Has Your Partner Cheated on You? How to Rebuild the Trust

When a partner is unfaithful, those few seconds of madness (or days, weeks or months in some cases) can totally destroy the years of family wellness and wellbeing that you have built up together.

 

Few people truly understand how devastating the effect of infidelity can be. Affairs truly take away all the emotional trust that is at the core of the relationship and this can be very difficult to recover from.

 

Luckily, there are ways to rebuild the relationship following a revelation of infidelity, but it’s not an easy road and both partners have to be totally open to fixing the damage that can be done.

 

When one partner discovers that another has been unfaithful, it triggers the four ‘H’s – Hurt, Hate, Holding on to resentment and Hesitation to trust.

 

When your partner has had an affair, you feel hurt that you have been totally betrayed in this manner. You may even feel that you hate your partner for what they have done, and for taking away the trust in the relationship. You probably feel deeply insecure too, and hate that you have to worry about the other lies that your partner may have told.

 

You will likely hold on to resentment – no matter how much you want to let it go. You will feel powerless. Finally, you will feel hesitant to trust again, as you know what it feels like to be betrayed and feel sure that you would not be able to survive a second betrayal.

 

There are also four Rs that the cheating partner should follow – these are the responses: Remorse, Rehabilitation, Restitution and Request for forgiveness.

 

That means that your partner should feel true remorse – truly sorry and sad – and should try to rehabilitate themselves. That means making the necessary changes to avoid it ever happening again. You can also go through restitution, where you let your partner reveal every feeling that they have towards you. Only when these other steps are complete can you request forgiveness – about six months down the line is best.

Categories: cheating, infidelity, relationship

Does Infidelity Have to Spell the End of Your Marriage?

Infidelity can ruin the trust in a relationship and cause intense emotional pain, but it doesn’t have to spell the end of your marriage. There are few problems in a relationship that cause quite the same level of heartache and upset as infidelity – the person that you’ve built your life with has betrayed you, and that is difficult to cope with. It undermines the very foundation of marriage. But how do you rebuild the relationship after this trust has been lost? There are ways to maintain your relationship and get past this indiscretion, if both of you are committed to doing so. With time and a mutual goal of holding onto your relationship, you can begin to forge a stronger and more intimate relationship. Infidelity isn’t a clear situation – what is considered to be cheating varies from person to person, and couple to couple. Is an emotional connection, for example, with someone else as bad as a physical one? Is it worse? Affairs are usually just about the fantasy – the person who is being cheated with is usually seen as an escape from the problems within the relationship, and is idealised as a result.

 

There are a number of reasons why people cheat, many of which aren’t actually to do with sex. Some stem from individual issues, such as sexual addiction, alcoholism or low self esteem. Others stem from problems that have been present for some time in the relationship and never dealt with, so they grow until a member of the marriage feels trapped and unable to fix them. Usually, the person who is having the affair is experiencing sexual attraction to someone else and decides to act on it rather than suppress the urge. They keep the affair going through lies and deception, and confide in someone other than their partner about their problem. They may develop an unrealistic view of the person and refuse to listen to advice to the contrary. They may also develop a strong emotional attraction to another person, highlighting problems within the marriage and making the person outside of the relationship seem idealised.

The discovery of an affair often triggers powerful emotions in both partners – these include shock, guilt, remorse, shame, anger and betrayal. During this time, it’s important not to make any rash decisions that you may later regret – if you think you may physically hurt yourself or someone else, speak to someone for some advice. This is time where you’ll both benefit from some space and time to think things over and decide what you want to do. Seek support from your friends, family or a professional who can offer objective support and advice. Remember, you don’t need to make any choices straight away – time can be a great healer, so don’t rush anything. If you decide that you do want to rebuild your marriage, you should seek the advice and help of a marriage counsellor who will be able to work through your issues with you. Be accountable for your actions – if you cheated, own up and accept responsibility. If you didn’t, but are aware of your part to play in the pitfalls in your relationship, look to where you can work on the issues and make the effort. Lastly, don’t hold grudges – if you’ve made the choice to stay and work things out, then you need to put your effort into building the trust again. Holding grudges and bringing up history in every argument will only keep the infidelity present and raw.

Categories: infidelity, Marriage, person, relationship, time, trust

Did the Google Mobile Sex Advice Service Boost Infidelity?

An initiative has been set up between the Grameen Foundation and Google Inc, to help raise awareness of sexually transmitted diseases in Uganda. This has been done in the hope of improving sexual health and wellbeing by reducing risky sexual behaviour amongst men and women. The programme was conducted through text messaging, but, unfortunately, far from boosting wellness, it has served only to increase infidelity.

 

Those who were participating in the project were able to text questions on any kind of sexual health problem to an automated service. The service, set up by Google, Grameen and a local mobile phone provider, then used specialist search technology to identify specific key words in the texts and then send automated responses with template answers in them.

 

Further research showed that, during the course of the study, rates of infidelity amongst participants jumped dramatically from 12 percent to 27 percent. These results are both shocking and unexpected, and expose a fundamental flaw in the project, which was only ever designed to help rather than to cause further problems. The field of mobile health is a new one, which brings technology together with other organisations to help improve the health of people through their mobile phones.

 

The reason for the rise in infidelity may be down to the education of women in Uganda, who, when they became more aware of the risks posed by unprotected sex, insisted on going to be checked out, and asked their husbands to come along. Some Ugandan men were very resistant to this idea, which led to their wives withholding sex until they would agree to be tested. The men then ‘solved’ this problem by having sex with a woman other than their wife, leading to a rise in infidelity. One of the problems with this particular project was that the women were more committed to the idea of safe sex than the men.

Categories: infidelity, mobile, Uganda