Nothing is more disheartening to a relationship than finding out that there has been infidelity. It can break your heart and can definitely knock the wind out of your sails. But, the good news is that cheating in a relationship can be overcome with time. Please take the time to focus on your relationship and try to work things out, in many cases you can. Don’t give up.

One of the best things you can do is to take plenty of time to try to figure out what happened. Unless one of you is a chronic cheater, the cheating came from somewhere (not that this is an excuse) but to fix things you need to know what happened to create the situation in the first place.

If you or your partner has been going through some things and maybe that situation has put stress on your marriage or relationship than you may need to start there. But, I know I’m repeating myself but it’s that important, that doesn’t mean it was ok that either of you turned to another person to feel better about yourself. No matter what situations the two of you are dealing with, it doesn’t make it ok to have an affair.

It’s important to figure that out and fix the cause. You will also need to get help from a therapist. The hurt and anger that you can feel after someone has cheated can almost take on a life of it’s own and it can be very difficult to work past it, especially on your own.

If the two of you understand that the process will take time and it will be painful yet you are still willing to do what needs to be done, than the two of you have a great chance of salvaging your relationship and maybe even making things better than they were before.

Of course, if one or the other of you has a long history of cheating than the problem runs much deeper than just some issue in your relationship. If either of you is like that than the best thing for you to do is for the “cheater” to get some serious counseling to figure out why they are so flawed that they think it’s ok to do what they want to do no matter who they hurt and what promises you go back on.

When you make a commitment to someone, that is a promise. Even if you don’t come out and say the words “I won’t be with another person” once you and your partner enter into a committed relationship that is the same as making a promise.
If you just go about doing whatever you want to do no matter who you hurt, than you have problems. Sorry, if that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.

If this describes you than before you do anything  please get yourself the help you need so you don’t continue to go through life hurting yourself and anyone who has made the mistake of loving you.

Tough love can be…well, tough. Many of us come to a point in our lives sometimes where we have to face difficult choices and decisions. While it’s not always fun and it’s never easy, making changes and saving your relationship is possible but you have to start with you. Cheating in a relationship can be overcome, just be willing to put in the time and effort.

If your spouse has been cheating  CLICK HERE to get the help you need now.

Technorati Tags: anger, cheater, counseling, excuse, infidelity, marriage, plenty of time, relationship, stress

Getting married is supposed to be one of the happiest days of a person’s life. The truth is that the day itself can be a wonderful experience, but then that happiness has a way of wearing off over time. While statistics vary, the number of marriages that end in divorce is far too high. This doesn’t mean you are doomed to split up just because you said your vows, but it does raise the question “is you marriage in trouble?”

With the modern state of marriage, the chances are good that your marriage is facing some sort of trouble. However, being in trouble is not the same as saying that it is over. The sooner you can identify the warning signs, the better the odds are that you can save your marriage. With that in mind, here some signs of a troubled marriage.

Sign of a Troubled Marriage #1 – Apathy

When you stop caring about what happens to your spouse, or to your marriage, it is a clear sign of trouble. If you have stopped arguing because nothing really matters then that’s not good. That’s not to say that arguments are enjoyable, because they’re not. But at least when you are arguing it shows that you are upset, and you can only be upset when you care. Perhaps the opposite of love is hate, but apathy ranks right up there.

Sign of a Troubled Marriage #2 – Spending Less Time Together

This should come as no surprise, but the less time you spend together, the worse it is for a healthy relationship. to be fair, there are some couples who rarely spend any time with each other, and they say that’s the key to a happy marriage. But that’s not a real marriage, that’s two people trying to avoid getting on one another’s nerves. There’s nothing wrong with having free time and spending time away from each other, but if it gets out of hand, then your marriage may be in trouble.

Sign of a Troubled Marriage #3 – Decrease in Physical Intimacy

There may be any number of reasons for a lack of intimacy. You need to look for a sudden lack of interest and then see what the underlying causes are. This could be a result of a medical condition or stress. On the other hand, it could be a sign of a troubled marriage, but don’t assume until you find out the root of the problem.

Sign of a Troubled Marriage #4 – Communication Breakdown

While this is usually one of the earlier signs, it can be hard to spot. Why? Because you’re not communicating with each other. The reason this can lead to trouble is that it turns small problems into bigger ones. You need to be able to talk about things, and do so in a reasonable and adult manner.

Is your marriage in trouble? By answering the above questions, you will have a better idea of where your relationship stands. The sooner you are aware of these trouble spots,the sooner you can work to fix them.

Is  your marriage in trouble?  CLICK HERE

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Regaining trust in a relationship is going to be an uphill climb. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, I’m just saying that you better be willing to put in some serious time and effort if that’s what you want. If you’re not, you might as well walk away right now and save both of you a lot of extra pain.

Of course, there are many reasons trust can be lost. Sometimes it’s fairly ‘small’ like when your spouse belittles you in front of others. Other times it can be even worse such as in the case of infidelity. This can be virtually impossible to overcome.

If you’re willing to try, step one is to figure out what you did to break the trust in the first place. Obviously, if it was infidelity that will be pretty clear. But if it was something a little less extreme like ridiculing your partner or making fun of them all the time, it might take some digging to figure out why you felt the need to hurt the one person you’re supposed to love above everyone else.

Sometimes the more subtle betrayals can be a sign of some deep seated resentment against your partner. You need to get to the bottom of that issue to figure out what it is before you can make any kind of change.

If you’ve cheated than you will also need to figure out why. In many cases it’s about a lot more than just being attracted to another person. It’s often a sign that you’re unhappy with your partner and / or a severe character flaw of  yours. Whatever the case may be the first step to trying to rebuild trust with your partner is to identify the problems so that you can fix them so you never repeat your mistake.

It’s going to take a lot to get your partner to trust you again, the last thing you want to do is to repay that trust by hurting them and betraying them again. Before you ask for a second chance you better make darn sure you’re up to the challenge of never betraying them again.

Once you’ve identified the problem and have taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, it’s time to talk to your partner. Explain to them that you’ve been working on yourself and fixing your issues. Ask them for another chance. Even if they say ‘yes’ you have to understand that you’ll essentially be on ‘probation’ for a long time.

You have to be willing to overlook a little paranoia on their part. It’s going to be very difficult for them to completely let their guard down again and it’s likely to take quite a long time before they do. They’ll need to see a lot of proof that you’ve really changed first.

Regaining trust in a relationship will take a lot of time, love and patience. It’s not impossible if both parties are willing to try, but make sure that both of you enter into the process with your eyes wide open and don’t expect a quick fix.

CLICK HERE for more information

Technorati Tags: betrayals, character flaw, infidelity, mistake, regaining trust in a relationship, resentment, second chance, serious time, uphill climb

In this post, you will learn the 3 phases you will need to work through to recover from—and survive—infidelity.

Phase 1: The Cheating Victim: Your Pain Comes First

Healing in the marriage can’t come until you have looked after yourself first.  If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t have an easy time taking care of anything or anyone else.

If you want to survive infidelity, you first need to address the onslaught of thoughts and emotions that are overwhelming you. If you don’t have a firm internal foundation, you will be unable to rebuild a firm foundation in your marriage.

You have to deal with the negative impact of your spouse’s cheating actions. This includes effectively handling all of those negative thoughts and emotions, images of the affair, and self-doubts until you begin to feel some semblance of internal peace again.

Putting solid ground down internally will strengthen your ability to put one down externally in phase two.

Phase 2: The Couple in Crisis: Begin Working—and Healing—Together

This is as challenging a phase as the first one in which you work on yourself—perhaps even more so. In phase 2, you need to work on communicating effectively with your spouse.

No doubt, the early stages of this phase will feel very strained. You may have a lot of anger, and find yourself lashing out at your spouse, and your spouse’s response may be the silent treatment as retaliation for the discomfort he or she may feel over what they have done to your marriage.

It will take effort on the part of you and your spouse to work together on your communication skills, and for you as the victim, to feel some sense of trust that your partner is truly committed to this process.

There will be lapses into negative thoughts as you begin to work with your spouse, but it doesn’t mean your internal foundation is at risk—it’s just being challenged by the rawness of communicating after the devastation of the affair.

Phase 3: Rebuild Your Marriage

Once you and your spouse are in a place of being able to communicate again, when these talks can be characterized as more positive in nature rather than angry outbursts and recriminations, you are ready to begin rebuilding the foundation of your marriage.

It is in this phase that you will work on transparency and building trust again. In essence, you are wiping clean the way things have “always been done” in your marriage, and recreating a stronger foundation with very clear-cut, defined rules.

The work of a marriage never stops, so this phase will move from a period of rebuilding to one in which you are continuously solidifying. There will even be occasions where you step back into the first two phases, so don’t be thrown off your end goal, which is surviving infidelity.

Does it help to think of recovering from infidelity in terms of a phased plan?

If you are further along in the healing process, have you found yourself slipping back on occasion to an earlier phase? What triggered a return to that phase?

Do you feel stronger today than you did the day after learning your spouse cheated? Does this give you hope that you will grow stronger yet?

Wishing you hope and healing for your marriage.

CLICK HERE to get started today

Technorati Tags: anger, communication skills, emotions, firm foundation, infidelity, internal peace, lapses, marriage, negative impact, negative thoughts, no doubt, self doubts, silent treatment

Your marriage license didn’t come with a manual to help you navigate through challenging marital troubles—especially those that are related to dealing with a spouse’s infidelity.

After the affair, you are faced with what may seem insurmountable problems. So, are you dealing with the infidelity, or trying to shove it away because the pain is just too great?

Devastated by the Affair, What Should You Do?

You just found out you are married to a cheater. It may feel as if the world just came crashing down upon you. Now what?

To find out about your spouse’s cheating is one of the most wrenching, emotionally-devastating events that can happen in a marriage—ranked up there with the death of a spouse.

A common reaction from the cheating victim is, “I don’t know what to do.” What should you do first? Again, there was no marriage-help manual provided at the altar. But here you are, trying to pick up what can feel like the shredded remnants of your life after you’ve had the wind knocked out of you.

And infidelity truly shreds everything that was once whole: your relationship with and trust in your spouse, your sense of peace, your self-esteem, and your thoughts. It can be extremely overwhelming, especially since you have more going on than just tending your relationship. No doubt you are trying to run your household, take care of family members, and work, too—while in excruciating psychological and emotional pain.

Most of us, when in pain, want a way to turn it off, immediately. But in the case of infidelity, the wounds run deep, and there is no quick fix. In an effort to escape the pain, you may have thoughts such as:

“I’ll pack a bag and leave tonight,” or,

“I’ll pick his bag and make him leave this afternoon!”

While this may seem a reasonable response to an extremely unreasonable set of circumstances brought about by your spouse’s cheating, it does not actually help you to heal from this pain.

After learning of the affair, you may not know exactly where to begin the healing process, but I want to give you a broad-based plan so you can break the process down into more manageable phases. Most people experiencing a crisis feel better with a working plan. It’s concrete, it’s logical—and it’s something solid to hold onto in an uncertain, emotionally-wrought time.

CLICK HERE for more information

Technorati Tags: cheater, death of a spouse, emotional pain, family members, household, infidelity, insurmountable problems, marital troubles, marriage, marriage help, no doubt, relationship, self esteem, wounds

Are you asking yourself the question: can I get my ex to love me again, I don’t want to diminish the hurt and anguish you’re going through, but I wish I had a penny for every time I’ve heard someone ask that question. You see, it’s not an uncommon problem. Sometimes we are the ones who end a relationship and then later realize that it was a mistake to let them go. Other times, it’s out of our hands and someone we love has let us go. Either way, you can make things work out and have your love back with you, no matter how impossible or hopeless it may seem now.

There is one thing you really need to consider, and that is that it’s very, very likely that your ex does still love you.  Love can be killed. If you treat someone bad enough, long enough the love they had for you will turn to disdain. But, in a lot of cases, that don’t involve out and out abuse, but rather just a slow deterioration of the relationship where you both start to take each other for granted, the love is very likely still alive and well even though it’s buried and you can’t see it.

It’s in these times that it’s usually the easiest to fan those flames and reignite the passion and love the two of you once felt.  If you lost your love because you were abusive (physically, mentally, emotionally, or sexually) do both of you a favor and don’t even consider rekindling things with your ex, or finding someone new, until you’ve spent some serious time with a counselor who can help you figure out why you have the need to hurt another person, especially someone who loves you.

If the problems aren’t quite that serious and dire, the first thing you should do is to find out what your ex does feel for you.  The best way to do that is to ask. Call your ex and invite them to coffee, dinner, lunch, a walk, etc. The point is try to find an enjoyable activity that the two of you can do together that will allow you to talk.

This ‘date’ doesn’t have to be a big deal, as a matter of fact, you’re probably going to want to keep things pretty casual at this point. Just have fun. Remind your ex of what a great, fun loving person you are. They probably haven’t seen that side of you for quite some time. It’s hard to be happy and carefree when your relationship is on the rocks. Remind them.

Still in love with your ex?   Want to make things work   CLICK HERE

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