Trusting After an Affair
Those who had the affair very often don’t tell the truth or the whole truth. I hear this a lot, “He says that he didn’t just tell me the truth, because he was afraid of how I would react.” Sadly, those who have had affairs tend to have this behavior. But, this doesn’t mean that they are a bad person or that there is no hope for your marriage. As you may well know, there is an unwritten rule among those that cheat: “If caught deny it at all costs.”
I am one of the few lucky ones where my husband told me everything I wanted to know and as far as I know, didn’t lie about anything. Well, I never found out about any lie if he did. At the time I didn’t know this was a rare thing, to have one’s spouse tell everything when asked and sever all contact right away.
When coaching couples that are trying to heal their marriages, I try to thoroughly explain how important it is for the unfaithful spouse to come clean with EVERYTHING and not try to hold anything back so as not to “hurt” the betrayed spouse. I try to make them understand how doing this only makes things so much worse and more painful for everyone involved. The betrayed spouse is already hurting; you aren’t going to make them hurt less by “editing” the details of the affair. In the end, all you’re doing is destroying trust and causing the wounds to go deeper.
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