How does one go about healing the marriage or relationship when in the throes of infidelity?

The scenario below gives some examples. But, first, allow a couple comments need to be made about her words.

This person stopped a major pattern in the relationship, that of being reactive to him. As she said, she stopped slinging mud.

Slinging mud does no good. It invites either a counter attack, meaningless accommodation or withdrawal. Now, if one is angry, hurt, upset, you have every right to state your feelings and what you experience in your present situation.

But, from my experience, when in the middle of dealing with an affair, your spouse or partner has no capacity to empathize or listen the way you would like. Often you are wasting your breath.

Changing your pattern of behavior, changing your action can be much more powerful… but more difficult as well. ‘Cause sometimes you really want to rip, don’t you?

Also the type of response to your cheating spouse depends on the type of affair and severity of the dysfunction. In the scenario below, there was a kernel of connection between the two of them that was a starting point.

Here’s my question:

1. List 2-3 things you did to help you as a couple heal the wound.

1. I just backed off. I listened about the other person and heard the areas where there was a void that was filled. 2. Since I didn’t do a lot of good things through this, I don’t sling mud over the transgression. This has helped a lot with opening the doors to meaningful conversation without arguments or sore feelings that would undue months of work. 3. I am in no hurry to fall back into old patterns. So when he is ready to come home, great. If not, then he can continue to stay in his apartment and we will just continue to date. Since he hasn’t expressed interest in seeing his son too much, am not forcing them to be together. We’ll work on us first then our son.

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This entry was posted by Dr. Bob Huizenga on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 10:14 am and is filed under Marriage Makeover. You may follow any responses to this entry through the RSS/XML feed. You may leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This entry has been tagged with the following keywords: healing the marriage, healing the marriage after infidelity, coping with infidelity, marital infidelity, marriage infidelity, effects of infidelity, extramarital affairs, surviving infidelity, emotional infidelity, emotional affair.