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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Can You Save A Marriage After An Emotional Affair?

By Areelitaha Joahlanski


Emotional affairs can be more damaging to a relationship then an affair that involved pure sexual lust or a one night stand. The fact that the heart and deep emotions were involved often strikes the person who has been cheated on much harder than knowing the spouse just fell in bed beside someone once or a couple times. So, is it possible to actually save a marriage after an emotional affair has taken place?

It is the emotional aspect that makes this situation so unbearable. Couples move past physical affairs and one night stands rather quickly, but the knowledge that one spouse had a serious intimate connection to someone else is much harder to brush aside or talk away.

There are a couple scenarios in which a marriage cannot move forward after this happens. The first scenario involves the person who was involved in the affair. That person has to first honestly assess whether they are over the emotional connection they had with this other person, or whether their heart is still in the affair. A marriage simply will not work if one person has more emotional investment with 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.

The spouse that was actually cheated on is fully entitled to feeling their own set of emotions, but in order to save the marriage they must also open their heart and their mind to the rekindling of romance with their spouse. Both people have to want the marriage to survive or it simply will not do so.

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.

In order to save a marriage after an emotional affair open-hearted communication will be essential. Bitter arguments or throwing dishes is not helpful, but really talking so that everyone feels heard and validated will lead to action that can genuinely heal both people in time.




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