Rebuilding Trust after an Affair: 4 Ways to Reconnect Now

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You’ve decided you want to stay to work on rebuilding trust after an affair instead of moving onto a new life alone after your cheating spouse’s infidelity. The road ahead may look dark with little hope, but fear not others have traveled down a similar path and have found ways reconnect with each other to live happily together as a couple.

Rebuilding Trust takes an effort on both sides.

The internet provides numerous resources to share tips how to start fresh with your wayward spouse, perhaps even create a stronger bond in which you truly understand one another better.

I sifted through several posts to find the ones I determined to be most helpful to rebuilding trust after an affair.

1. 4 Truths That Can Help Save Your Relationship After An Affair by ItsCheating.com

Of the four insights to saving a marriage affected by infidelity I personally found the 1st and the 4th the most intriguing. While I agree with Truth #1, that many happy people start affairs, I doubt how satisfied they really are. Either way good people with intentions to stay loyal to their spouses can stray when the excitement leaves the relationship.

Most of the time, someone you would never expect to cheat on their husband or wife entangles themselves in an emotional affair with co-worker or someone else in the office.  Then the emotional bonding with their partner on the side turns into a physical affair.

The good news is these cheaters feel ashamed and sorrow. They tend to fear losing their spouse and marriage. They perhaps liked the attention. I’ve been there myself. I met someone else who was married while I was married. I thought I made a friend, but we both met during a time when our marriages lacked

I agree whole heartedly with Truth #4 that infidelity is not the leading cause for divorce instead the lack of understanding how to communicate with each other.

I believe one of the reasons that my second wife cheated was largely due to my own fear of not making a better effort to get to the bottom of why she seemed depressed and distant. I sensed she was very sad with her life and feared she would end up stuck in a boring routine. I feared the truth. I feared she would not value the relationships like I did and make an effort to rebuilding trust in order for us to support each other with unconditional love.

In order to fix any problems in a relationship, be it your own personal issues or problems between one another, you must not fear hearing the truth. The communication should strive for constructive solutions in order to extinguish the problems and move on.

Without fixing our problems in our relationships rebuilding trust becomes impossible and one of the partners may seek their own solutions to cure their emptiness cheating being one of those options!

Read the ItsCheating.com’s post here about the 4 truths that can help save your relationship after an affair here.

2. Trust Building Exercises on Pinterest.com

Well, this is not exactly a post, but Pinterest provides some of the best infographics and how-to guides on the web.  I found this pin full of PDFs for building and rebuilding trust (there are some extra non-related Pins too). Some of the Pins pertain to relationships affected by infidelity, and some of those are useful tools for therapists.

I especially enjoy the Pins for  Dr. John Gottman’s. I’ve referred to some of his articles in previous posts. All his articles and books offer the deepest views regarding relationship subjects. You’ll find complete new ways to understand marital communication problems and simple ways to fix your marriage you won’t find anywhere else.

Read the trust and rebuilding trust Pins here. I posted them to my Board.

3. Surviving Betrayal at GreaterGood.Berkeley.Edu

Hands down one of the most interesting articles I’ve read on betrayal and infidelity. The article draws attention to what happens inside us after our partner breaks our trust in them when they cheat. When our spouse cheats on us an alarm sounds off in our heads telling us that the world is not what we thought it was.

We instinctively begin to overprotect ourselves from other painful experiences by avoiding opportunities to connect with other people in all circles of life from friends, relationships and even companies and organizations. This mistrust even can damage self-esteem and self-belief tricking us to doubt our own attractiveness or judgment of  other people.

I can relate to the doubting my own judgment of others. Ever since my wife deserted me (and after we divorced) I still struggle with confidence that I can connect with the women I am interested in. What I believed women used to like about me before meeting my second wife I now second guess myself. I’m not sure they ever did like those things. I’ve become somewhat intimidated to approach new women- this didn’t happen before the infidelity.

You’ll find 14 thought-provoking ways to rebuild trust with your partner. The last two points at the bottom of the article I find particularly interesting where the author Dr. Joshua Coleman discusses why the responsibility is us, the readers, to ultimately choose the right partners who we can trust. Ironically towards the bottom of the section,

“Who do you love?” Dr Coleman sheds light on how not controlling your own insecurities that your spouse could cheat on you could bring that nightmare to life. Insecurity is one of my 9 Serial Cheater Traits (by the way I’ll be adding more traits shortly).

Make sure you do not miss out of the last section, “Gambles Worth Taking” where Dr. Coleman shares his beliefs why rebuilding trust is a risk, but worth pursuing for married couples who’ve lived through an affair.

Read Dr. Coleman’s article here.

4. 22 Ways Couples Can Survive Infidelity (From Marriage Experts) an article on YourTango.com

How can a couple reconnecting after an affair?

Looking for specific advice to fight for your marriage after an affair then this posts offers some simple tips for rebuilding trust. Highly analytical advice will only overwhelm you right now while you feel emotional exhausted and confused about what to decide next to do. I pulled out some specific points I found particularly helpful.

Much like I mention in my own ebook, “Infidelity Survival Guide: 10 Emergency Tips to Survive Week One“, if you want any chance of getting your relationship after an affair then you must protect your own emotions first.  Your cheating spouse decided to cheat. They have the problem. Be on alert for when you beat yourself up and blame yourself for their decision to betray the relationship.

The Pertinent Information. Another point I stand behind from this post is do not ask about unnecessary details that will only shatter your heart. There’s no need to ask about the x-rated details of his/her affair. In my opinion while sharing sexual descriptions might prove that your cheating partner no longer has anything to hide, they might regret the shameful admissions and you will have even more haunting images to replay in your head over-and-over. Focus on the relationship and the injured feelings you must undo.

Dating All Over Again. Part of reconnecting and rebuilding trust with your partner may not include pure talking exercises, rather simply going out and doing things together- dating all over again. This particular point reminds me of some of the best rebuilding trust advice I’ve read like in this ebook I purchased online after discovering my wife’s affair.

I can tell you from experience as a former cheater myself, forcing me to talk right after she caught me only made me resent her even more. We needed a refresh button, a whole new approach. That didn’t happen. She felt that punishing me would keep me in line. That technique backfired, along with these other avoid-at-all-cost actions after catching your cheating spouse found in this other post of mine.

No More Contact with Affair Partner. But without a doubt the cheating spouse MUST cut off all communication with their affair partner. How do you actually expect to fix your relationship if he/she has one foot in and one foot out. If they truly want to stay with you then they will fear losing you. They will do everything to prove that they will fight for your marriage.

Individual and Couple’s Counseling. And I also endorse this post’s point about receiving BOTH couple’s and individual counseling. You need to maintain inner strength to go through the day-to-day activities. You will inevitably find yourself alone, whether driving to work, at your desk or in the bathroom- your mind will wander. You will want to feel sorry for yourself whether you want to or not. And without the two of you receiving some kind of third party help it will be extremely hard for rebuilding trust again.

Read the full post here.

Extra Help Resources for Rebuilding Trust: Here’s some free downloads from the marriage therapist Dr. Huizenga who helped me decide what to do next and if you’d like to take an inside peek at his popular ebook read my 7 Types of Affairs: How to Break Free from the Affair Review.

Your Opinion Matters

What rebuilding trust technique have you used or read about that I didn’t discuss here?

(Leave your comment at the end of this page after the “Related Articles” section or contact me here to share your thoughts/ask questions.)

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