Confronting Infidelity: Why You Should Know the Details of the Affair

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Jan Stevens

Why is it important for you to be confronting infidelity?

Finding out that your spouse is having an affair would make anyone go crazy, and one way that becomes a helpful way to cope and deal with it is by confronting infidelity — learning what exactly it is that your partner and the other person did.

A lot of people might say that it is not a good idea to know specifics of the other relationship, that it would be better just to leave it in the past and find a way to move on without confronting infidelity. But it is actually a normal reaction, one that most people in a situation like this will have, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with you for wanting to know the details.

In fact, the following are reasons why you should be confronting infidelity and knowing the reasons why he or she cheated:

1. First of all, if your partner is having a sexual affair, confronting infidelity is important for you to know the details of his encounters for you to be able to know if there is a need for you to protect yourself against STDs, and take proper action to protect or restore your health if you do.

2. You need to reassure yourself that you are not going crazy. Some people are very intuitive and tend to sense when something isn’t right. If you are one of those people, you may have sensed at one point or another that there is something going on with your partner, but you are just not able to pinpoint what it is. Confronting infidelity and knowing the details of your partner’s other relationship gives you something concrete to hold on to.

3. For couples whose relationship has had a lot of distance and don’t have much communication in it, the affair becomes a way for you to kind of reconnect with your partner. It gives you something to talk about and to focus on, like a goal that both of you can strive for together.

So when dealing with infidelity, remember these reasons to help you in planning a course of action and in making decisions on what to do next. You can also list down your individual reasons and goals for confronting infidelity to guide you as well.

Posted in Charging Neutral, Infidelity Pain, Infidelity Reasons, Relationship Communication, Relationships: Marriage, Relationships: Sex and Intimacy, Surviving Infidelity, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Barriers in Saving the Marriage: How Holding on to the Past Hurts Your Present

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Jan Stevens

Does your past really affect your efforts in saving the marriage? How?

Holding on to past hurts and problems is never a good idea. This is because no matter how noble your purpose is to leave everything in the past and to start anew, you won’t be able to stop yourself from carrying these problems with you to your present, and hinder your attempts at saving the marriage.

For couples who are saving the marriage after infidelity, it is one of the problems that they usually deal with. This is why counselors and therapists emphasize the importance of dealing with all the problems you’ve had as a couple while healing the marriage, to avoid any chance of them coming up again in the future.

These issues and problems could come back either in the same form, like communication problems for example or trust issues that began when the affair was discovered, or in other ways but with similar themes. Holding on to these things could make saving the marriage more difficult than it already is. It also does not necessarily have to happen with the same person. If you and your spouse get separated or divorced after infidelity, these unresolved issues could follow you into your new relationship with another person.

Healing yourself is the first step in stopping these past issues from hurting your present and saving the marriage. Begin by making yourself aware of the things that trigger you to feel these resentments. Try to pinpoint what events lead you to become reminded of these past issues or problems.

Where does the negativity come from? Why do you feel this way? What were the instances in the past that differ from your situation now? What or who was involved? Make yourself aware of the differences of the past and the present situations. Clearly defining the differences between the two will be a huge step in saving the marriage. By knowing what triggers your feelings of pain or resentment, you will be able to anticipate when they will happen and why, and be able to stop them from happening.

The most important part of this healing process is forgiveness. Forgiving the person who was the cause or the source of these issues is vital. You will never be able to move on from your past if you do not forgive him or her. Accept that he or she was a part of your life and that the experiences you shared helped make you the person you are today. You also have to forgive yourself. You can’t go on if you continue to blame yourself for whatever reason.

When you have done these and have completely let go of your mistakes in the past, you will be able to move on from these past hurts and issues, go forward with your life and continue on the journey of saving the marriage.

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Build Trust in Your Relationship: What To Do

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Jan Stevens

What can you do to help develop and build trust in your marriage?

There are many ways that you can build trust in your relationship. Here are just a few simple tips you can do:

1. Be consistent in your actions, words, and behavior towards your partner. The trust in your relationship deepens as you and your partner get to know each other better, and your partner’s ability to anticipate or expect how you will act or react to certain things will be one of the things that he or she will come to depend on.

2. Let your partner know of any changes that you are going through. Making changes in your personal life out of the blue and without your partner’s knowledge is usually seen as something to be suspicious of. Your partner may tend to doubt why those changes are happening without his or her knowledge.

3. Make sure that your actions are saying the same message as your words. Your partner will always know when you are just pretending to be interested in something and when you really are. And he or she will always be able to read what you really want from your actions even if your words are saying different.

4. Do not doubt your partner’s capacity to handle whatever issues you may have about him or her, or your relationship. Doubt and skepticism does not build trust. Keeping these issues from your partner and pretending that they don’t bother you will only put a strain in your relationship and your goal of avoiding conflict will most likely backfire.

5. Be very cautious about keeping secrets from your partner. Secrets have a way of destroying trust, and most of the time, it’s the little ones that you think won’t really matter that does it. So if you are thinking of keeping something from your partner, make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons and that no one gets hurt in the process, especially your partner.

6. Instead of focusing only on what your partner needs from you, let your partner know the things you need from him or her. There is nothing wrong with asking your partner to provide your needs, so don’t be shy or embarrassed to do so. Build trust by entrusting your needs to your partner. Show him or her that you know that he or she is capable of providing your needs.

7. Reflect on yourself – who you are, what is important to you as an individual and as someone who is a part of a couple, what are your beliefs, what values are important to you – everything, and let your partner know the things you discover about yourself.

8. Learn to say no. Always saying yes to other people and not setting aside time to do the things you want to do will likely leave you feeling unappreciated. So make sure that if someone asks you to something, even if it is your partner, and you don’t want to do it, just say no.

9. Charge neutral. Charging neutral means that you put your feelings and emotions in your control. You don’t react or burst in the slightest provocation. You keep your cool. Maintain the contact you have with your partner and speak to him or her directly and truthfully. This will build trust in your partner.

10. Do not be afraid to confront every single aspect of your relationship, especially the issues, trials, problems and concerns that you will have to face eventually. Avoiding conflict, arguments or fights can sometimes lead to resentment, so with issues where you think you really need to talk about it, don’t be afraid to confront them because getting through them with your partner will only make you stronger.

What do you think of these tips? Do you have any other tips you want to share with us. Don’t hesitate to leave comments about other ways one can strengthen or build trust in a relationship.

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Day After Valentine’s Day: What Really Happens in Unhappy Relationships?

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Jan Stevens

Here’s the truth of what really happens in unhappy relationships on the day after Valentine’s Day.

An article in USA today reported that online websites that offer free memberships are to people who are married and are in unhappy relationships, and who want to look for other married people to meet and “hook up” with say that their biggest day of the year is usually the day after Valentine’s Day. Why is this so?

One of people who runs a website just like this said that this seems to be a trend because a lot of people feel let down by their husband or wife when they don’t do anything special for Valentine’s Day, and the pressure for romance, especially on this particular day, doesn’t make things easier either. A lot of times, we spend a lot of money to try to create or force romance in our unhappy relationships and it doesn’t always work. Your partner could be surfing these infidelity websites the day after you try to do something romantic and just not know it.

Here are two factors that could be the reason behind one’s disappointment:

One is because romance is overrated and creates a kind of selfish shallowness. Novels, songs and movies usually depict romance as this thing where two people automatically know what the other wants or needs to experience, where each of them always feels special and forgets that they are merely humans, and are with merely humans, going through the same things.

This portrayal of romance and love makes it things in unhappy relationships that much harder to fix because they question their relationship when it does not show that same demonstration of love.

Another reason why we are in unhappy relationships is because we tend to focus on our personal needs instead of the needs of the relationship itself. The need to be loved, to be noticed, to be adored, the need for attention, for a adventure, for pleasure, for affirmation – these things run deep within us and are never truly set aside.

These personal needs become our basis on our partners’ actions and we tend to become frustrated and resentful and have unhappy relationships, whether consciously or not, when they are not met.

Posted in Emotional Infidelity, Infidelity Pain, Infidelity Reasons, Internet Cheating, Relationship Communication, Relationships: Marriage, Relationships: Sex and Intimacy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Letting Romance Fuel Your Life

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Jan Stevens

Romance is a huge influence in the type of affair called “I fell out of love… and just love being in love.”

Most of the time, this type of affair begins when your partner feels “sparks” with the other person and begins to believe that these “sparks” is what real love is.

Here are a few reasons why romance has become such a big factor when it comes to developing our relationships:

1. Romance has become the kind of ultimate experience when it comes to intimate relationships. Movies, books, TV shows all depict romance as the basis and the beginning of being in love and having true love. And they believe that and start to strive for that because they want to have the fairy tale ending with their true love, too.

2. The pursuit of romance is actually more for an individual’s personal needs, and is not really about love. They look for a partner, whether it is to start a relationship with or an affair, because they want their needs to be acknowledged and cared for to be met.  Romance has kind of become the tool to achieve that goal.

3. Romance is a precursor to sex. When two people feel that there is “chemistry” between them, they start to think that they should act on it or maybe they should start something with this person because he or she could be “the one,” when in fact it is only intense attraction for that person that is making you think that way.

4. Romance makes people feel good, and that is why they pursue it. They want that high of being with someone who makes them feel special, and they get it, albeit temporarily.

Letting romance fuel your actions and decision-making is never a good idea because unless you look into yourself and see what it is that you really need, you will find satisfaction in your partner, your relationship and your life.

Posted in Emotional Infidelity, Infidelity Pain, Infidelity Reasons, Relationship Communication, Relationships: Marriage, Relationships: Sex and Intimacy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Emotional Affairs: The Worst Kind of Heartbreak

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Jan Stevens

Sexual affairs or emotional affairs? What would you rather have to deal with?

When you find out that your partner has been having an extramarital affair, the first thing you want to know, especially if you are a woman, is whether or not he or she is in love with the other person.

Emotional affairs, or sexless affairs, are usually considered to be a more forgivable type of affair, but would you really rather hear that your husband or wife has feelings for this other person rather than just a physical or sexual relationship?

Emotional affairs are usually pushed aside like they were insignificant since nothing physical ever happened, but in reality, this is how extramarital affairs usually start. Your partner may not even realize what is going on or that it is happening. He or she may not even be looking for an affair or may not even want one in the first place, but having someone to talk to, sharing thoughts and feelings with, goals and problems and secrets – all these things creates intimacy which can lead to developing feelings, falling in love and eventually, physical intimacy.

Most clients say that having to get over an emotional betrayal by their partner is way harder to heal from than a physical one. Knowing that their partners fell in love with someone else creates all kinds of doubts in themselves — are they not good enough, do they not show their love enough, do they not communicate enough. They start to think, “What makes this other person better than me in any way?”

These kinds of questions do not usually come up when one is dealing with a purely sexual affair because they deal mainly with questions on physical inadequacies. Emotional affairs make the victims of infidelity feel like they are not enough as a person.

This only proves how emotional affairs are not harmless at all — most of the time, it’s the worst kind of heartbreak.

Click the banner below for more information on emotional affairs, and what you can do to break free from the affair facing you:

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Helping a Friend in an Infidelity Crisis: What to Do

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Jan Stevens

What can you do to help a friend who is the middle of an infidelity crisis?

Here are a few things that have come up over the past years:

They want someone to listen to them speak out what they feel about their infidelity crisis. They want to be able to have a no-holds-barred talk where they don’t have to censor what they have to say about their situation. And they want to know that despite what’s going on in their life, that you will still accept them. Nodding while they talk about their pain about the betrayal can go a long way.

They want to be reassured that their feelings of pain and suffering and guilt will not always be present. They want to know that this infidelity crisis will not last forever, and they will find strength and courage and hope again eventually.

Despite the constant demand for space to think and be alone to solve their problems, they actually want and need help from others. They want to be told their options, what they can do to get away from the pain of the infidelity crisis so that they can move on. They want to hear whatever advice you can give them because all they really want is to get rid of the pain any way that they can.

The most important thing they need is to be understood. They want people around them to be comfortable with the fact that their life is a complete mess and that they aren’t always going to be the most rational of beings. They want to know that they have a support system during this infidelity crisis that will be there to rely on, to talk to and to listen.

These are just some of the things you can do to help someone close to you during this difficult time, but knowing that you are there for them during their infidelity crisis is actually more than enough.

Posted in Infidelity Pain, Relationship Communication, Relationships: Marriage, Relationships: Sex and Intimacy, Surviving Infidelity, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sexual Addiction in Extramarital Affairs: What are the Facts? Part 2

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Jan Stevens

In the first part of this series about sexual addiction and infidelity, we discussed briefly how they affect each other and listed down three of the most common facts revolved around them.

On this second part, we will point out three more need-to-know facts and talk about what it could be like for someone who has sexual addiction to live a life without the constant need to fulfill sexual gratification and what initial steps he or she can take to achieve that.

Here are those three:

1. Although a person with sexual addiction believes that he or she needs to have sex and fulfill his or her sexual needs constantly, this person still lives in fear. He or she is afraid of being found out, especially by his or her significant other, and does not want to be discovered. He or she does not want to be seen as a liar or a cheat because he or she does not want to lose the respect that people have for him or her. And most of all, this person does not want to lose his or her relationship with others – his family, his friends and even his colleagues.

2. This person, because of his or her fear, will be in a constant cycle of creating promises and failing to keep them, especially when it comes to sexual activities. Whether it is made to his or her significant partner or only to himself, he or she promises to stop engaging in his or her sexual addiction, especially outside of the relationship whenever this guilt or fear strikes him or her. But it usually ends as soon as the need for sexual gratification emerges once more.

3. And finally, to avoid being caught in engaging in infidelity and other sexual activities, he or she will have a strong tendency to lie and hide behind his or her addiction. Rationalizing and making excuses for his or her actions and behaviors becomes very common, and most of the time, he or she actually believes that there is nothing wrong.

People with sexual addiction don’t know any different, and it is your job to convince them that there is a better way of handling relationships. If you know someone who fits the description of a sexually addicted person, be someone that he or she can lean on. Encourage him or her to get some help by maybe joining a support group or talking to a therapist who can get to the bottom of his or her sexual addiction.

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Sexual Addiction in Extramarital Affairs: What are the Facts?

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Jan Stevens

What do you need to know about sexual addiction and how it relates to extramarital affairs? Here are the facts.

One of the seven different types of affairs – I can’t say no – is very closely associated with sexual addiction. In this type of affair, the partner who is engaging in the extramarital affair does not find it easy to say no to, especially when it comes to sex, and feels, instead, a duty to say yes even when he or she doesn’t want to.

Extramarital affairs that are caused by sexual addiction are different from the other types because those who are sexually addicted sometimes feel like they don’t have a choice but to act on their impulses, which is what makes this type that much more complicated.

The following are some important facts regarding sexual addiction and extramarital affairs:

1. Someone who has sexual addiction, in a lot of cases, has had a sexual encounter as a child that left him or her traumatized in some way. Most of the time it is sexual abuse like rape, but there are other types of sexual abuse as well that come in other forms. These could affect someone just as badly as rape, especially when the victim has not developed a stable or reliable coping mechanism. These persons usually have not been able to deal with this trauma from childhood and they bring it with them into adulthood in the form of sexual addiction.

2. For sexually addicted persons, those who they have sexual encounters with are just objects for personal gratification. After the encounter, they do not further develop the relationship anymore because they have already gotten what they wanted. No real intimacy is established and there is no other connection other than sex.

3. Sex for someone who has sexual addiction has a very high value, and it becomes a priority. Sexual impulses are always acted upon, sexual encounters are frequent and sex is always on the forefront of his or her consciousness. Other activities such as porn and strip clubs are also common.

Tune in for the next part of this article for more information about sexual addiction and infidelity, and how you can stop it from consuming your marriage.

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Spying on a Cheating Spouse: An Invasion of Privacy?

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Jan Stevens

When you find out about your partner’s extramarital affair through spying on him or her, it usually ends up in an ugly confrontation between the two of you where your partner will likely accuse you of doing a terrible offense.

The whole issue of your spying becomes the center of attention, and your partner’s affair is just pushed aside like it was insignificant compared to what you did. This also gives your partner something to accuse you of – which is not trusting him or her – for why he or she was pushed into doing the affair in the first place. Your partner will hold on to this accusation even if he or she knows that that line of reasoning makes no sense at all, because it’s the only thing that you can be blamed for.

So when the accusations start coming – and they will – to make you out to be the bad guy, do not back down. Remember that it was not you who broke the trust in your marriage, that it was broken even before you started spying on your partner. And the only reason why you started spying on him or her in the first place was because you felt that something was not right, and you wanted to know what was going on or what he or she was up to. Problems with trust in your relationship were already present, hence the spying.

Your marriage was not destroyed because of your spying. It was destroyed because your partner cheated.

In cases like this, spying is done as a way to confirm the suspicions you are having about your partner. It isn’t done because you don’t trust your partner, which is what you are being accused of. You were spying because you wanted to know the truth and for no other reason.

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