End your love affair now

End your affair now if you want to save your marriage

Love affairs destroy families. They hurt people and it takes years to recover from them. End your affair before before the damage is too great to repair.

Let's assume you have been caught having an affair. You cannot deny it. Your wife is distraught and desperate. She wants to leave you, but you love your wife and want to save your marriage.

Adultery crisis

Marriage breakdown because of adultery causes extreme stress to all involved. It's a deep crisis requiring bold measures to fix.

In the first few weeks after an affair has been exposed, everyone involved will be taken on the toughest rollercoaster ride of their life.

You need to take immediate action to stop the emotional bleeding. You must be decisive but also mindful of your wife's suffering and sense of betrayal.

1: Counseling

Suggest or agree to marriage counseling. This is vital step shows your willingness to heal the wounds you have caused.

How to catch a cheating spouse

Why men cheat on their wives

Will a married man leave his wife for a lover?

How to catch a cheating husband

Does a cheating husband feel guilty?

Counseling provides a safe environment for the hurricane of emotions that an affair whips up.

The presence of a counselor will make it easier for both of you to talk about your deepest feelings, your fears, your regret, your lying, and the double life you have lived.

It is not unusual during a deep marriage crisis that you and your wife will see three or more counselors: couples counseling with a psychotherapist; a personal counselor for yor wife; psychodynamic therapy for you to explore early life issues and overcome destructive patterns of behavior; and a child psychologist for your kids.

Be willing to accept all the professional help your insurance will allow, and be ready to do what you might never have done before, i.e. talk honestly and at length about your and your wife's feelings and emotions.

Individual counseling will also help to identify problems such as compulsive sexual behavior (this might not be your first affair; or you might be addicted to casual sexual encounters).

In addition to counseling, you might like to read how others in your situation have rebuilt their marriages. Written by psychologist Janis Abrahms Spring, After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful is the best and fairest book on ending and affair and saving your marriage.

2: Postpone divorce plans

If your wife insists on filing for divorce, tell her you understand why she is doing it. Say that you do not wish to take away her freedom to file (which is one power she owns during this crisis), but ask her to please shelve divorce plans until you have gone through couples counseling.

Your couples counseling sessions will consist of about eight one-hour sessions. These will be severely affected if divorce proceeedings are going on simultaneously.

It will feel as though both of you are powerless to shape the outcome of counseling if divorce is hanging over your head during counseling.

But it's vital to acknowledge that your wife must have the freedom to proceed with divorce after counseling.

3: End the now affair

If you want to stay married, you must end your affair as quickly as possible.

Ending an affair is a process. You are not totally in control of the situation. By having a relationship with another woman, you have become dependent on each other, and your lover has learned to pull emotional strings that control your behavior.

In addition to sharing physical intimacy, you might be good friends. It can be very difficult telling a lover that the affair is over, but it has to happen if you are going to save your marriage.

Be clear about telling your lover you can no longer see her or contact her. Let her know you will not answer her calls, emails, or text massages.

Even if she is desperate and begs you for contact, even threatening to call your house or contact your wife, you must tell her the realtionship is over, and the two of you cannot have anymore contact with each other.

4: Accept your wife's anger

Contact with your wife at this time is going to be as stressful as you have ever known.

There will be tears, anger, depression and despondency. There will be shouting and screaming. Your wife will want to weep quietly in a corner, which will make you feel so sad and helpess. At times the emotional turmoil will be overwhelming.

5: Don't blame your wife

This is not the time to explore with your wife why you made the decision to have an affair. This will tell her you are shifting blame from yourself to your wife and others.

Now is the time to step up to the plate and admit what you have done.

Your affair was nobody's fault but your own. Even though there may have been factor's that enabled you to decide to have an affair (which will be explored later in counseling), it was a still a decision you took.

You must face up to your chocies. You must take responsibility for them.

You must never blame your wife, your marriage, or external pressure for pushing you into the affair.

6: Do not run away

Your wife will be in meltdown before your eyes. She'll be asking you over and over again, How could you? How could you?, almost like a mantra.

You'll want her pain and suffering to go away, but you'll feel powerless to stop her weeping, her sorrow, and feelings of betrayal.

At these times, you might be tempted to run away from the crisis you have caused. You might try to convince yourself that the two of you just need a couple of quiet days away from each other for it all to calm down.

Resist this temptation. It will only prolong the suffering. Stay in the crisis, stay in your wife's pain, and try to share it and understand it.

Yes, it will involve feeling horrible about yourself, and you will often feel utterly helpless. Nothing you say or do will seem to help, but your physical presence, your refusal to run away, and your willingness to face the damage you have caused, will help to restore your wife's belief in you.

7: Keep talking and listening

You wife will probably bombard you with questions and emotions, most of which seem to get her more upset, not less.

You will probably find yourself wanting to explain your actions, which can so often go wrong because your wife will feel as though you are trying to get yourself off the hook, justify your behavior, and blame her and others for what you have done.

This might not be your purpose or intention, but during times of crisis, misunderstandings are just waiting to happen. There isn't the patience and tolerance that's present in calmer times. It can feel as though your wife deliberately wants to misunderstand you.

Your wife might tell you she no longer loves you, she does not want you to touch her, she never wants to make love again, and that the magic has gone forever from your relationship. This will hurt you to the core. But do not fight back. Do not tell her she is wrong to feel these things.

Your wife's responses are normal. However painful it is, listen to your wife and take her anger and pain; try to absorb it and understand it.

8: Tell your wife you love her

Tell your wife that you love her. Tell her she is the most important person in your life.

Tell her your marriage and family mean everything to you. Keep saying that you cannot lose her, that you want to do all and everything you can to rebuild her love and trust in you.

Tell her you have been stupid, destructive, selfish, and short-sighted, but that you will get help to become the husband and father you want to be.

9: Keep apologizing

You can never say too many times that you are sorry, that you regret what you have done, that you feel remorse, that you understand what you have done and how it has hurt so many people.

Tell your wife it makes you sad to see her so upset. Tell her you feel awful about causing your family so much pain and so many problems.

Keep telling her she is not to blame, she has done nothing to make this happen.

10: Answer questions honestly

Your wife will ask you questions that it will be difficult and painful for you to answer.

You might feel the urge to lie in order to protect her feelings. But your lies will only be revealed later and deepen the wound you have caused.

Be ready for questions like these: How long have you been seeing that woman?; How often did you sleep together?; Did you bring her to our house?; How much money have you spent on her?; Did you talk about me to her?; Did you promise her to leave me?; Did you tell her you love her?

It will make you squirm to answer these questions honestly. You know the answers will hurt your wife. But the pain you cause my answering honestly will be less than the pain caused by lying. Assume your wife knows more than you think, that any lies will trap you and cause deeper wounds.

11: Be reachable at all times

You need have your cell phone on and with you at all times so that your wife can reach you whenever she needs to.

There will have been many times during your affair that you lied to your wife about your whereabouts. You did not call her or return calls because you were with your mistress.

Now, after an affair, your wife will be suspicious everytime you are out on your own and cannot be reached.

This is avoided by making sure your cellphone is always charged and turned on. Whenever your wife calls, answer the phone.

When you are out with your wife, make a point of having you cellphone on, and if it rings, answer it in her presence.

If she wants to know who you are talking to, let her see the number, let her hear who is talking. Do not get angry about being monitored and controlled.

This openness even extends to email accounts. If your wife wants access to your email accounts, she must be given it. You should stop using, and if possible close, any secret accounts. Now is the time to start an open email policy, where your wife has access to your email accounts.

During this stage of marriage crisis, you have lost the right to your privacy because you abused it.

If you ex-lover calls your cell while you are with your wife, be honest about it. Tell your wife who is calling. Tell your ex-lover firmly, I do not want you to call me anymore. You must stop this.

12: Take the pain

You will probably be the one wanting to move along quickly with healing and forgiveness.

You will be frustrated that it is taking so long for your wife to get over your affair.

You'll wonder why your wife keeps returning to the affair, keeps picking at the scab, and opening the wound.

Do not let your frustration show, but understand that it will take your wife a long time to move on after the affair.

Some days, everything will seem perfect. Your wife will be happy. You might be sleeping together, making love again, able to laugh together. You'll feel close and well on the road to recovery.

Then a word or a memory, perhaps a scene in a movie or a conversation will take your wife back to your affair and she will be furious and despondent all over again.

It will feel as though you are back in crisis with no hope of rebuilding your marriage.

You might even feel justified in expressing frustration and anger to your wife, telling her you have done everything you needed to do, everything she wanted you to do to rebuild your marriage, so why can't she forget the past and move on? Why can't she trust you again.

This is not helpful. You need to understand that your affair will haunt your marriage for a very long time. It might take years for your wife to trust you completely again.

Based on experience

All the advice in this article comes from long experience of mending the deep rights caused my marital infidelity.

Many of the suggestions can seen difficult to put into practice, but facing your demons, refusing to run away, and most of all telling the truth are the secrets to saving your marriage and becoming the man, father, and husband you want to be.

By Brad Benson

© 2011 OSL: Open Source Lifestyles ... Privacy policy
CONTACT US: Now welcoming text and images for our pages