How to Continue Marriage After an Affair

You can only put someone in the dog house for so long before you must forgive if you want the marriage to work.

Affairs are cheap, tawdry and hurtful. But you don’t have to throw in the towel if you maintain your union for the right reasons. Keep a few things in mind to successfully continue a marriage after an affair.

Instructions

1. Ask yourself why you want to stay with this person after he blatantly cheated on you. Good reasons include you love him. Medium reasons include keeping the family together, although that may not be good enough. Bad reasons include it’s cheaper to live together than pay rent on your own.

2. Dig deep in your heart and honestly ask if you can trust this person not to repeat offend.

3. Dig even deeper in your heart and honestly ask if you can forgive this person.

4. Sit down with your spouse and tell her you are very hurt, betrayed and dismayed that she had an affair but you want to maintain the marriage for the good reasons you came up with.

5. Let it go. This may be the most difficult step because affairs can haunt everyone long after they are over. Purge your resentments with therapy, talking to friends and writing down how angry, hurt and awful you feel then burning the piece of paper in a ceremony.

Tips & Warnings

• Divorce is not failure, but sometimes a happy ending.

• Do not throw the affair in his face every time you two fight.

• Don’t have an affair of your own in retaliation unless you really want the marriage to be over.