Vice Agent

For better or worse, for richer or poorer, until death do us part. Most of us recite these traditional wedding vows and may never think about exactly what we are promising to our spouse when we say the words. Your wedding vows are a commitment to your husband or wife. A commitment that is broken when an affair takes place. If that commitment is broken, can you restore it and save your marriage? The answer is yes, you can save your marriage after an affair, but it will take sincere effort and dedication.

The foundation of a marriage is trust. Trust is built on honesty. When you or your spouse have an affair you are betraying the trust that has been given to you. Trust is hard to build and easy to tear down. Once trust has been betrayed, it is even harder to rebuild. If you are the partner who has had an affair, the first thing you must do is be completely honest with your spouse. The only way you can regain your partners trust is through total honesty in everything you do.

Your actions will need to provide the proof that you can be trusted. You can tell your spouse all day long that you are trustworthy, but your actions will speak louder than your words. If you say you will do something, do it. No matter how inconvenienced you are, it is vitally important that you follow through with what you say. If you continue to provide proof of your honesty, you will slowly be able to regain your spouses trust. Along with your spouses trust, you must also gain their forgiveness.

Forgiveness for the affair is a necessary part of saving your marriage, but it is a difficult step for most people. After having your trust betrayed, the hardest thing to imagine is ever being able to forgive your spouse and trust again. Until you are able to imagine trusting again, you will not be able to forgive. Yes, you heard me right, the biggest obstacle to forgiving your spouse, is believing that you can trust them again. If you are willing to try to trust again, forgiveness is possible.

In order to forgive and trust again, you need to make your spouse aware the behavior that will reinforce their efforts to regain your trust. You should work together to create a do and don’t list. These are things that will allow you to focus your efforts on saving your marriage and getting past the affair.

Don’t expect to recover from the affair overnight. Healing from a major betrayal of trust takes a lot of time. Many times counseling or other expert help is needed to overcome the hurt. Some days will seem like two steps forward and one step back. You must take things one day at a time and slowly forgiveness will be granted and trust will be restored.