Can You Save A Marriage After An Emotional Affair?
The prospects of pulling a couple together after the shock of an emotional affair are complicated. The level of emotions involved are tripled because the person in the affair has lingering feelings outside the marriage, and the person who was cheated on feels even more hurt than if the affair were purely physical in nature. So, what exactly can be done to save a marriage after this mess has been created?
The problem is not so much the affair, but the "emotional" part. Affairs of the body happen every day and many marriages recover from that shock much easier than most would expect. Yet, when one person has a real intimate connection with someone other than their spouse it is much harder to set aside and move on.
The first step is for the person who experienced the actual emotional affair to honestly decide whether the affair is genuinely over or not. If there is still deep feelings that are not likely to be let go anytime soon, then there may not be a way to really move the marriage forward. You can't have a happy marriage if one person's heart is withdrawn to someone else.
Given that the affair is officially over, that outside emotional connection has been broken, or at least the person is sure that their feelings for their spouse are much more intense than the bond of the affair, then the next scenario moves to the spouse that was cheated on.
If one person is willing to let go of a deep emotional connection to someone else, then the second person needs to be open to actively rekindling trust and ultimately a deeper emotional connection between the couple. If either person is not willing to let go and reinvest in the relationship then it will never work.
Once both people are on board and ready to move forward, then a period of time will be needed to restore an intimate connection with one another. Trust will have to slowly build up again. The marriage may never go back to exactly where it was before the emotional affair, but an even stronger bond can be formed and a new sense of happiness brought to life.
It is entirely possible to save a marriage after one person has experienced an emotional affair, but it must all start with open conversations. That doesn't mean screaming and yelling, but genuinely talking and listening so that everyone is heard and understood. Only then will it be possible to move forward with action that makes it better.
The problem is not so much the affair, but the "emotional" part. Affairs of the body happen every day and many marriages recover from that shock much easier than most would expect. Yet, when one person has a real intimate connection with someone other than their spouse it is much harder to set aside and move on.
The first step is for the person who experienced the actual emotional affair to honestly decide whether the affair is genuinely over or not. If there is still deep feelings that are not likely to be let go anytime soon, then there may not be a way to really move the marriage forward. You can't have a happy marriage if one person's heart is withdrawn to someone else.
Given that the affair is officially over, that outside emotional connection has been broken, or at least the person is sure that their feelings for their spouse are much more intense than the bond of the affair, then the next scenario moves to the spouse that was cheated on.
If one person is willing to let go of a deep emotional connection to someone else, then the second person needs to be open to actively rekindling trust and ultimately a deeper emotional connection between the couple. If either person is not willing to let go and reinvest in the relationship then it will never work.
Once both people are on board and ready to move forward, then a period of time will be needed to restore an intimate connection with one another. Trust will have to slowly build up again. The marriage may never go back to exactly where it was before the emotional affair, but an even stronger bond can be formed and a new sense of happiness brought to life.
It is entirely possible to save a marriage after one person has experienced an emotional affair, but it must all start with open conversations. That doesn't mean screaming and yelling, but genuinely talking and listening so that everyone is heard and understood. Only then will it be possible to move forward with action that makes it better.
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