Adrienne Mansfield

How To Rekindle The Romance: A Surprising Trick That Really Works

When you think about sexting, what usually comes to mind is cheating and carrying on affairs in secret. What if I told you that the very same tool people use to cheat on their partners can actually be used to rekindle the romance and bring the passion back into your relationship?

Simply pressing a few buttons on your cell phone may be all it takes to turn your mundane relationship into the steamy and passionate love you had in the beginning, during the honeymoon phase.

So how can something as simple as texting put the spark back in your relationship? The great thing about texting is you can do it from anywhere. You could be on a business trip across the country and send your partner a secret message that creates an intimate channel between just the two of you.

By creating this private little fantasy world that only the two of are a part of, you will open the door to rebuilding your romantic relationship. Sending these private messages is a simple thing you can do, but it lets your partner know you are thinking about them.

With all of our modern technology these days, it is really easy to become disconnected from people. Remember the days when people sent love letters? When was the last time you actually sent or received a love letter? With texting, you can actually capture the same feelings and activate the romantic part of your partner’s mind in the same way.

Why not use modern technology in a way that actually enhances your personal connection to your partner, rather than letting it separate you from them?

Since men and women have completely different brains when it comes to romance, there are actually some tricks as to what to write in your texts, depending on whether you are texting a man or a woman.

For example, men are very visual and respond to what they see, whereas women are more emotional and respond more to story telling, langugae, and fantasy.

If you are woman texting your male partner, you want to focus on creating a visual image. You could text your man, “Do you remember the smile on my face last night right before you left?” Your man will picture that right away and think about you.

So if you are a man texting your female partner, you want to create more of an emotional response. You could text something like “Can you imagine how good it will feel to wrap my arms around you tonight?” You might feel cheesy writing something like this, but it will give a woman chills, guaranteed.

You want to be unapolagetically romantic in your texts and lay your heart out there. You might feel silly doing it in the beginning, but as it starts working, you’ll get more into the groove.

You may be thinking, “I couldn’t possibly do that. What would I write?” If you are truly stumped on what you would write, there is a great guide called Text The Romance Back that has everything you need to know.

One example of the kinds of texts you can learn about is called an appreciation text. It’s a great one to start out with if you’re not sure where to begin. It would go something like this: “You have no idea how much I love and appreciate having you in my life, but I’m going to show you tonight … :-)”

For more ideas like that one, you can check out Text The Romance Back here.

Filed Under: Rekindle The Romance

Honesty, Lies and Your Spouse

By Adrienne Mansfield Leave a Comment

If your spouse had an affair, whether it happened once or multiple times, lies are still involved. The cheater told deliberate lies, omitted truths or combined the two in order to carry out the affair. You may already be trying to work on your marriage and forgive your spouse, but honesty, lies and your spouse’s trustworthiness still lingers in your thoughts. Read on to explore the effects brought on by lying about an affair and the dimension of trust you can work on to try and save your marriage.

Post-Affair Pain Avoidance

You may start to doubt your judgment about honesty after your spouse’s infidelity because you can’t believe that you have been deceived or that you ignored your gut feeling until it was too late that the truth already came out. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Marriage is built on trust, and naturally you trusted your spouse that there wouldn’t be lies involved. You kept simply kept your faith that he or she was telling the truth. Your deception was not your fault.

Having your faith or trust in someone broken by their lies and action may lead to self-doubt. You end up doubting your ability to discern a lie from the truth, but remember, you are not alone. There are so many who have been cheated on and they also had faith on their spouse. They feel just like you do. Any person, no matter how impeccable their judgment is, can be fooled by a liar, especially by a seasoned one. Think of all the con artists who can easily get their way, the scams that rip money off people. Even those who get involved with a married person are also being lied to. Some of them do not even know what their situation is, while some are just given false promises.

You may have already accepted your spouse’s infidelity, but you still would like to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again, that you can protect yourself through pain avoidance. You want your spouse to be trustworthy again and know that his dishonesty is done for good.

Critical Dimensions of Rebuilding Trust

Although there are no guarantees when it comes to honesty, it doesn’t mean that you can’t trust your partner ever again. Rebuilding trust within a marriage will take some time and you and your spouse need to work on two critical dimensions of rebuilding trust.

1. Assurance of Transparency

Even if your spouse is being impatient about your lack of trust in him or her, he or she has to act in trustworthy ways. The commitment or assurance of transparency is important, especially because it wasn’t there before. Transparency is a good way of gauging honesty and rebuilding trust. Explain to your spouse that you need to see that he or she is open and transparent about everything. Consistent behavioral patterns helps assess honesty and rebuild trust.

2. Mistrust Triggers

You and your partner should define and help each other understand mistrust triggers, or actions that lead to doubt. The affair victim especially needs to be clear and specific about this and give examples, such as:
“When you don’t call me when you can’t get home by dinner time, I can’t help but wonder what is going on.”
“When the details of what you’re saying are inconsistent.”
“When you take phone calls on your phone and you suddenly leave the room when I’m there.”
“When you are constantly texting someone but don’t say who it is.”

The spouse who cheated should also analyze their actions in the past and own up to them. Both partners should be truthful in order to define the mistrust triggers and eradicate them. Rebuilding trust and honesty in a marriage is a process of growth and involves both spouses to make it work. The two of you may need to change the way you act and communicate with each other because trust and honesty is crucial when you’re trying to save a marriage

Filed Under: Rebuilding Trust Tagged With: is my spouse lying to me, my spouse is lying, rebuilding trust in a relationship

How Much Do You Trust Your Cheating Spouse

By Adrienne Mansfield Leave a Comment

It’s safe to assume that your answer would not be 100%. Affairs have devastating effects, not just on your feelings, but also on the foundations of your marriage. Nothing breaks a person’s trust like an affair, and you know that without trust, there’s no way of saving a marriage. But, what if you would find out that you could trust your spouse again? Let’s say 25%, 50% or 75%. How would that impact your feelings about the possible success of saving your marriage? Read on to learn about the three forms of trust in a relationship, so you can find out how much you really trust your spouse.

Post-Affair Emotions Impacts Trust

The days that come after discovering your spouse’s infidelity seem like hell and you have a whirlwind of emotions. You still can’t fully believe it but the pain you go through is indescribable. Over time, you realize that you have to heal yourself and try to save your marriage. You work on most aspects of your marriage but sometimes you still ask yourself if you can trust your partner. Reestablishing trust may be difficult, but it is not impossible. There are different forms of trust and there is no “one correct way” of trusting people. Unlike what most people believe, trust isn’t black and white.

Three Forms of Trust

There are areas in your relationship where trust still exists, even after your spouse’s affair. Understanding this can help you feel better. All is not lost and you can work on building up the trust you have left. Despite the infidelity, it is possible to have some trust left because there are different forms of trust in a relationship. There is potential in rebuilding your trust from each of the forms.

1. Physical Safety

If you have, and hopefully never will, experienced, domestic violence, then you may not have appreciated this form of trust. You trust that your spouse will never physically harm or threaten you, and in case of emergencies like earthquakes or fire, you trust that your spouse will keep you out of danger.

2. Financial Security

Financial partnerships naturally exist within marriages. Whatever your agreement is on your income and expenses, whether you pool your income together or each shoulder particular expenses, having this agreement is a great sign that you still trust each other. Financial security means that you trust your spouse to do the responsible thing with the money you. Trusting each other that each of you will do their share in keeping a roof over and putting food on the table, is a definite sign that you still trust each other.

3. Emotional Predictability

You know your spouse well enough to trust him or her to be somewhat predictable in expressing their emotions, and you might have taken this for granted. Imagine if your spouse’s emotional response was unpredictable. You wouldn’t be able to trust that he or she wouldn’t do crazy things in public, like throw things at you because of some random reason. You wouldn’t be able to know how your spouse would react

How Much You Trust Your Spouse

Now that you’ve learned about the different forms of trust, try to rate each of them to find out how much you trust your spouse. Rate your level of trust for each of the three forms of trust on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest level of trust, meaning you trust your spouse 100% to give yourself an idea of how much you still trust your spouse. If you have discovered that you do, on some level, trust him or her, then you still have the foundation to rebuild trust and let it grow once more. This could be the glimmer of hope that your looking for in saving your marriage.

Filed Under: Rebuilding Trust Tagged With: getting over an affair, how to trust again, rebuilding trust in a relationship

3 Ingredients for Falling in Love Again with your Spouse

By Adrienne Mansfield 1 Comment

If your spouse cheated on you and the very foundations of your marriage has been rocked; you will wonder how you will get over the infidelity and fall in love again with your spouse. Perhaps you have already worked on other aspects of saving your marriage – the denial, the whirlwind of emotions, negative thoughts and doubts, and have reestablished the foundations, but you still wonder on how to rekindle that spark in your relationship. Let’s look at the three ingredients that you and your spouse can work on to find love in each other again.

Moving Forward towards Love

When a spouse has an affair, it triggers tremendous negativity into the marriage. If your spouse cheated on you, you feel that you will never be able to move past the affair, and if you were when the one who cheated, then you probably feel you that you’ll never be forgiven. However, if both partners are working on their marriage despite the hardships and explosive emotions, then it’s safe to say that they still have feelings of love for each other. Sometimes even an affair can’t break the bonds of true love.

Even the strongest of marriages have problems, its part of life. Whether an affair is involved or not, there are points in a marriage that one or both spouses may feel that they have fallen out of love, but if the two of you genuinely want to rekindle that love and desire for each other, it’s even possible to make your marriage stronger than ever before. There are many marriages that have survived the worst of problems, even affairs and end up with deeper love for each other. All the weak areas in your relationship are addressed when you try to rebuild your marriage and as you address them, you can build a stronger foundation.

Ingredients Needed for Falling Back into Love

Everything seems to change in a marriage after an affair and falling in love again will take time and practice. Both of you will have to commit towards saving your marriage. Three key ingredients you will need to work on are transparency, conflict resolution and communication.

Transparency

Rebuilding trust is important in working out your marriage and it can be difficult. However, by committing to transparency, trust is possible. You have to share what’s going on with your life, who you’re seeing and along with other details that your spouse wants or needs to know. You have to be honest too, and continue on this habit of sharing in order to regain your spouse’s trust and security in your relationship.

Conflict Resolution

You need to look into more effective and meaningful ways of resolving conflict within your marriage especially, if you usually end disagreements with silent treatments or violent arguments. Collaborative conflict resolution is a habit that the two of you must form. It’s natural for people to disagree, so the two of you need to create a caring and understanding atmosphere of openness, you can rebuild and strengthen your marriage. You have to be open to each other’s opinions. Respect and appreciate them even if you don’t see eye to eye.

Communication

The inability to communicate effectively to each other may be the root of your marriage issues. This could mean that either one or both of you do not know how to listen or cannot express yourself to your partner. True, honest and open conversation needs to take place.

Falling back in love with your spouse requires you to effectively communicate with your partner. You need to identify and work on communication gaps, touchy subjects and other communication problems in your relationship. You have to form habit of true and meaningful conversation and improve on your communication skills so that you and your spouse can be intimate again.

Filed Under: Getting Over An Affair Tagged With: fall in love again, get the love back in my marriage, getting over an affair

Why Did My Husband Cheat?

By Adrienne Mansfield 1 Comment

Unsatisfied Needs: Not an Excuse for Cheating

Not all cheaters know why they cheated; some of them are not even sure what really pushed them to cheat. Nothing will ever justify cheating; however, victims of affairs oftentimes try to justify their spouses’ actions. Usually they blame it on unsatisfied needs.

Let’s take a look at two of the needs within a marriage along with some conversation starters to help you explore those needs as you work on your marriage.

Cheating is Inexcusable

Not even the worst problems in a marriage can excuse infidelity. People sometimes believe that marriage problems can be solved through ways outside of their marriage, but it can’t. Cheating is outside of marriage, and it just adds more problems, heartaches and devastation. So how can anyone justify cheating?

When cheaters are asked why they cheated, they often tell their spouse that their needs weren’t met. Whether their needs were met or not, it is still not a justification. It is still wrong to seek need fulfillment if it requires breaking your vows.

Cheating is inexcusable, and there is nothing more you can do about the past. You can’t change it, so instead of focusing your thoughts on the past, think of what you can do now to prevent infidelity from happening again. Think about your needs, your spouse’s needs and how you can work on them.

Your Marriage Needs

Within every partnership or relationship, there is a multitude of needs. Some more important than the others, while some are random everyday needs, like “I need you to take out the garbage.” There are different levels of needs, and the most important ones are the need for love, intimacy and companionship.

Other deep seated needs are honesty and communication. Any of these needs, from the smallest ones to the major ones, can be neglected by one or both spouses. When we become too familiar with someone, we can sometimes neglect their needs, especially when we are busy and engrossed in work and other aspect of our lives.

Sometime we don’t mean it but it can lead to taking each other for granted, or taking your own needs for granted. If ignoring needs become habit, then one or both spouses will feel neglected or unfulfilled.

Everyone has needs, even if they don’t talk about it. If you’re not sure about your partner’s needs or if you feel you lack the emotional connection, maybe you and your spouse haven’t been open about each other’s needs. Talking about your needs in an honest and peaceful manner is important. It can help you understand each other’s needs and how to fulfill them while also fulfilling each other. Here are two conversation starters to help you get going.

Emotional Needs

Our emotional needs are at the cornerstone of any relationship. It may be wide and complex, but it is extremely important for you to talk about them. One aspect you should look in to is the need for support from a spouse. Everyone wants to feel support and security from our partner.

Try asking these questions:

Do you support and provide affirmation to your spouse?
How do you show your spouse support?
Do you feel that he supports you?
In what ways is he or she providing you with support? How does he or she show you support?
How does you spouse want you to show support?
How do you want your spouse to show support?

Romantic Needs

Romance isn’t just about poetry, cheesy lines or beds of roses. It about making your spouse feel special. It doesn’t have to big and bold, even the small gestures are important, a look, a touch or even a word can be romantic if you want it to be. Romance may be difficult after an affair because of the fresh relationship wounds, so take your time but don’t stop exploring your romantic needs.

Think about what will fulfill you and what can fulfill your spouse. Try these questions:

Does your spouse make romantic gestures in the past? What were those gestures?
Do you make romantic gestures for your partner? What were those gestures?
How did it make each of you feel when you made or received those gestures?
How did each of you feel when you exchanged those moments?
What do you need your spouse to do to be more romantic?
What does your spouse need you to do to be more romantic?

Any marriage or relationship has multiple need dimensions. Emotional and romantic needs are just two of them. There are many more conversation starters out there that you can try, and these will help you get started in working to save your marriage. Remember to be open and honest to each other as you explore and progress though the different aspects of marriage needs.

Filed Under: Getting Over An Affair Tagged With: why did my husband cheat, why did my husband have an affair, why do men cheat

Am I Responsible For My Spouse Cheating?

By Adrienne Mansfield Leave a Comment

Your Cheating Spouse and Your Responsibilities

Affairs are becoming common, but the pain they bring doesn’t dwindle. It is but natural for anyone to feel devastated, confused and betrayed. In fact, the multitude of emotions running over your body can also take over the rationality of your thoughts. You might even think that because marriage is a partnership, that you are to blame for your cheating spouse actions. Stop right there. You are not to blame.

You might think that life would never return to normal once the affair goes public, but it does. It might even turn out better for you and you have some post affair responsibilities that can help you get through the difficulties.

Your Responsibilities To Your Marriage

It is in every responsible adult’s nature to want to save their marriage, especially if kids are involved. You might even feel that the reason for the affair was partly your fault. But actually, whether you’re the perfect partner or even if you drive your spouse crazy, the fact remains that cheating on you was his or her decision.

People have their own free will and rational thinking, so what an individual decides to do or not to do is solely on his or hew own shoulders. Your responsibility is only to accept that you also have faults in your marriage but not for what your spouse’s actions. You may have your own mistakes in your marriage, but that is not to be blamed for his or her mistakes. In fact, cheating only adds more problems making everything worse.

Right now, you might feel devastated. You ask yourself why he did it and even have thoughts that you were inadequate. Don’t let these thoughts run your life; you have to start rebuilding yourself so you can save your marriage. Your spouse’s infidelity not only affects you mentally and emotionally, but it can even be deleterious to your health.

So, your main responsibility is to help your self. It may seem challenging to get through this difficult phase in your life, but know that you can do it, and it will pass. Be a little selfish for now and work on all those thoughts and feelings of self-doubt and self-pity, and love yourself once more. Build up your self esteem and self respect and know that the affair wasn’t your fault.
It’s time to put yourself as your topmost priority.

Your Responsibilities Post-Affair

In order for you to start loving and respecting yourself, you have three key responsibilities: assume responsibility, accept reality, and satisfy yourself. Once you have mastered these responsibilities, regaining self-worth is easy.

Assuming Responsibility

Life is what you make it and happiness is a choice. Remember that this is your life, and you are responsible for it. Your aspirations, dreams and desires are still within your reach and you have the capacity to reach them. No one, not even a cheating spouse can ever take away your self worth and dignity from you.

It’s alright to wish that the affair didn’t happen and that it has affected you in ways you’d never expect; however, they’re all in the past. Nothing and no one can change what has been done. What’s more important is to live in the present and move forward towards a better future. What you decide to do about your life is your first key responsibility.

Accepting Reality

Now that you have assumed responsibility for your life, you have to accept that not everything is in your control. Do not be too hard on yourself and do not belittle your emotions. It is only natural to feel those complex feelings and difficult thoughts.

Our emotions do not make us weak, they only make us humans. So do not be hard on yourself, your key responsibility is to accept the reality of your situation. No matter how bleak and challenging it is, you have to work through your emotions, the pains and the nightmares. It is a normal process you have to go through so you can express responsibility for your life and deal with these harsh realities

Satisfy Yourself

Give yourself a break, you deserve it. In fact, you are also responsible for satisfying yourself. It’s not selfish to aspire for satisfying one’s needs. Do things that fulfill you emotionally and spiritually, things that make you fell alive once more. You may have forgotten to have fun as a couple even before the affair and could be a major problem in your marriage too. Remember any individual has their own needs too.

You have yours, your partner has his or hers and as a couple you also have needs. Think about those needs and take time to satisfy them, and start with satisfying yourself. Once you are happy and have rebuilt yourself, then you can start on your marriage.

Remember that the affair is not your fault; your spouse chose to do it so it’s all on his or her shoulder. In the same manner, know that what you do with your life after the affair, is also solely on you.

Take charge of your life and love yourself once more. In time, you’ll rekindle the magic within and even discover amazing things about yourself you never knew about. It may be difficult for you right now, but if you allow yourself and choose to be happy, you can still find inner peace and joy.

Filed Under: Getting Over An Affair Tagged With: am i responsible for my cheating spouse, am i to blame for my spouse cheating

How Do I Get Rid of the Negative Images After an Affair?

By Adrienne Mansfield 9 Comments

What images are playing in your head today? Are they the same images you saw yesterday, and do you really want to experience them again tomorrow?

These obsessive post-affair images that are haunting you are very common to experience. As a victim of an affair, it is completely normal to have these images of your spouse and the other person playing through your head repeatedly. Unfortunately, it can be enough to drive you completely crazy, because it forces you to think about the affair constantly.

What makes these images obsessive is that they start to have a grip on you that you cannot seem to release. This article will discuss the best way to get rid of these negative images and stop obsessing over them. There are three steps you can follow to help guide you as you let go of the obsession.

Filling in The Blanks With Fantasy

Even if you do not have specific information about the affair, it does not really matter because you have filled in the blanks on your own. This is completely fantasy and you know this on some level, but it still plays in your mind repeatedly and starts to seem more and more real.

The fantasy you have created can be a wide range of events. It may be your spouse in an intimate setting with his or her lover. Maybe your spouse is gazing lovingly at him or her. You may be imagining your spouse’s lover having a perfect body. You might see your spouse sharing a meal with his or her lover looking happy and laughing together.

Once you start imagining these scenes, it can be hard to get them out of your head. Maybe seeing them repeatedly is helping your figure everything out. Maybe you think something in these images will make everything make sense. It could explain why your spouse cheated, or what made the other person so appealing.

While you are obsessing over these images, you are also wondering why you cannot stop the images. You may be drawn to the images in one way, but on the other hand, they are damaging your self-esteem and causing you a lot of grief. The images are taking a toll on you emotionally in a serious way. Most of all, these images have made you feel powerless and have begun to completely take a hold of your mind.

Take a Creative License With The Negative Images

You can already see how powerful the mind is. Your mind is what has created these negative images in the first place. But it is important to realize that the mind can also manipulate these images and change them.

You can decide whether you want to let these images play out in your mind, or whether you want to close down the theater. The images can only have power over you if you believe that they are real. But you know that you created these images in the first place, so you can change them and replace them with new images.

The best thing you can possibly do to get rid of the negative images after an affair is to manipulate the images. Here are the three steps that will help you do this:

Step 1: Set a Time For the Next Screening

As of now, the negative images are haunting you and popping into your head all the time. You can take control back and decide when you want to see these images. Make a point to affirm to yourself that you will only see these images at a specific time that you set.

Step 2: Have a Private Screening

Now that you have decided when to see the negative images, find a place where you can sit by yourself and not be interrupted. Relax and let the images come into your mind. This is the private screening.

Step 3: Switch the Script

You are the director of this movie, and you can edit it as you want. You can play it in color or black and white, play it forwards or backwards, etc. You can decide to have the actors wear whatever you want. You can put masks on them or silly outfits that will make you laugh.

The idea is to take back the control and feel powerful again. These images do not need to have power over you anymore. Prove that these images are all just a product of your imagination. Once you manipulate the images, you will feel that they start to lose the power they had before.

This process will take time, but keep following these steps until you have gotten rid of the negative images for good.

Please leave a comment and share your thoughts and experiences with getting rid of negative images after an affair.

Filed Under: Negative Images Tagged With: after the affair, getting over an affair, negative images after an affair

How To Rebuild Trust In A Relationship

By Adrienne Mansfield 15 Comments

After your spouse has lied to you while carrying out an affair, whether it was once or many times, it is hard to know whether or not he or she is ever telling the truth afterwards. Whether or not the cheating spouse deliberately lied or lied by omission, or both, it does not matter. Once the trust has been lost, it can be hard to get back.

Now you may be trying to save your marriage and reconcile with your spouse who cheated on you. But this can be very difficult when you have to constantly wonder if he or she is lying or telling the truth.

This article discusses what happens after one spouse lies and the two important elements you need to have to regain the trust and honesty in your relationship so you can get over the affair and save your marriage.

You Try To Avoid Pain After Your Spouse Cheated

After you find out about the infidelity, you will start to doubt whether or not you will ever be able to tell the truth from lies again. It can be a blow to your self-esteem to know that somebody lied to you and you believed it. Or even worse, if you had a feeling something was off but you went against your instinct and chose to believe the lies until they were too obvious to ignore.

First of all, you should stop being so hard on yourself because you are not to blame. Marriage is based on trust and you rightfully chose to trust your spouse. Just because you were deceived does not make you at fault in any way. This just means you are the victim of somebody else’s lies. It is natural to believe your spouse when they say they were working late or just having drinks with people from work.

Once your trust is broken by a cheater, you may be overrun with self-doubt and even start to lose trust in yourself and your capability to know the truth from a lie. It may help to know that you are definitely not alone. Just think of all the other people out there who have been cheated on and also lost trust in their spouses. Most people naturally wonder how they possibly could not have known what was going on.

People get lied to every day and they believe the lies easily. Just think of all the scams people fall for and end up losing a lot of money. Or more relevant to your situation, think of the other men and women who get involved with a married people. In many cases, they were lied to by the cheaters as well and had no idea that they were married. They may have foolishly believed they had a future with the married person. Or if they knew the other person was married, the cheater may have lied about how bad things were in the relationship and made it seem like they were separated already.

Knowing all of this, you still want to make sure you can protect yourself in the future and make sure you never fall for the lies again. This is known as pain avoidance. Even though you want to be able to trust your spouse again and think that the dishonesty is over, but you are looking for a guarantee.

Crucial Elements To Regaining The Trust

You should be aware that you will never get a guarantee that your spouse is not lying to you right now or that he or she will never lie to you again in the future. This does not mean that you will not be able to trust your spouse again. However, it does mean that regaining the trust in your spouse will be a process that takes time. Following these crucial steps will help you move forward to rebuild the trust in your marriage.

Element 1: Commit to Transparency

Is your spouse getting impatient and wondering why you cannot just get over it and trust them now? It is definitely not that easy. First of all, you spouse needs to start acting like somebody who is trustworthy. This means committing to transparency in you relationship, something that was most likely lacking before the affair.

It will help rebuild the trust to see your partner making an effort to be open and honest about their actions. That is why transparency is so important. When your spouse is consistent in their behavior and is continually transparent with you about where they are going and who they are with, you will start to rebuild the trust that you lost.

Element 2: Define Mistrust Triggers and Remove Them

You should talk with your spouse and identify what triggers feelings of mistrust for you. The partner who was cheated on should give specific examples of what scenarios make them feel as though they are being lied to again.

An example could be:

“When you come home late but don’t call to say you are running late, it leaves me wondering why you haven’t come home and what is going on.”

“When you answer phone calls and leave the room, I get suspicious about who is on the line.”

“I see you texting on the weekends, but you never tell me who you are texting, and I am left to wonder who it is.”

Another crucial aspect of this is that the cheating spouse needs to look at their actions in the past and own up to what they did. We all know when we are lying to somebody. This will help identify the triggers of mistrust and remove them.

Once you identify the mistrust triggers, you should communicate better to remove them. If your spouse texting was a trigger, then he or she needs to start telling you who is on the receiving end.

Regaining the trust in your marriage is a learning and growing process. You will need to change the way you and your spouse conduct yourselves, and also learn to to communicate better.

If you have experience with losing trust in a relationship and are trying to rebuild it, please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. If you were the victim, has your spouse made any effort to be more transparent? How has your spouse changed his or her actions? What mistrust triggers can you identify in your marriage? If you were the one who cheated, what did you do to keep the affair a secret? What are you now doing differently to be more transparent and gain back the trust of your partner?

Filed Under: Rebuilding Trust Tagged With: how to rebuild trust, how to rebuild trust in a relationship, rebuilding trust

How To Get Rid Of Negative Thoughts After An Affair

By Adrienne Mansfield 7 Comments

When you have been cheated on, you may start to feel like you are losing your mind. Your thoughts may get out of control to the point where it is starting to drive your crazy. This is completely normal because you have suffered an emotional blow by finding out that the person you trusted has lied to you and cheated on you. It is natural to get overrun by negative thoughts that cause you to be tired, miserable, and unhappy.

You were most likely not expecting it when you found about the affair, so you still need time to process it and the effects it has on your relationship. This article will discuss some coping methods that will help you regain control of your thoughts and push out all the negativity from your mind.

Have Negative Thoughts Taken Control?

Part of what has your thoughts so out of control is the questions that are running through your mind. You probably want to know why your spouse cheated on you, who he or she cheated with, and why they were attracted to this other person. You probably are trying to figure out when exactly it happened and how it was possible not to have known about it when it was going on right under your nose.

It is hard to ever know what is the truth anymore, and your mind is filled with doubt and negative thoughts. You may feel as though you are not sexy enough to your spouse, and that is why he or she had an affair. You may blame yourself for spending to much time at work building up your career. Perhaps you put your kids first ahead of your marriage, and you feel this is to blame. You may feel that the person your spouse cheated with is probably much better company than you and you have nothing to offer.

All these negative thoughts are paralyzing and can really take a strong hold on you. All of a sudden, the affair controls all your thoughts and brings all this negativity that you did not have to deal with before.You did not bring it on yourself, but it is the reality of the situation. The good news is that it does not have to become a permanent reality.

How to Break Your Negative Thought Patterns

The more you think about the details of the infidelity, the more these negative thought patterns take over. You may begin questioning things obsessively until it consumes you entirely. This inner turmoil can cause you to feel powerless and damage your self-esteem.

At a certain point, all the negative thought patters start to become a habit. But the good news is that habits can be broken. Here are some tips on how to break your negative thought patterns.

Step 1: Affirm to Yourself that Your Mind is Your Own Territory

At first, it can feel as thought the negative thoughts are happening to you, and not created by you. This explains why you feel so powerless to stop it. You must take back control of your mind. Only you allow what can and cannot enter your mind. Say out loud that your mind is your territory, write it down, and repeat it whenever you feel the negativity coming in. Make this affirmation until you start to believe that you are in control again.

Step 2: Examine Your Thoughts

Your negative thoughts about the affair have become a pattern, but now it is time to look at what specifically these negative thoughts consist of. Which nagging questions or images haunt you the most? What thoughts play out again and again? The best way to do this is to get a journal and write down what you come up with. When you write the thoughts down and see them objectively, they will start to lose their power and the hold they have over you.

Step 3: Get Rid of Your Negative Thought Patterns

Once you have examined your thoughts, try to think of some ways to push them out of your head. There is no right way to do this and there may be many solutions depending on who you are. Here is an example of how to come up with a method to get rid of your negative thoughts. If you observe that your negative thoughts happen at a particular time of day, when you are doing something in particular, you can use this to change the way you think in that situation.

For example, if you find yourself always thinking about the affair when you are driving to work and listening to talk radio, change the scenario. Turn on some music instead of the talk radio and sing along. Come up with any method you can to distract yourself from thinking about the affair at this time, and change up your drive to work so you stop associating it with you negative thought patterns.

Although it can feel like you are not in control of your thoughts, you are actually always able to regain control of your mind. When the habit of negative thoughts forms, it can take time to break it, but it is totally possible. By affirming to yourself that you are capable of changing negative thoughts, you will feel in control again and gain a new sense of power. Your negative thoughts will slowly fade away and become a thing of the past.

Please share your experience with negative thought patterns by leaving a comment below. What kind of thoughts did you have after finding out about the affair? How did these thoughts affect your quality of life? Were there triggers that set off these thoughts? Did you take steps to take back control of your mind, and what steps did you take? How did it make you feel to take back control?

Filed Under: Negative Thoughts Tagged With: getting over an affair, how to get rid of negative thoughts, negative thoughts after affair

What Is An Emotional Affair?

By Adrienne Mansfield Leave a Comment

When your partner has begun an emotional relationship with somebody else, it can be hard defining this type of relationship. So what is an emotional affair anyway? Oftentimes, an intimate, close friendship with an outsider to the relationship can turn into an emotional affair. Despite the fact that there might not be any physical aspect to the relationship, the emotional involvement with the other person can be so intense that it is just as harmful to the relationship as a physical affair.

An affair can be defined as any relationship between a person and someone else besides his or her partner that has an affect on the closeness and overall dynamic of the relationship. This description touches on emotional affairs in addition to physical affairs.

When your partner has established a friendly relationship that has evolved to become deeper with time, the friendly relationship might have crossed the line and become an emotional affair. If your partner develops an emotional bond with a person outside the relationship, that detracts from the intimacy that should only be in your relationship. If the emotional bond with an outsider starts to harmfully affect your relationship, that is when it has crossed the line into an emotional affair.

There may be a thin line between a innocent friendship with someone outside the relationship and one that has developed into an emotional affair. This is why you may be wondering what is an emotional affair, because it is often hard to identify one. If you have questioned your partner about an emotional affair, they will predictably say that they are only friends and may accuse you of not wanting them to have friends of the opposite sex. This will often cause you to doubt yourself even more.

Having friends who are the opposite sex is completely normal and alright, but when one partner goes beyond the relationship to get something they are not getting in the relationship, then the friendship has crossed the line. This fulfillment that is sought out of the relationship does not have to be physical to call it an affair. Intimacy and emotional fulfillment are crucial in a relationship, and when one partner is going outside the relationship for emotional fulfillment, that might be really damaging.

A way to tell if your partner is engaging in an emotional affair is whether they tell the truth about the relationship with the other person. Does your partner try to conceal the friendship from you, or are they totally forthcoming about it? Do they report to you when they have texted or talked with the other person and share what the conversation was about, or do they try to conceal it?

With an emotional affair, your partner will commonly know that their behavior is incorrect and feel the need to hide it. It is common to feel guilty about conversing with someone outside the relationship on an intimate level, so there may be a feeling of needing to conceal the truth about it. Your partner is also likely to get defensive when asked about the emotional affair and maintain that it is only a friendship and say that it should be acceptable to have a friend of the opposite sex.

If you still have any confusion as to what is an emotional affair, just ask yourself whether or not something feels wrong. Your gut instinct will usually be right, so trust yourself if you feel that your partner has been developing an emotional relationship that feels inappropriate. You may just be right and you have every right to know the truth.