Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness...
After Spouse's Affair, Tips to Cope
Infidelity: Nine Steps to Saving your Marriage after your Spouse Admits Cheating on You
By LAURIE MOISON
5. Learn how to communicate honestly.
“When I see a couple who are not communicating about important things, who go day after day and never talk about what hurts them, I know there's hurt underneath that can lead to problems,” Dr. Lusterman said. “One of harbingers of infidelity is that one or both parties are really bad at talking about what matters. So, if they’re going to save the marriage, people really have to develop a method of speaking with great honesty.”
Whether you decide to stay or not, therapists advise that you find some way to communicate with your spouse. “The spouse will be hurt if they just walk away. The more you talk, even if the outcome is the sad ending of what you started with vows, the better off you are, because even if the marriage is dead, the other person is still alive and you will need to cooperate about your kids. Keeping the conversation going keeps you from losing the ability to be a full parent,” said Dr. Lusterman.
6. Find good help.
You can’t do this on your own. So, find a good therapist or sign up for one of the marriage recovery programs listed below. Better yet, do both.
7. Help the wounded spouse with their post-traumatic stress.
Finding out your spouse has had an affair is extremely traumatic, especially if you believe the contract of monogamy still applies. “The PTSD associated with affairs has two prominent features — hyper-alertness and numbness accompanied by alternating extremes of emotions. Victims feel like a rapidly cycling bi-polar. He's five minutes late for dinner. She thinks, ‘that's what he did when he was having the affair.’ So, she thinks he's with someone else, now. When he does show up, she's loaded for bear,” Dr. Lusterman said.
Lusterman believes the betrayer must help the wounded spouse become comfortable again by telling them whatever it is they need to know to feel safe and the person who has been hurt needs to learn how to take a step back from strong emotions and say, “I'm having a really crappy day. Can we talk? Can you be there for me?”
“When couples can do this, they have really learned how to talk,” Lusterman said. “And that bodes well for the marriage because a good marriage is a good conversation that never really stops.”
8. Become empathetic.
One of things Lusterman works very hard on is to get a level of conversation going where the betrayer can become empathic to the level of suffering they caused their mate. That's something, apparently, John Edwards has worked on as well. "Two years ago I made a very serious mistake, a mistake that I am responsible for and no one else. In 2006, I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness," he said.
9. Forgive.
This is not an easy step and it can’t be done quickly because in order to truly forgive, you have to stare the horror of what has happened full in the face. Two years since his confession to his wife, Elizabeth Edwards' statement to the public suggests that she has forgiven her husband's transgression.
"Our family has been through a lot," she wrote. "Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some most recently caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all."
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