Tag Archive | cheating

Is It Possible to Make an Affair Work for You?

Jun24

Is It Possible to Make an Affair Work for You

One of the most hurtful events of a relationship is when someone is discovered having an affair.

Generally one of three things happens when someone discovers that their spouse has been cheating on them.

  1. The affair is ignored. This may mean that the affair continues but nothing changes in the relationship. This is often because the party being cheated on just doesn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ for fear of what might come of it.
  2. The relationship ends. Sometimes one or other of the couple decides that they can no longer be in the relationship and so the relationship ends.
  3. Ideally the affair stops. The old relationship discontinues and a new relationship begins.

Whether the relationship ends or not, some serious losses will be experienced. Losses can be physical or symbolic and may include:

  • Loss of trust
  • Loss of security
  • Loss of hope/dreams
  • Loss of faith
  • Loss of intimacy and affection
  • Loss of self-esteem

Sometimes it is these losses, over and above the affair, that pulls the couple apart and sounds the death knell for continuing the relationship.

If the third option is the case the challenge then is for the non-offending spouse to overcome these losses and find trust again for the other person. This is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome.

The Way Forward

The way forward then is to take the time with your spouse to talk about all these issues and to realign them with a new way of being.  More than anything for a relationship to make it through there needs to be forgiveness: forgiveness of each spouse of themselves and of each other for the part they played in the affair.

And yes, as hard it sounds, even the non-offending spouse might need to look at their part in causing the affair. In saying this I don’t mean to imply that the offending party should be absolved of what they have done. They must take full responsibility for the hurt they’ve caused but, as I’ve said before, the reason this affair has happened is because there was something amiss in the relationship to start with. For this both spouses need to assume responsibility.

To help you both along the way it might be useful to start a journal. Express all your thoughts and feelings in this journal; the good, the bad and the downright ugly. And besides making the time to talk about what happened there might also need to be some new, if only temporary, rules put into place regarding letting each other know where you are and what you’re doing and how long that will be. This can be the only way forward if trust is going to be re-established.

And by the way the spouse who decides the ultimate outcome of the affair will be the non-offending spouse not the one who cheated. Your role is to just grin and bear it, as this is the consequence of having erred. If there is enough love and a renewed commitment and trust you will find a way to reconnect. For both of you don’t be in a hurry. It will take as long as it takes.

Sometimes all this might seem too hard to do on your own and you might need some professional help. Take that help even if you don’t yet know what you should do now that the affair has been exposed. Counselling will help you find your way through the mess to then be able to make a clear decision to either leave the relationship or to recommit. It’s only as you come to make this decision that you can start to move forward.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Tell If Your Spouse is Cheating?

Jun10

Cheating happens in so many ways. When we first think about what cheating is we tend to think about spouses having sex outside of the relationship but it happens in many other ways as well. With this in mind be aware also that what is defined as cheating to one person might not be for someone else.

A recent magazine asked readers to define an extra-marital affair, with this result:

  • 21%

    thinking about an involvement

  • 21%

    dinner and drinks

  • 24%

    kissing and petting

  • 26%

    sexual intercourse

  • 8%

    not sure

And some people even define it as chatting on the internet or phone messaging with people of the opposite sex or using porn without the partner’s consent or inclusion.

How do you define cheating? And how do you know if your spouse is doing it?

Here are three tell-tale signs to look out for:

  1. 1.

    When your spouse suddenly takes extra special care in their dress or personal appearance or suddenly adopts a whole new style in clothing or hair.

  2. 2.

    When your spouse suddenly starts staying back at work late into the night saying they are doing extra work.

  3. 3.

    When your spouse spends longer hours on the computer and/or phone and doesn’t want you to ask questions about or see what s/he is doing.

NB Be mindful that there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for all of these behaviors so be careful jumping to conclusions.

And by the way cheating is not necessarily a death knell for the relationship.

There are many reasons people cheat. The most important one though is that something is not working in the relationship that really needs looking at. This does not necessarily mean that you do not love each other anymore. What it means is that someone in the relationship is just not getting some of there needs met. This might be sexually or in friendship or in satisfying a need for some excitement in their lives.

Here is the short answer to overcoming an affair.

If you have caught your partner out there is obviously some decisions to be made regarding whether you should abandon the relationship or whether you can both recover from this error. That will be decided by many things the most important of which is your capacity to forgive your partner, and maybe even yourself, for allowing the affair to happen.

If you are the one having the affair, by the way, it’s sometimes wiser to not tell but to recommit and make amends as best you can. While it is said that honesty must be at the base of all relationships there are some things that may be best left unsaid. On deciding you have made a mistake, the most important thing is to acknowledge that to yourself and to do whatever needs to be done to get this relationship back on track. If you then decide to tell your partner have a good reason for doing so which is not based on your need to free yourself of guilt.

If you are in a relationship where you think there might be cheating talk about it. This may not be best introduced with a question about whether the other person is actually having an affair, but from the perspective of sharing your thoughts and values on the topic so your partner has an opportunity to respond. In this way they are not left with any doubt as to what you think and feel about the possibility of s/he having an affair. It just may give him/her a chance to change their behavior without having to put your whole relationship on the line. Remember s/he may not have the same definition of cheating as you do.

I’ll address this in more detail in my next blog post.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Can I Ever Trust Her Again?

Apr22

Can I Ever Trust Her AgainPeople make mistakes. Sometimes people make big mistakes and sometimes people make mistakes that regrettably follow them for the rest of their lives. This week’s article is about whether when someone has made a mistake it is possible to ever trust them again.

The short answer is because everyone makes mistakes they should be given a second chance to redeem themselves.

This however has qualifiers – sometimes those mistakes are so big that they are unrecoverable.

So where is the cut-off point?

Maybe a more appropriate question would be to learn about the values that underpin a person’s actions. If those values are sound then it might be entirely appropriate to forgive and get on with it. And maybe this can only be discerned by looking at their behaviour overall rather than just one isolated behaviour.

Let me put this into an example.

Dale, not her real name, is engaged to Allan, not his real name either. Dale is committed to Allan and is looking forward to being married and all that comes with the promise of forever. Dale and Allan still live separately from each other though spend most weekends together. One Friday night Dale is out having drinks with some of her work colleagues as it is a regular Friday night activity. They all have had a few drinks and are enjoying each other’s company.

One of Dale’s male work colleagues makes a pass at her and she responds in an innocently flirtatious way. Finally the night comes to an end and everyone goes their separate ways except for Dale and the office flirt. On the pretence of escorting Dale to her car and realizing that maybe neither of them are fit to drive he offers to walk Dale home.

She accepts the offer and once there welcomes him in for a night-cap before he heads on his way. However one thing leads to another and the two end up sleeping together. Afterwards, when they are sober again, they are both remorseful and vow not to let it happen again.

Sometime later Dale tells Allan of the indiscretion. Needless to say Allan is shocked and disappointed and now unsure if Dale might do this again.

So is this enough of a violation for Allan to sever his relationship with Dale and to not go ahead with the marriage?

In truth only Allan can really answer this question as he now needs to decide whether this is too great a violation for him to be able to find forgiveness and move on. The questions that Allan may need to ask himself may include questions about whether this was indeed a single moment of thoughtlessness or is it a pattern that distinguishes Dale’s values from his own.

Allan may also need to determine the degree of the remorse insofar as whether Dale sees what she has done as indeed a slip or whether her value of monogamy is not as strong as Allan’s.

Allan might actually get more clarity about this by observing Dale’s parents and other family members and what their actions say about the value that they may have passed onto Dale regarding fidelity and trustworthiness.

If after discussions with Dale and a clear understanding of what it was that prompted the infidelity Allan can then make a good decision for their future together.

One thing that Allan should remember here is that it is his life he is making a decision on and this decision is for him to make alone with Dale. Everyone will have their own opinion but to ensure that neither Allan nor Dale should have any regrets they need to make any decision about their futures together for themselves and themselves only.

The other action which would be futile and negative to this relationship is to confront the office flirt who may or may not have taken conscious advantage of Dale. I hear so often people saying that the error was someone else’s. The truth is that we, like Dale, must all assume responsibility for our own actions, all of them.

So can we ever trust again after there has been an indiscretion?

After deciding that it was really only an indiscretion and not reflective of a regular pattern of someone’s way of being then maybe Allan should just move on if for no other reason then that people will make mistakes and everyone deserves to be forgiven so that life can be continued.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”

Should I Give Them A Second Chance?

Mar3

Second Chance

So often I am told about infidelities, hurts and disappointments between couples and then asked whether the offenders should be given another chance.

I think the question is often asked because the offender has felt some remorse for the misdeed and they, both in the couple, are hoping that this is enough to get them back on track. The question is also generally asked following a statement from the injured party confirming a continuing love for the person despite what they have done.

The sad thing is that remorse in and of itself is rarely sufficient to change a person’s behaviour. This is because if the underlying need or belief hasn’t changed then the behaviour may not either.

Let me see if I can make this clearer.

From my experience a typical scenario goes like this. The person who has more invested in the relationship will accept the others apology welcoming them back into the relationship without any requirement. Sadly, while things might be good for a period of time, what most often happens is that the person will likely offend again as nothing has really been learned or really has changed. There may not even have been any real conversation about what happened let alone why it happened.

And here’s another common scenario. There has been an infidelity and the relationship has broken down completely with the couple separating. The person who committed the indiscretion now feels free to enter into a relationship with the party with whom they had the affair who happily takes the person in believing most likely that all manner of wrongs from the other’s partner is the reason for the infidelity. They never even contemplate that the issue may actually have been with the offender and that likely nothing was actually learned to ensure that the person would not digress again.

What often ends up happening is that this couple finds themselves in exactly the same place as the previous relationship and so once again the offender strays from the marriage to attempt to find what is still missing from their lives in the arms of someone else.

What really needs to happen in these circumstances is that each party takes some time to try and figure out why the behaviour happened in the first place. Was it because some need was not being met or that there is actually a mismatch in the things that each party holds valuable about themselves, their spouses and their marriage.

So the way forward is firstly to communicate with each other openly and honestly about what is going on for each of them. They also need to discuss what they feel and think about their relationship and their part in it. Finally, and maybe this needs the assistance of a couples therapist, they need to share with each other what is really important to each of them about being in a relationship and to discover whether there is a match in those values.

If there is a match then the likelihood of them succeeding into the future is reasonably assured.

If there is no match then they need to determine whether they are willing to live with this and the consequences or whether they can save themselves and each other a lot of heartache by acknowledging those differences and separating from each other immediately.

Of course this course of discovery would be better done prior to entering into the relationship in the first place. And this is where preparation for marriage counselling is most valuable; simply ensuring your compatibility prior to saying “I do!”

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Why Is My Husband Addicted To Sex With Other Women?

Feb25

man addicted to sexSome time ago I received an email from a woman questioning her husband’s continuing infidelity despite the fact that they have been married for more than twenty years. The simple question was why he would continue doing this?

The answer of course is never quite as simple as the question as there may be a number of reasons that he might continue to be unfaithful. In this article I’ll describe a few and what this woman might be able to do about it.

The first thought I had when reading this question was that this man has not yet grown up. It feels like he may be stuck in adolescence still trying to figure out who he is and how he wants to be as a man.

The other thought I had that may be an extension of the one above is that this man is trying to prolong his youth by acting as a young man still unable to control his biological urges, which makes me wonder how this might present in other areas of his life such as in his work or as a parent himself.

And then it could be that he’s just trying to prove that he still has “it”, whatever “it” is. It may be something to do with a low self-esteem that he feels he needs to prove to himself or even to his wife, that he is still attractive to others and be attractive enough to be sexually desirable.

But then it could be that his wife, she who wrote the email, is a very powerful character in her own right, or maybe is simply a “nag”, and the affairs are his way of escaping, if only for a moment, her abuses.

And then it could be that this is what was modelled for him as a child by his parents, or other significant people in his life, as being the way to behave as an adult thereby having the husband believing that this is what all married couples do.

And of course it may be that the women he is having the affairs with are having their own issues and are manipulating him into believing that he is more than a conquest by their seductive advances which, because of his low self-esteem he is unable to resist.

Nonetheless, whatever the reason, the continuing affairs are certainly representative of something critically amiss in this relationship that needs to be addressed.

The way to do this is firstly is for the wife to challenge him on what he is doing. In this case she needs to ensure that he understands that the behaviour is inappropriate and will not be tolerated any further. It might be that for the sake of the relationship, or for the children of the relationship, never a good reason, that she has turned a blind eye to the behaviour and pretended that it just didn’t happen.

The wife might have to take a good hard look at herself as well in terms of what she might be doing or saying that encourages him to continue the behaviour.

This may be too big an ask for anyone to address between themselves so this might be best done with the assistance of a couples counsellor. The counsellor will ask both of the couple lots of questions that might not have otherwise been asked to help both people in the couple to understand exactly what these recurrent affairs mean to them and what they can do to bring their relationship back on track.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Sex, Lies and the Truth

Jan28

Broken Heart

Is it possible for someone to truly love you and hurt you over and over with lies and deceit?

What a great question this is to get me going for the week

The short answer is this:  NO! Someone cannot truly love you and hurt you over and over with lies and deceit. But it may be a little more complicated than that.

Lying and deceitfulness can be a natural response to being constantly tormented, fear of being found out, or from the modelling we get from the most important people around us, generally our parents.

There are also gradients of lies. There are the lies of omission when we don’t tell someone that what they are wearing doesn’t go with whatever, their body shape, the occasion etc.

On the other end of the continuum are the really big lies that have a huge impact on people’s lives, individuals or whole countries, which can and do change the course of history.

My curiosity is pricked when I hear that someone is being deceitful in their relationship. Is this a cold-hearted act of cruelty with no regard for the impact the lie has on another or is it something much more than that?

My belief is that lying is a complex issue that really needs to be viewed not just in the context of the current event but in the context of a whole lifetime of experience.

When we are very young we learn to tell lies as part of socialising us to the norms of society. So we are taught to hold our tongues when we get crushed under the hug of our big, fat aunties and respectfully say ‘thank you’ for the gift that we really didn’t want. We also learn in the process that lying can protect us from being punished, sometimes in very, even too harsh ways. Lying can even become habitual as a way of avoiding the anger of someone in a position of authority over us as well as a means of avoiding the feelings of fear that can go with that.

As an adult we normally grow out of this behaviour as we meet with other adults face to face, in truth and in good will, to manage our conflicts in an adult way no longer needing to resort to old patterns of behaviour. Sometimes however old behaviours are so entrenched that the habit has become hard to shift. Alternatively the person is triggered to feel the same sort of fear they experienced as a child and respond from an internal child part of themselves rather than an external adult part.

In these situations the lies and deceit are not intended to hurt but become the habitual response of someone who doesn’t yet have the skills to manage themselves in a more mature way.

So to come back to the question at the beginning of this article

Love is a mature adult feeling that is pure and clean with no unresolved issues attached to it. So to truly love another implies that you are fully there with this person in the most vulnerable way possible. This means that your heart, soul and body are open and exposed without any defences. So to put it more simply, love and lying simply cannot be present in the same moment.

While we are humans, and we will slip up, for us to be truly in love with another requires us also to be truly honest. If we cannot be truly honest then we can’t possibly truly love because instead of being there fully in the present we are being held back by something from our past that will need resolution.

So if you are being lied to and hurt constantly by your partner and they are unable, or unwilling, to do what it takes to change then you really do need to think about the long-term viability of your relationship.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Ten Reasons Why Someone Might Be Unfaithful and What to Do About It

Jan8
Blatent Cheating

Betrayed By A Fiancé/Fiancée?

I receive many emails asking about the meaning of affairs and what to do when you catch someone out. This question is one that comes up regularly both in my rooms as well as via email. In this post I will try and put my thoughts down about what I understand about affairs when they happen and what you can do about them.

Let me first define what an affair is and what an affair is not. For me, and you may agree or not, an affair is when someone creates a relationship with another person, with or without sex, in which that other person becomes the centre of their attention at the expense of their partner.

An affair is not a “one-night stand” where someone gets carried away in the moment and has a sexual encounter with someone outside of the marriage/relationship. Both, however, may be considered equally a betrayal and unforgivable to the other party in the relationship.

When someone has been caught out in any kind of unfaithfulness some of you have simply decided to walk away and others have decided to forgive and move on. There is no right or wrong way to respond to this. It is up to each of you to decide how significant the indiscretion is to you and decide on how you yourself should best react.

Often the actual decision made is more likely based on your personal value system. For some of you, when someone betrays you, it feels like the worst thing that they can do and there is no room for stepping away from the hurt or the loss of trust. For others of you there is such a strong value in your love and commitment that you will find a way to forgive even this most unforgivable of betrayals.

In either situation it seems to come down to which value is the strongest – the value around love and commitment or the value around fidelity.

When someone has been unfaithful it is worth pausing for a moment to take a look at why they may have done it before deciding what the best course of action is.

Reasons for being unfaithful may include:

  1. Fear of committing to one person at the exclusion of all others
  2. The behaviour was modelled by a parent or someone close to the person
  3. Curiosity, especially for the inexperienced, of what sex might be like with someone else
  4. Boredom in the current relationship
  5. An escape from reality into fantasy
  6. A lack of, or insufficient, intimacy in their marriage or relationship
  7. A way to experiment with sex that might not be welcome in their marriage
  8. A spontaneous response to the moment with or without alcohol or other drugs present
  9. A way to exhibit a position of power over another person
  10. An escape from an otherwise tedious or unfulfilling life

Once you have ascertained what might be behind the betrayal then you can make the best decision about what to do about it. You may ultimately decide it is totally the responsibility of the wrongdoer or you may decide that you have to take some responsibility for what has happened as well and change some of your own behaviours.

My belief about this is that when two people truly love each other and are totally committed to their partner then unfaithfulness simply does not have a place. Instead when there are issues they will talk them through until they get a resolution.

And a word of advice: if you ever find yourself in a situation where there has been an infidelity, I would really encourage you to seek professional counselling before making any decisions you may come to regret.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Why Women Cheat?

Nov25

Recently I was surprised to hear news of increasing number of websites promoting affairs. So it maybe a bit of a surprise to hear that men are not the only ones who cheat on their partners.  It is becoming more and more common for women to be guilty of cheating.

And while years ago a woman cheating on her spouse was unheard of more recently the number of women who enter into affairs and cheat on their spouse is growing exponentially.

However while women may be cheating as often as men, the reasons why women cheat are very different to the reasons why men cheat.

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

Research is showing us that the principle difference between men and women cheating are that men often cheat for physical reasons while women often have emotional reasons for cheating on their partner.

The reasons why women cheat include loneliness, revenge, and boredom or as an attempt to raise their self-esteem.

A partner who becomes excessively involved with his work or some pastime may no longer make time to spend with his partner. This often results in the woman feeling as if she is all alone. So if a woman is not receiving the attention she feels she deserves in a relationship, she may be tempted to seek that attention elsewhere and become involved in an affair.

Loneliness has amazingly become one of the primary reasons that women seek out affairs and cheat on their partner. Although it sounds contradictory that they should feel lonely while being in a relationship, it is because that relationship has simply become emotionally unfulfilling.

Revenge has also become a growing factor in why women cheat. The modern woman is no longer willing to sit back and accept the fact that their partner may cheat on them. If a woman confirms or even just holds a suspicion that her partner is cheating on her, she may be driven to engage in an affair of her own as an act of revenge.

An Eye for an Eye

They may be extremely hurt by their partner’s actions and seek a way to hurt them in the same way.

Boredom may also factor into why women cheat. Their current relationship may have fallen into a rut and lost the excitement that it possessed in the early stages of its existence. They may feel that their relationship has become dull and predictable so rather than trying to bring excitement into their current relationship they may pursue affairs in the hopes of rediscovering the excitement they felt when they first became involved with their partner.

While an affair may bring about a temporary solution of making the woman feel excited about love again it may ultimately destroy both their current relationship as well as their cheating relationship.

An affair is exciting not only because it involves a relationship with a new person but also because it involves sneaking around and ultimately getting away with doing something wrong.

To many women this is very exciting and they are willing to risk losing their relationship over the affair.

Another reason why women cheat is a lack of self-esteem. Women may feel that they are not getting an adequate amount of attention from their partner and they may be tempted to cheat to confirm that they are still attractive and desirable.

Being found desirable by another compensates for the lack of appreciation they feel from their partner which helps to boost their self-esteem. While women with a healthy self-esteem are more likely to remain happy in a relationship, and do what needs to be done to find it, those who lack self-esteem may be more driven to cheat on their partners.

So if you are finding yourself lonely, bored or feeling like your self-esteem is failing you think twice before embarking on an affair. Maybe there is a better way out. This might be to seek some counselling and then to find a way to confront your partner about what it is you’re experiencing.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Catch a Cheating Partner

Nov5

How to Catch a Cheating Partner

Couples often come to a stage in their relationship where things no longer go so smoothly and they start asking questions about their future. This is a normal stage of development for all relationships. And rather than shying away from it you would do better to take a close look at where you are in your relationship and to notice if there is something you need to be paying attention to.

This would ensure your relationship continues into the future in a healthy way rather than taking it down a path of self destruct.

Remember this: where you put your thoughts is most likely how your relationship will respond.

Sometimes the difficulty you find your selves in leads you to question whether your partner is having an affair. The truth is sometimes they are but rather than seeing an affair as a symptom of a relationship in trouble it is seen as the cause of the trouble.

Let me also clarify here the meaning of the term ‘cheating’.

Most often we immediately think of cheating as one or both parties having an affair outside of the marriage. My definition of cheating is really when anything outside of the relationship, eg work or personal pursuits, takes precedence over the relationship to the detriment of the relationship.

Often by the time the couple enters counselling the damage has already become irreparable due to the accusations and recriminations that have been shot at each other. Often one party will admit their guilt either to relieve themselves of it, or simply to escape the torment. The sad thing here is that generally a confession rarely gets a resolution and most often just creates more anguish.

If you have your suspicions about your partner, you probably already realize that the relationship is in trouble but you also need to be ready for a revelation that might actually put an end to the relationship.

If you suspect that your partner is cheating don’t match their deceitfulness with your own by checking out their credit card expenses and/or their phone accounts. You might find answers but the way you have done so makes you no better than them.

The only way forward here is to ask the question outright and trust that you will know from their answer what the truth is. And while you may be able to investigate on your own to find your answer you should make sure that before you begin your investigation, and certainly before you ask the question outright, you prepare yourself for the answers you may receive.

So if such a couple presents to me in counselling the starting point of therapy is not about discovering the truth of an affair but the truth about their love and commitment of each other.

It may be that an affair, if it exists, will need to be discussed but not until both parties are ready to deal with what it means and how they want to deal with it. This really may be no different to managing a client who has experienced abuse in their past.

Sometimes it is necessary to know how to manage it and what you will do with the information before you even attempt to expose the client to the details of the abuse. If you simply present the client with the abuse up front it may actually only traumatise them further rather than giving them a solution.

Of course I’m not saying here that you should overlook the possibility of an affair but it needs to be looked at in perspective. That is, it needs to be viewed against the backdrop of your whole relationship and against whatever else is going on in the relationship.

What this all boils down to is this: get really clear about whether you actually have a relationship because only then can you figure out what you need to do about any cheating that might be happening.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Tell If Your Spouse is Cheating – 3 Tell-Tale Signs to Look For

May7

Blatant CheatingCheating happens in so many ways. When we first think about what cheating is we tend to think about spouses having sex outside of the relationship but it happens in many other ways as well. With this in mind be aware also that what is defined as cheating to one person might not be for someone else.

A recent magazine asked readers to define an extra-marital affair, with this result:

· 21% thinking about an involvement
· 21% dinner and drinks
· 24% kissing and petting
· 26% sexual intercourse
· 8% not sure

And some people even define it as chatting on the internet or phone messaging with people of the opposite sex or using porn without the partner’s consent or inclusion.

How do you define cheating? And how do you know if your spouse is doing it?

Here are three tell-tale signs to look out for:

  1. When your spouse suddenly takes extra special care in their dress or personal appearance or suddenly adopts a whole new style in clothing or hair.
  2. When your spouse suddenly starts staying back at work late into the night saying they are doing extra work.
  3. When your spouse spends longer hours on the computer and/or phone and doesn’t want you to ask questions about or see what s/he is doing.

NB Be mindful that there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for all of these behaviors so be careful jumping to conclusions.

And by the way cheating is not necessarily a death knell for the relationship.

There are many reasons people cheat. The most important one though is that something is not working in the relationship that really needs looking at. This does not necessarily mean that you do not love each other anymore. What it means is that someone in the relationship is just not getting some of there needs met. This might be sexually or in friendship or in satisfying a need for some excitement in their lives.

Here is the short answer to overcoming an affair.

If you have caught your partner out there is obviously some decisions to be made regarding whether you should abandon the relationship or whether you can both recover from this error. That will be decided by many things the most important of which is your capacity to forgive your partner, and maybe even yourself, for allowing the affair to happen.

If you are the one having the affair, by the way, it’s sometimes wiser to not tell but to recommit and make amends as best you can. While it is said that honesty must be at the base of all relationships there are some things that may be best left unsaid. On deciding you have made a mistake, the most important thing is to acknowledge that to yourself and to do whatever needs to be done to get this relationship back on track. If you then decide to tell your partner have a good reason for doing so which is not based on your need to free yourself of guilt.

If you are in a relationship where you think there might be cheating talk about it. This may not be best introduced with a question about whether the other person is actually having an affair, but from the perspective of sharing your thoughts and values on the topic so your partner has an opportunity to respond. In this way they are not left with any doubt as to what you think and feel about the possibility of s/he having an affair. It just may give him/her a chance to change their behavior without having to put your whole relationship on the line. Remember s/he may not have the same definition of cheating as you do.

I will address this in more detail in my next blog post.

 

So until next time – Relate with Love

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