Last week we gave tips on ways to deal with unfaithfulness after sharing the situation of our reader that asked for help. Today’s article is a continuation of last Saturday edition. Here are more steps to take in solving the issue of infidelity in marriage.
Take care of yourself. You may start experiencing some physical reactions to the infidelity for instance, as nausea, diarrhea, sleep problems (too little or too much), shakiness, difficulty concentrating and not wanting to eat or some go into comfort eating as the case may be, the way to deal with it is to see it as a wakeup call. As painful as it seem, it is time for you to rise above the situation, instead of sitting down feeling sad, or feeling sorry for yourself, looking rejected, turn the situation around by changing your appearance, make out time to visit the hairdresser for instance, look after yourself, loose the weight if you on the big side and start eating healthy, this will occupy your mind and also give you joy.
Balance is the key to getting through this experience of coping with infidelity. Force yourself to eat healthy foods, to stay on a schedule, to sleep regular hours, to get some exercise each day, to drink plenty of water and to have some fun. You need to observe all these in order to go through the emotional pain you are experiencing.
Another important step is personal change, I mean you have to change, yes, I know you will be wondering why I said you should learn to change instead of your spouse who betrayed you by being unfaithful. This how it works, depending on his/ her personality type, some feel really sorry because they were caught, some are truly sorry, some don’t care, whatever the personality certain behaviour will be expected from you, so instead of praying for him to change, pray to God to change you so that you will be able to deal with the situation at hand. Keep being kind, loving, respectful, and caring, seeing your behaviour irrespective of the unfaithfulness will definitely drop a message in his/her heart. Don’t get me wrong as human the initial anger, pain, disappointment will play up, it is naturally to be upset, some express their pain in different ways, fine, but don’t drag it for too long forgive so that your marriage can move on.
It’s okay and healthy to laugh. Watch some funny movies or TV shows. Spend some time with people who make you smile. Life goes on in spite of heartache and unfaithful spouses.
Tears are healthy too. If you feel like crying, cry it will make you feel better.
Keep a journal: some people feel better when they put down their feelings if it will help you deal with the act of infidelity then write your thoughts and your feeling. Another way to actually forgive him/her is to Write down all his/her good qualities and bad, see which one is more, same as yours.
Ask all the questions you want. Talk with your spouse about the infidelity. However, you may have to accept that your spouse may not know why the infidelity took place.
Seek counseling. Don’t try to get through coping with unfaithfulness alone if you cannot handle it seek help from a trained counselor
Take it one day at a time. Both you and your spouse should be tested for AIDS/HIVS and STD’s before you resume sexual intimacy without protection.
Consider what boundaries you need in your marriage in order to stay in the marriage.
Your children need to know that you are going to be okay. You can’t hide the fact that you are going through a trauma. Be honest with your children, but don’t weigh them down with details about how your spouse cheated on you. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep
try not to get into the blaming game over whom or what caused the infidelity? It’s just wasted energy. That includes blaming the third party. It won’t change anything.
You may have post-traumatic stress. If you are jumpy, yell at trivial actions, feel like you are walking on egg shells, and continue to have physical reactions when you are reminded of the infidelity, see a physician as soon as you can.
It takes time to get beyond the pain of having an unfaithful mate. Don’t expect the mixture of feelings, the sense of confusion and limbo, and the mistrust to go away just because you’ve tried to forgive your spouse and made a commitment to save your marriage.
Think twice before you tell your family or your spouse’s family about the infidelity. Family members can often hold grudges for a long time.
What You Need
Healthy diet
Exercise
Drink plenty of water
Laughter
Time to heal
Willingness to Forgive
Suggested Reading : take up reading interesting books or magazine
How to Rebuild Trust
Improve Your Health by Forgiving Your Spouse
get busy with work so that you think less.
Visiting a counselor to put both spouse through a healing process is a good idea.
Simply having a therapist listening to your pain, disorientation and devastation helps the betrayed spouse.
Validating all of the emotions that he/she is feeling is very important as is normalizing his/ her reaction.
Finally, when you are going through this recession, take it one step at a time, learn to have a free mind, remove every suspicious feeling if you want to restore your marriage.
Don’t keep reminding him /her about the past. Instead evaluate your marriage see how you can spice it up a bit. Never mind if you are the one making the sacrifice, your spouse will respond in no time.
Good news is, there are couples out there going through infidelity in marriage and finding their marriage is stronger. It is stronger because what caused the cheating somehow seems to come out somewhere towards the end. These couples are able to apply what they learned, worked on it together, and created an environment in their relationship that prevents infidelity from happening again.
