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.

The way trust is restored in a marriage after an affair is through proven behavior and full honesty over a period of time. The wayward spouse really needs to understand this and take it to heart if they truly want their marriages to heal.

The first step to saving and restoring your marriage is the breaking of all ties with the affair partner. This is a MUST if there is even going to be a glimmer of hope in restoring the marriage. I am a firm believer in delivering ultimatums and being a tough cookie when one refuses to do this step. But, I must give a word of caution here! Please seek counsel before delivering any kind of ultimatum as the timing and the how to deliver it are very important.

There is no such thing as being “just friends” with the affair partner after the affair has been brought to light. This is impossible and anyone who tries to stay “just friends” gives up their marriage to do so. For many reasons it’s very hard for the wayward spouse to make a clean break with their affair partner.

No matter how hard this is to hear, they may have developed real feelings for the affair partner and in a lot of cases they are having needs met and are often unwilling to give up this “good feeling” even though they know in their heart that their marriage is what they truly want.

My husband tried 3 or 4 times to leave his affair partner but always seemed to go back to her. He was actually glad that I found out so he could leave her for good. He wanted the “fun” things he was getting from the affair to be able to get from our marriage. It’s taken years of work but we are finally having more fun and excitement in our marriage and it’s way more than he ever got from his affair.

So, how can you trust your spouse when they won’t be honest with you and they insist on lying?

You will only trust where it is appropriate to do so. You don’t need to trust someone who is repeatedly lying and they aren’t making the necessary changes. Trusting doesn’t mean being stupid. Trusting doesn’t mean you are blind to the reality in front of your face. Some people really cannot be trusted. Trusting people DON’T trust untrustworthy people. They learn to tell the difference. When someone has had an affair, they have broken your trust and this is a very serious offense.

Trust does need to be restored though and here is a good start in doing just that.

1. Break all ties with affair partner.

2. Be totally open and honest with each other. Your spouse needs to understand that if this marriage is truly going to be healed then they cannot afford to lie and withhold any longer. They also need to understand that they need to do more than just give honest answers to the questions that you ask, they also need to give all relevant information even if you don’t ask. Like, if they had contact with the other person they must tell you even if you don’t happen to ask that question on that particular day. If they don’t tell you, they are lying and the trust falls further behind.

3. Proven behavior. Always believe your spouse’s behavior over their words! Words are just that, words. They need to prove they can be trusted by what they DO not what they SAY!

4. Doing the above over a long period of time will rebuild the trust in the marriage.

What are you willing to do to save your marriage?

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Filed under: Rebuilding Trust/Rebuilding the Marriage

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