Is it possible to get back with an ex and put the trust back into your relationship following an affair? For some people, an affair will always mean the ending of a relationship. From personal experience, I can vouch that this doesn’t have to be the case. The only time a relationship is ‘unfixable‘ is if neither party is willing to work at fixing it.
So how do you start to restore trust after it has been so effectively wiped out? To begin with, it requires you to adjust both your attitude and your actions. It doesn’t matter why the trust was destroyed, and even an affair isn’t a guarantee that trust cannot be restored. It just means it has to be rebuilt.
For the person who strayed, you have to look closely at your attitudes to cheating. This is what allowed you to stray in the first place. But even then, it may be that something in the relationship caused that attitude to overide the desire to remain faithful to someone you love.
This means looking into the relationship itself to make sure both parties needs are being fulfilled. What was the missing ingredient in the relationship that caused you to search for it elsewhere? Perhaps your sex life wasn’t as exciting as it used to be? Was your partner too busy with outside interests that were taking up much of their time? Maybe your partner no longer felt they needed to make an effort with their physical appearance around you?
Very few, genuinely good relationships result in any one partner having an affair.
So how do you fix it? It may well be that you have to do some deep self analysis, looking at the part you played in the initial breakdown of the relationship.
But more often than not, it is the relationship that requires analysing to discover the root of the problem. In order for trust to be restored, any underlying relationship problems must be fixed first.
Oftentimes this is best done under the watchful eye of a recognised relationship counselling expert. Once you understand the problems you can then work on putting them right.
This requires that both partners are open and willing to take the neccessary actions. The key to restoring trust is not in ‘talking’ about what needs to be done, but in actually ‘doing‘ it. It doesn’t need to be a major task, begin by making very small promises and sticking to them. If you promise to take out the rubbish every night, do it. And make sure you do it every night.
Demonstrating that you can be trusted with such small acts is the first step in gaining the confidence of your partner that you can be trusted with other things.
Do remember, your partner will require constant reassurance following an affair. You need to accept that a single apology isn’t going to cut it. You should also expect that there will be recurring comments made about the affair and how devastating it was. It is never easy to forgive such major breaches of trust.
However, while patience is a virtue, this doesn’t mean you must spend the rest of your life feeling guilty. In fact, if your partner constantly makes you feel guilty over your affair, then the new relationship you are building will never be satisfying for either of you. Just try and understand how difficult this time is for your partner.
Finally, look to the positives you can gain from the experience. Treat this as your chance to grow your relationship to a new and more meaningful level.
Many, many couples find that their relationships are much stronger following an affair. Remember that restoring trust following an affair takes time. Both parties need to adjust their attitudes and their actions.
But it has been proven time and again that the rewards are well worth it.
Tags: get back together following an affair, get back with an ex, relationship advice cheating, restoring trust
I can vouch for using outside counselling. We went to a counsellor after my partner had an affair. Thought I’d never get over it, but I did. Took a long time though.