract her from her thoughts.

Another method is reclaiming. This is especially good for triggers. If there is something that tends to make you think of the affair and other obsessive thoughts, reclaim that event. For example, my wife met her primary affair partner at the local gym. I didn't go, obviously, or it wouldn't have happened. Once I discovered the affair, I had two options. I could forbid her to go to the gym any longer, for fear she'd met him there again and this would keep going, or I could start going there myself to ensure he and no one else would hit on her. I opted for the later, in part because I didn't want remembrances of the gym to be her private domain of good thoughts about the affair partner, and I wanted to claim that joy they shared for me and her. So I went. Yes, the first time or three were awkward. But now I don't ever think anything about it. Driving by the gym holds pleasant memories of us working out and swimming together instead of remembrances of "this is where they started their affair, worked out together, swam together." Seeing the gym isn't a trigger to the affair as it would have been had I taken the other route.

A third method is to substitute positive thoughts for the negative. When the obsessive thoughts arise, have ready some positive thoughts to direct your mind to. If, for instance, images of your spouse in the arms of the affair partner arise during sex, causing you to lose all interest, have ready images of you and your spouse to shove in front of them.

All these things take some practice. At first you'll forget and suddenly remember, "Oh, I'm not supposed to be thinking on these things," and you'll do one of the things above. At first, it will have to be a conscious decision. But after a few weeks of doing these, they'll start to become automatic and natural. What you are doing is retraining your mind to not go there. In the first weeks after discovery day, forget it. You can't avoid thinking about it day and night, all the time. But as you move on, and some of those thoughts won't leave, you have to work to get them out and learn how to guard your thoughts so you control them, and not them, you.

10) Interact with the unfaithful spouse in a straightforward, clear, and business-like manner. Yes, at first your emotions are going to be running wild. Everyone's does. You'll probably say things that you later wish you could take back. But once you settle down from the initial roller coaster ride, you'll want to accomplish the following things in communicating with your unfaithful spouse.

First, what your goals and expectations of him will be. Include as short but complete of a list as possible. Transparency and what that practically means. Financial. Availability to answer your questions, and maybe an agreed upon method to do that. That he will allow you to vent and relate your hurt without him becoming defensive or shutting down on you. Read books together like Not Just Friends. Go to marriage counseling, committing for two to three months at least. Communicate that rebuilding will take years, so he doesn't have the idea it will blow over in a month or two.

The above are examples, you may have more depending on the situation. But the important thing is to make it clear what he will need to do to meet your needs to heal from what he has done to you.

Second, list the consequences of these not happening. One thing you will need to do, despite beliefs in never divorcing, is to leave the divorce option on the table. For some unfaithful spouses, they have convinced themselves that you would never leave them, and it gives them motivation to just get through the initial fallout from the discovery before picking back up where they left off. For them to be shaken out of their fog thinking, they need to feel you could really leave them. But draw that line carefully. Make sure you are ready to do that should it go that far. Nothing worse than drawing a line in the sand, to back up and draw a new line when that one is crossed. Then the lines mean nothing.

So I would suggest breaking them down in stages as much as possible, both loosening up as he does better, and tightening down if he falters. So, for instance, maybe one consequence of either not being transparent and/or of breaking no contact is he is forced to hand in his smart phone and get an old fashion, no frills, basic phone with no texting ability. Or he allows spyware to be installed on his phone so you can fully monitor him. Then after a period of time has passed, say six months as an example, and he's been good, that gets taken off his phone or restored to being smart. Or you first take an extended trip to a relative, and if that doesn't reverse things, separate. If he falters again, divorce after a certain amount of time has passed without resolution. Break it down into progressively more restrictive stages as required, and back them down as he becomes more cooperative.

Third, write down something similar for yourself, dependent on him or her doing the above. Be transparent yourself. Good marriages are transparent without an affair. Maybe you'll wash his clothes and fix his dinner. Find out what his needs are and seek to meet them. Don't assume they are the same as yours, because they won't be in most cases. Certain ones can be taken away if he isn't cooperative. Not to be manipulative, but to reward behavior that will help rebuild, and discourage behavior that will end in divorce court. The idea is you are joining him to work on this together, not just him doing all the work.

The idea is to have good communication. Don't rely upon hints and "he should know what I want" type ideas. Be clear about your needs and wants. He can't be expected to meet them or change for them if you don't voice them clearly. The communication needs to happen in a calm, rational manner. Not threats, ultimatums, and screaming. You also need to be firm and confident. A no-nonsense manner of "this is the way it needs to be if we're to make it. Are you with me or not?" Also allow the unfaithful spouse to communicate clearly to you as well. Make it a discussion, not a lecture. Not all of your goals need to be given at one time. You may start with a basic list, but add to it over time as new things pop up. Think in terms of short-term needs and where you want the relationship to be over time.

11) Get help through counseling and good books. Too many spouses have a lone-ranger attitude. I know, because that was me. Until Lenita's infidelity, I'd never been to a counselor for anything. Despite there were times we should have done so in the past. However, I knew this time I wanted to leave no stone unturned in our efforts to rebuild. I knew we had one good shot at healing. I knew we were in over our heads. We were treading new territory and needed a guide to avoid as many pitfalls as possible.

Since you are reading this book, it is likely you already have sensed the same thing. But perhaps someone shoved this book into your hands and you've reluctantly read it, though by this point you have no doubt discovered the value of this type of help or you would probably not still be reading by this point.

Books can be a major source of help in rebuilding both yourselves and your relationship. I'd recommend the following book to begin your healing journey.

Getting Past the Affair: A Program to Help You Cope, Heal, and Move On -- Together or Apart by Douglas K. Snyder. The strength of this book is it gives you some practical steps to take in dealing with the affair, including the initial days and weeks after discovery day. It is based upon a sound understanding of the dynamics in rebuilding relationships, and can help if rebuilding doesn't succeed as expected or isn't the ultimate choice of either spouse. Also includes steps for the unfaithful spouse as well as the hurt one. For these reasons, I recommend reading this book first to get some immediate guidance and direction, including finer points on what we've talked about here.

While books like these and the one you are reading now are helpful, they can only be of a general help. The author(s) cannot cover every conceivable circumstance, nor address your specific situation. A person reading these books still needs to take the general principles and apply them to his relationship.

Because of this, it is also strongly suggested to obtain individual and marriage counseling as soon as possible. Both spouses need to evaluate how these events have affected them based on their history, how to rebuild their sense of self-identity, and what will be the best approach, given their specific circumstances, to proceed with rebuilding the marriage.

Once, I attempted to change the ball-joint on an AMC Pacer. I followed the instructions in a book, but a frozen bolt refused to come lose. It was then I read in the book, "This is not a 'backyard mechanic' type job." I thought, "Now they tell me!"

In the same way, rebuilding a marriage and yourself after an affair is not a do-it-yourself task. If you go it alone, chances of success go way down.

When you look for a therapist in your area, search for those with experience in helping with infidelity. Once attending sessions, if it is clear they are enabling rug-sweeping, blame-shifting, or other tactics which divert you from dealing with the issues, feel free to change counselors until you find one that can truly help you. Not all counselors are created equal, or in some cases, you just don't mesh well with a given counselor through no fault of either person.

These are some of the general steps. I could continue on and get more detailed, but this gives a broad overview of the general steps that can help a hurt spouse deal with the aftermath of an affair. Next we'll look at the steps a hurt spouse can take in dealing with a cooperative unfaithful spouse.

Healing Steps for the Unfaithful Spouse

This is a chapter excerpt from our book, Healing Infidelity: How to Build a Vibrant Marriage After an Affair. You'll find not only other helpful articles in that book, but our story of how my wife entered the affairs, how I found out, and how we successfully rebuilt.

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This chapter is for those unfaithful spouses who wish to rebuild their marriages after having committed an act of infidelity. Many unfaithful spouses who have ended an affair and want to save their marriage don't always know what they need to do, what approach they should have, or understand fully the damage to the hurt spouse. Usually, the “natural” reaction is the wrong one to successfully rebuild. My wife, Lenita, who is an unfaithful spouse and has successfully rebuilt our marriage, wrote an article on what the unfaithful spouse needs to do to help the hurt spouse heal. I'm taking the core outline from that article to write this chapter.

This chapter assumes that you have told your hurt spouse about the affair and that he knows the general details of the affair. Now you are asking: what are the ways in which you can best help you and your hurt spouse heal and save the marriage, if indeed that is your goal? Here are the main areas that need your attention to potentially succeed.

1) Be prepared to invest yourself 100% and more into the rebuilding of the marriage. That means two major points. One, rebuilding will not be easy, especially for the unfaithful spouse. To help your spouse heal means facing the pain of what you've done, examining it, and dealing with it until the wound has healed. These are hard things for anyone to do. Unless you are totally committed to doing whatever it takes, you will tend to falter when, for instance, you debate whether to tell your spouse about that chance encounter with the affair partner or not.

Two, realize this will take years, not weeks. Too often the unfaithful spouse wants to put it all behind them. He doesn't want it thrown into his face regularly. That is understandable. But keep in mind that while you have known this secret for weeks, months, or even years, for the spouse it is fresh and new information that has to be processed, the loss grieved over, and the trust that has been violated to be rebuilt over several months. To do that, he needs to talk about it, deal with it, and process it to the point of satisfaction that he can move past it. That will not happen quickly. Doing the following will help it to happen as quickly as possible, but even in the best of circumstances, don't expect everything to be "back to normal" until a minimum of two years. In some cases it may take even longer. No two individuals are the same. But unless you realize you are in it for the long haul, it will be easy to get discouraged when after three or four months, he is still bringing up issues about the affair. He has to deal with the affair, and if he isn't allowed to, then he is prevented from healing.

2) Develop an attitude of healing. Lenita listed several examples of what that attitude needed to be:

I will own up to what I have done and place none of the blame on anyone else.

I will never try to 'gag' you but will listen bravely without flinching away and answer/discuss anything you need to, anytime you need to.

I will be humble.

I will show you my heart.

I will understand that I must be responsible for helping you heal and that I must work diligently to heal myself.

I will not be defensive concerning the affair or the affair partner.

Without these attitudes, the chances of rebuilding are slim. This is because for healing the marriage to take place, the bulk of the work will be with the unfaithful spouse. The bottom line is you have hurt your spouse, and now it is your job to heal that hurt. You are the only one who can heal your spouse, because only you can rebuild the trust that has been stolen from them. To not do the above is the equivalent of shutting the door on the marriage. If you said to point #1, "Yes, I am committed," then this needs to be the first place you take a stand. Because if you approach it with any other attitude, the following steps will not only be harder, but you'll not implement them as fully as you should to really heal your spouse.

3) Break all contact with the affair partner. Until the hurt spouse feels secure that there is no more contact of any kind going on between you and your affair partner, for him, the affair isn't over. As long as that door is still open, however slightly, the hurt spouse will live in fear that if the affair hasn't restarted, it is only a matter of time until it does. Contact means the emotional bonds are still alive. Only complete and utter no contact will allow the hurt spouse the ability to start healing. To not do so magnifies the odds against any rebuilding efforts being permanent.

Unfortunately, this is one step many unfaithful spouses find hard to follow through on. Especially if they were caught while the affair was ongoing. It usually means a sudden end to a relationship that at that moment, neither of you were ready to end. Maybe one goodby phone call and then to never speak or see them again sounds harsh and drastic. When someone has fallen in love with another person, even if inappropriately, to stop all contact is the equivalent to saying to the affair partner, "I don't love you, leave me alone and never talk to me again," when that is the exact opposite of how you feel. Yet if you want the affair to be over for your spouse so that healing of the marriage can begin, this is a necessity.

Remind yourself that if you are experiencing the sudden loss of a relationship with someone you were with for a few days, weeks, or months, how much more is your spouse going through when they are feeling the loss of a relationship they've had for years with you? At this point, you have to chose and invest yourself in whichever path you wish to go. In either case, that means cutting off all contact with the other you are leaving. No matter how much you love him. Bottom line: this is one of the hard consequences of allowing yourself to have an affair.

"But I work with the affair partner. How do I deal with that?" You may find your spouse is one of the rare ones who can deal with that situation, but with 99% of the hurt spouses, even if they acknowledge the financial stress of losing a job you've held for years, maybe nearing retirement, and the unpredictability of finding new work, the chances of successfully rebuilding the marriage goes down drastically if continued contact of any kind is retained.

Until contact is cut off, the affair is still going for the hurt spouse, even if in truth it isn't. The hurt spouse has no means to know you are being faithful even while making frequent contact at work. He has no way to know you aren't meeting in a closet or room or car. He has no assurance that you aren't sharing lunches together and discussing personal issues. Rebuilding trust in a situation like that is next to impossible. It's like telling someone to put out the fire with water while you continue to blast it with a flame thrower.

As Lenita often told me when she faced something painful, "I asked for this, you didn't." When you allowed an affair to happen, you put at risk everything. Your marriage, your children, your job, your stability. There may come a point that you have to sacrifice your job security for marital security. That can be one of the costs of having and affair. Which will you chose?

There may be solutions. You can ask for a transfer from your department if the company is large enough. Preferably to another building. Your spouse would even by happy in most cases to hear the transfer meant a move to another town. But if that doesn't work out, and there is no choice but to either quit or stay in contact with the person, it may mean making that hard choice to find another job. We again go back to points #1 and #2. It may mean less money, or financial hardships. That's when you have to ask what is more important to you? Your marriage or your job? If it comes down to a decision between the two, and no compromise can be worked out, it may mean making a decision of which one to sacrifice. No contact is that important.

No contact also extends to mementos you have from your affair partner. Pictures, written letters, emails, or other items bought for you all constitute links to the affair partner. These should be deleted or thrown away to complete non-contact. Both because they can be triggers to the hurt spouse, but also triggers for you, causing you to recall him or her and the "good" times. The goal of no contact is to let the affair partner fade into the past, so you can focus on your spouse, your marriage, and your family.

4) Become totally transparent. What is meant by this is to open yourself up in all ways that relate to rebuilding trust in the aftermath of the affair, so that your spouse can see everything he needs to see to feel secure that contact is not still ongoing, and that you are being truthful.

Think of it like this. The hurt spouse just discovered that you've broken your wedding vows to him, and in most cases lied about it, hid it from him. You've stolen something precious to him: his trust in you and his security in your love for him. Any "secret," any request for "privacy" to him is translated that you have something more to hide about the affair. He has no reason to trust you at this point.

It will take months of constantly discovering that you are telling the truth to begin to trust that you are actually doing that. The only way he can see you telling the truth is by being transparent.

There is a saying, that trust takes a lifetime to build, but seconds to destroy. Trust is the glue that holds a marriage together. By opening yourselves to each other in the most intimate of ways, you have made yourself vulnerable to being hurt. Trust means "I trust you enough not to hurt me. So I open my soul to you." The moment that perceived truth is broken by being hurt, the natural reaction is to pull back and not trust. After many positive examples of truth-telling, gradually he will start to trust again. Even then, it will never be the same innocent trust he had prior to the affair. Like an accident victim, he will tend to flinch inwardly when anything that even looks like the same threat darkens his path. That will be with him to some degree for the rest of his life. The only way to rebuild that trust is to no longer hide anything from your spouse that would be of concern to him or her.

What does “no longer hide anything” mean? We're not talking telling him what you ate for lunch, or all the thoughts that go through your mind everyday. Rather, there are two questions you can ask yourself that will determine if it is something you should tell him: “If I were him, would I want to know this?” and “Is this something I don't want him to know?” If you answer “yes” to either of those questions, then to be transparent, you should tell him.

On the practical side, transparency translates into actions like giving your spouse the user names and passwords to all social media accounts you have. All email accounts. All cell phone's and their bills. When your spouse asks to look at them, you readily give them over without the need to "erase" anything. Likewise, one of the best trust rebuilding activities you can do is to tell him things he could have never discovered himself. For instance, my wife told me about any and all encounters with her affair partner, who for some months kept attempting to contact her. Most of those I would have never known about if she hadn't told me. But she wanted to be totally transparent with me. Having her tell me that aided in my rebuilding of trust in her.

Some spouses expect a level of privacy and are unwilling to give this up. However, this is unhealthy, even for a marriage that has not gone through an affair. Even more so once one spouse has hurt the other by having an affair. Some secrets a spouse has are harmless. Maybe you were called a nickname by family or friends when little, and you've never told your spouse out of embarrassment. Understandable. However, once a couple is married, the old saying, “No man is an island” takes on an increased meaning. Any activity you do can affect the marriage and relationship, and each spouse has the right to know about it. That right supersedes any rights to privacy a spouse may think they have. Bottom line, if you have information you don't want your spouse to know that affects the marriage in any way, financially, socially, emotionally, sexually, or spiritually, you don't have the right to keep that from him, and he has every right to find out, even spying, if he has probable cause.

Without consistent transparency, you severally limit the ability of the hurt spouse to rebuild trust in you and the marriage, and drastically lower the chance of success in rebuilding.

5) Avoid "rug sweeping" at all costs. There are two ways and motivations for wanting to take the issues generated by the affair and sweep them under the proverbial rug so you don't have to look at them or deal with them.

One, what you did is painful to face. It is easier to say, "Okay, that's in the past now. It's over. Time to move on," and clam up about the affair, expecting him to do the same. We've already discussed in the previous steps why this is dangerous. It prevents the hurt spouse from dealing with and healing from what has been done to him. He is not able to find closure. It also causes him to sense that you are continuing to hide something from him. Making it near impossible to rebuild trust again. Doing this will ensure the marriage will fail at some point because the hurt spouse will not heal.

Two, it also ensures that you, the unfaithful spouse, will not heal. You will help your hurt spouse heal in large part by healing yourself. He needs to know that you are working to not only discover what character issues as a person allowed you to treat any problems and fulfill any unmet needs in the marriage in such a destructive way, but that you are also working to fix those issues, to make the changes in yourself to prevent another occurrence from happening again.

If you refuse to face your issues and instead keep them out of sight, you will not heal. Indeed, by ignoring the need to face these issues and do the hard work to emotionally and spiritually heal yourself from this destructive event, the likelihood of it happening again is substantially higher. Your spouse knows this instinctively. If you are hiding from the issues, the fear that it will happen again is much greater than if he sees you wrestling with what you've done to him and yourself, and working to fix it.

6) Take advantage of counseling. Being willing to not only go to individual counseling to help you sort through your issues related to the affair, but also marital counseling, is a key component of healing for both of you. Especially important if your skills at communication are less than ideal. A counselor can help to facilitate constructive communication and conflict resolution. But even if you have good communication and you felt your marriage before the affair was good, this is still important.

For us, our marriage counselor helped point us in the right directions. Our first thought was my wife was dealing with a sexual addiction. But we didn't understand that term in its full clinical sense. Our counselor pointed us to where we needed to work on our marriage. I realized after the fact that claiming Lenita had a sexual addition was more a way to blame it on something rather than her bad choices. Self-diagnosis isn't a good idea. An objective, informed guide is much better for seeing where you are at and helping you through the maze of feelings and options you'll encounter.

That said, not all counselors are created equal. Many are not that experienced in dealing with infidelity. I've heard more than my share of stories where a counselor gave out bad advice. Sometimes enabling the unfaithful partner to violate many of the needed tasks listed above. If you have a counselor who does that, feel free to change. Not merely because they ask you to do hard things, but because they aren't helping one or both of you to heal. Get a second opinion. Find out if they have experience counseling couples involved in affairs. There is too much on the line to stick with someone out of some sense of loyalty to them if they are not helping either of you to heal.

7) Read books on dealing with the aftermath of affairs and marriage. For the unfaithful spouse, the following is required reading. Get a copy of How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair: A Compact Manual For The Unfaithful by Linda MacDonald. Read it, follow it. It is not a big book, but goes into much more detail than we can in this article. It is very practical, blunt, and tells you exactly what you as an unfaithful spouse needs to do to help you and your spouse heal. You don't need to have the hurt spouse read this book, though he certainly can if he wants. This book is for the unfaithful spouse, and is spot on in guiding you to what is needed if you wish to save the marriage.

After that book, I have three more highly recommended books for both of you to read. The first is Getting Past the Affair: A Program to Help You Cope, Heal, and Move On -- Together or Apart by Douglas K. Snyder. This book will take both of you through a process of healing, step by step. Very practical on issues like communication, and based on sound principles.

The second is Not "Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. This is the best book for gaining insight both into what happened in the affair for both parties, and the steps each needs to take to help heal from it. It is down to earth, easy to read, and very practical. The author has years of work in the field, and her understanding of the reasons why this happens and what needs to be done to change it are on target. Both spouses will greatly benefit reading this book.

The other is His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard F. Harley. This book attacks another issue that commonly plagues marriages that have gone through affairs: the need to show each other love in a way they understand it. Some people might balk at the idea of working on the marriage until the affair issues have been dealt with. But what Mr. Harley found out in his own counseling practice, is that the success of rebuilding was greatly increased when both spouses were able to effectively communicate the feeling of love to the other person.

If you think about it, it makes sense. The more in love you feel with your spouse, the more motivation you'll have to face all the hard tasks of rebuilding. Likewise, the more your spouse feels you love them, the more likely he'll be able to not only get past the damage of the affair easier, but also motivated to have empathy and forgiveness for what you did. Honest feelings of love become the oil in a marriage racked by an affair that speeds healing and makes all the efforts you do to rebuild that much more effective.

These last three books we suggest you read as a couple. Preferably reading to one another. This not only provides opportunity to bond and participate in an activity together, but provides many chances to explore the events of the affair in a non-threatening manner, and see them through the light of another person. You'll find out your "unique" experience isn't all that unique.

Once done with these, seek out other books. Not just about affairs, but marriage enrichment in general as well. It will keep you both focused in building and maintaining a healthy relationship.

8) Don't neglect the spiritual dimension of healing. One of the advantages those of faith have is ways to deal with the moral and ethical guilt created by an affair. Often disciplines and perspectives can help a person not only deal with the guilt of what he's done, but the spiritual attitudes and practices that will aid in the healing process.

My wife, being a Christian, acknowledged her growing distance from God leading up to the affairs. She mentioned how she kept God in a closet much of the time during her affairs, and how hard it was to approach Him after it was all discovered. Then, as she emerged from the fog and faced the reality of what she'd done to me and herself, the immense guilt overtook her for months.

During all this time, our priest was instrumental in her spiritual recovery. This was key because it directly influenced her recovery in all other areas of the marriage. It also allayed one of my big fears upon discovering her sin, that we'd spend eternity apart from each other if she didn't change course. Key also is the fact that seeing her struggle spiritually enabled me to see she was working on all parts of her life, not just emotional or practical boundaries, but making herself stronger spiritually, which reinforced in me the sense that she was doing all she could to fix herself.

If you are or have held a faith, this is the key time to bring yourself back to that faith for support and strength and help in dealing with all the hard issues you have to face. You need to hear from God, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more," just as the adulterous woman heard that from Jesus. You'll never hear that by avoiding God. Only by coming to Him in repentance and humility. But dealing with this can be a long road. There are many consequences to work through. As Scripture also says, the sin of adultery is, at its heart, a sin against your own body, your own self. Healing that will require spiritual aid as well as the other steps discussed above.

One practice I gave my wife was to memorize Psalm 51 and say it everyday. If you don't know, Psalm 51 is often referred to as the psalm of repentance. In the case of adultery, it is on target, because this is a psalm King David wrote upon being convicted of not only committing adultery with another man's wife, but having him killed so he could have the man's wife for himself. I knew she would need the constant reminder not only that she could repent and be forgiven by God and me for what she'd done, but the humble attitude needed to rest in God's forgiveness. It became one of the spiritual crutches that helped her through the months when the guilt weighted heavily on her soul as she worked to accept His forgiveness.

9) Work to fall out of love with the affair partner(s). If you felt you loved your affair partner, this is a hard one and will take many months to accomplish. But it is important for the following reasons.

One, the relationship was immoral and should have never started to begin with. It is important that the unfaithful spouse do all they can to erase the improper relationship from their lives. Your love for the affair partner is an affront to your spouse.

Two, no one can love two people and give 100% to only one. The love for the affair partner(s) is love stolen from your spouse who you pledged it to.

Three, as long as you remain in love with the affair partner(s), you are susceptible to temptation to reignite the fires of that relationship. Time alone will not kill off love. You can be ten years of no contact, and if the love never died, it can fire back up into another affair.

At first, it will be hard to do the following, but as you establish no contact successfully, and you gain some distance from the affair, you'll want to make sure you do the following.

One, make sure no contact is fully established, including getting rid of any items or messages or pictures associated with the affair partner. These items serve as remembrances, and provide a link to keep the flame alive.

Two, as you emerge from the fog induced by infatuation, make a list of all the negative things you ignored about the affair partner. In Lenita's case, he had more of an anger problem than I do. I'm very emotionally stable, and she is highly sensitive to anyone being angry to her. He would have, at some point, crushed her love and self-esteem. But in the midst of the affair, she didn't think about it and he remained on his best behavior.

Three, practice guarding your thoughts using distraction and other techniques as described in the "Healing Steps for the Hurt Spouse" chapter. You can't so easily stop thoughts of them from popping into your mind, but you can work to not dwell on them. They slip out as soon as they arrive. The less you think about them, the faster you fall out of love with him.

Four, focus and work on loving your spouse as fully as you can using the resources mentioned in the "read books" step. Investing yourself into loving your spouse will not only regenerate feelings of love for him, but also make feelings you had for your affair partner pale in comparison.

There are many other details we could go into, but the books listed will have more of that than we could ever hope to squeeze into one chapter. But the above are the core issues to deal with to help your hurt spouse heal and save your marriage. It is a lot of work and will take a long time, but the reward can be very worth it both in terms of your own healing and growth as a person, as well as a fuller and richer marriage, despite the negative affects of the affair.

Transparency: Soul Windows

There are two primary losses a hurt spouse endures: the loss of intimacy with their spouse and the loss of trust. Trust is the heaviest casualty in an affair.

As bad as it is, an affair can be ended and in due time, forgiven by most spouses. The transgression can end, no contact established, and it can become a distant memory in time. If that was the sum damage done by an affair, you'd have fewer broken marriages over them.

But it is trust on several levels that does the most damage.

Lack of trust, if not successfully rebuilt, will linger and poison a marriage long after the affair has become ancient history. Time will not heal it, only multiply it. Here is how:

1. Lying during the affair. Few unfaithful spouses are in a frame of mind to confess during an affair. They will often go to great lengths to hide it from their spouse, including denying any accusation, gas lighting, creating marital drama to artificially get angry with the spouse, lying about where they're going, been, what they did, etc.

2. Lying when they get married. Committing infidelity involves breaking one's wedding vows, making what was vowed before witnesses a lie.

If an unfaithful spouse confessed shortly after ending an affair, or in order to end one, that would be the extent of the deception. A definite blow to being able to trust one's spouse, but rebuildable in most cases. Unfortunately, many unfaithful spouses compound that deception by doing the following:

3. Lying after the affair is over. A majority of unfaithful spouses don't confess to the affair to their spouse. Usually in the mistaken belief they are saving the spouse from being hurt. Too late. The damage has already been done. Lying to one's spouse about the condition of the relationship only compounds their hurt. Should the spouse find out about it, as is often the case, the consequences of the deception will grow like interest in a high-yield investment account.

4. Lying after discovery day. Otherwise known as the trickle truth. The unfaithful spouse, fearing losing their spouse or hurting them further, only tells as much as they believe they have to. But each secret is like a land mine waiting to go off during the rebuilding of the marriage. Each new revelation to the hurt spouse destroys trust more than it would have if told at the beginning, making rebuilding trust much less likely to be successful.

A healthy relationship is founded upon mutual trust, honesty, and respect. Destroy that, and you destroy the glue that holds a marriage together. If an unfaithful spouse sincerely wants to rebuild their marriage, rebuilding that trust is the number one priority. Fail there and the rest either won't happen or won't matter.

The antidote to deception and the quickest route to rebuilding trust in a marriage where trust has been destroyed is transparency.

Transparency, as well as no contact with the affair partner, is one of the immediate task an unfaithful spouses is expected to do to rebuild once the cat is out of the bag. This is often translated to mean the unfaithful spouse must allow the hurt spouse full access to all communication venues: email, cell phones, Facebook and other social sites, at any time they want, without the need to sanitize it first.

That is part of it, but it goes further than that. Shirley Glass in Not Just Friends uses the analogy of opening and closing windows. When an affair happens, the unfaithful spouse closes some windows to their spouse in order to open them with the affair partner. Each closed window into the unfaithful spouse's life represents an area of their life closed off to their spouse. It lessens the intimacy and hurts the bonds of marriage.

How, you may ask? As listed in my marriage articles at the beginning of this blog, the marital bond is composed of several strands: physical, emotional, social, legal, and spiritual. Each type of bond represents a degree of intimacy. For example, the legal bond represents the willingness of both spouses to be legally recognized as one entity with its legal benefits and responsibilities. It indicates a higher degree of commitment to one another because it cannot be so easily broken.

An emotional bond is strengthened by closeness, openness to each other. In other words, transparency. The more of your secrets you tell someone, the closer and more intimate of a friend you are to that person. It is that closeness that creates the emotional feelings of being in love with someone.

So the more windows that are closed to the spouse, the more secrets a spouse has that the other is not let in on, the less intimacy and emotional closeness the relationship will have.

This dynamic is often illustrated in affairs themselves. It is frequently the case that the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner share more of their emotional lives with each other than the unfaithful spouse does with the hurt spouse. In my case, my wife talked with me only 5-10 minutes a day prior to discovery day. Meanwhile, she spent hours everyday via phone and text conversing with the affair partner.

Granted, that window, prior to the affairs, wasn't open too much, but once she opened that window to her affair partner, he knew more of what was going on with my marriage than I did. In effect, they shared a transparency that I didn't. I was clueless while the affair partner even knew how often my wife and I had sex.

Soul Windows

True transparency is deeper than giving your spouse your passwords to everything. It involves opening windows to your soul to share with your spouse. It means not only providing openness to your forms of communication, but allowing them to see you as you are, faults, mistakes, good points and all.

It means keeping few, if any, secrets. Most certainly keep no secrets about the condition of the marriage. The more such secrets are kept, the less emotional connection you'll have, the less emotional love you'll feel. The less trusting the hurt spouse will be.

There is the key to transparency: to allow the hurt spouse into your soul and life so they can feel they know you again.

They can experience the honesty and the real you. Without that, giving the hurt spouse passwords and access to accounts will only be a band-aid on a gaping wound. If they still don't feel like they can trust the unfaithful spouse, they'll assume there are hidden accounts and cell phones they don't know anything about.

How Can I Open Soul Windows?

First, spend more time communicating. Just talking more won't insure opening soul windows will happen, but without it, it simply will not happen. You can't have quality time together without also having some quantity. A good goal is to spend 15 hours a week together. A good bit of that time can be conversation.

Second, read good marriage and infidelity books to each other. Pause to discuss points or participate in exercises suggested. My wife and I have had some of our most productive discussions this way.

Third, participate together in marriage counseling. Sometimes a guide can help discuss issues that need to be brought out in the open that a couple might be blind to.

Fourth, participate in activities together. Transparency and opening soul windows involves more than talk, but sharing your time with each other. Transparency of your life.

Fifth, set aside some time to discuss issues that need to be addressed concerning the affair. The hurt spouse needs to only ask questions they really need to know the answer to, and the unfaithful spouse needs to answer them as honestly and completely as possible.

One good suggestion is to create a discussion jar. The hurt spouse can write their questions on pieces of paper and put them in the jar. The unfaithful spouse can look at them as needed. When the time comes to discuss these issues, the unfaithful spouse can draw out the question(s) he wants to answer. A virtual discussion jar using an email and storing them into a folder could accomplish the same thing.

Does this work? Think about it. These are the kinds of things the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner were doing that fueled their fantasy and made it exciting. They spent massive hours each week communicating. They did things together. They shared themselves with each other heart to heart. Is it any wonder they fell in love emotionally?

In short, they were flinging soul windows open to each other. They were becoming transparent to each other while the relationship with the hurt spouse grew less intimate, more closed windows, less feelings of love. Which is exactly where the saying comes in, "I love you but I'm not in love with you." In other words, I love you in my mind, but I'm not feeling it.

To rebuild trust, the unfaithful spouse needs to shut those windows to the affair partner (no contact) and open them fully to the hurt spouse. Over time, if the hurt spouse senses they are seeing the real you, that you are being honest, faithful, and repentant, trust can be rebuilt.

Likewise, the hurt spouse needs to be willing to open their windows in response to the unfaithful spouse's open windows. While it may not happen immediately (you're gun shy), it will do the marriage little good if the unfaithful spouse opens his window but the hurt spouse never does. Unfaithful spouses need to be patient, but transparency in marriage is a two-way street. When transparency is one-sided, it becomes the means of emotional abuse, like infidelity.

What are other ways you've discovered to become more transparent with your spouse?