getting over an affair

How Much Do You Trust Your Cheating Spouse

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

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 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?