Infidelity Annihilates Trust

One of the cruellest blows in any marriage is having your life torn apart by infidelity. Infidelity can leave the cheated spouse at the very depth of despair with life as they know it completely at an end.

The shear feeling of betrayal when a spouse finds out about infidelity is so immense that it makes it really hard to look beyond the present moment and rationally consider what steps need to be taken to move on.

One of the main problems with infidelity is that it annihilates trust so even when the cheating spouse comes crawling back promising that it will never happen again, how can you believe them?

Trust is the very backbone of a marriage and what many cheating spouses fail to understand is that infidelity completely breaks the trust and the marriage as they know it. Life after infidelity can never be the same again.

If you want to survive infidelity you need to go through the long and painful process of rebuilding the trust with the onus being firmly placed on the cheater.

The first step to rebuilding the trust following infidelity is end the affair. End the affair immediately and do not have contact with the ‘other’ person again.

From that moment forward the cheater has to be completely open and honest if the marriage is to survive the infidelity:
No more lies, no more secrets
No surprises (during the infidelity recovery time at least)
Prove the affair is over:
Do not leave the room to take phone calls.
Do not erase cell phone or computer history.
Make sure the caller ID is always displayed. Avoid using caller ‘nicknames’.
Do not hide cell phone or credit card bills.
Do not hide bank statements.
Try not to be late home and if you are call to let your spouse know where you are and why you are late.
Always answer the phone when your spouse calls.
Always let your spouse know what you are doing.
Talk about your day.
Try and spend much of your leisure time with your spouse. If you don’t have any common interests, develop them.

Above all, give it time. Marriages do not recover from infidelity over night and trust takes a long time to rebuild. Be committed, be prepared to work hard to save the marriage and be realistic about the infidelity recovery time.