Infidelity in marriage can be one of the most challenging experiences to navigate. It’s a heartbreaking betrayal when trust is broken between you and the person closest to you. You may feel rejected, unloved, and deeply hurt. Sometimes, the cheating is purely physical; other times, it is purely emotional. Often, it can be both.
Rebuilding Trust After Infidelity
While any form of infidelity can be incredibly painful, many believe the hardest type occurs when a partner falls in love with someone else. As one person put it, “I think I could survive her having sex with somebody else, but actually falling in love… that’s where it really hurts.”
In such a difficult situation, is there a way to rediscover what you once had? Can you learn to trust again? To love again? Infidelity raises many questions, and it’s understandable to fear entering a new relationship after such a breach of trust.
If both partners are willing to rebuild the relationship, it’s important to understand that the recovery process involves several steps. It’s not easy, but nothing like this ever is.
To repair a marriage after infidelity, you must first diagnose the problems. Just as you would assess an injury before seeking treatment, you need to identify the pain caused by the infidelity.
Infidelity typically involves pain in various areas: shame, guilt, blame, anger, disappointment, hurt, rage, forgiveness, embarrassment, jealousy, lust, denial, resentment, and mistrust.
If your spouse has hurt you multiple times and your pain feels irreparable, it may be time to reconsider the relationship. To save your marriage, you need something solid to build upon. While it’s possible to forgive the past, forgetting it entirely may be impossible.
The rebuilding process involves regaining trust, overcoming jealousy, and addressing your fears, but you cannot ignore them! If you dismiss your pain and allow a repeat cheater back into your life, you risk enduring the same heartache again.
Once you diagnose the problems, it’s time to focus on the healing process. So what does it take to repair the pain? It takes teamwork. If you’re going to restore your marriage, both partners need to work together. This requires commitment, honesty, communication, responsibility, and forgiveness.
Both partners must apologize for their actions that contributed to the infidelity, as it rarely occurs in a happy marriage. When one spouse feels their basic needs are unmet, they may seek fulfillment elsewhere.
Unfortunately, this only leads to more pain for both partners. A marriage cannot be rebuilt unless you address the underlying issues that led to the infidelity in the first place. It will take extensive discussions, tears, and pain to uncover the root problems, but if you want to resolve the issues without dwelling on them, minimize finger-pointing and blame.
Once you acknowledge the pain, diagnose it, and establish some resolution, do your best to move forward while applying what you’ve learned for the future.
If you recognize that a lack of passion may lead your partner to feel unsatisfied, commit to regularly communicating your feelings and fulfilling each other’s needs in that area. The cheater must also make a consistent effort to reassure their spouse and create a sense of security in the relationship.
Will trust ever be fully rebuilt? Will the past ever be forgotten? The answer is usually no in both cases, but a successful future can still be within reach.
Dr. Harley of MarriageBuilders.com offers some insight:
‘I focus my attention on the present and the future, because those are what we can change. The past is over and done with. Why waste our effort on the past when the future is upon us? It’s useful to learn lessons from the past, but dwelling on it can lead to disaster.
‘I believe therapy should prioritize the future over the past. When a spouse approaches me with unresolved resentment about something their partner did previously, I put it on hold to address issues preventing past mistakes from recurring. I encourage them to trust my judgment and observe how resentment fades when the marriage becomes fulfilling. In almost every case, the painful memories are not entirely forgotten, but recent, enjoyable experiences dominate their thoughts, making resentment weak and infrequent.’
While putting past pain in the background can feel like ignoring it, it’s often the right approach. Resolving your pain completely can be extremely challenging. If you can achieve it, that’s wonderful; however, it’s usually difficult to forgive without allowing the other person the opportunity to rebuild trust.
As time goes on, resentment may not entirely disappear, but it can fade and be replaced by a strong marriage built on a new foundation.
