Who Can Help You Get Over Your Husband's Cheating?
Discovering evidence of your husband cheating on you is one of the most hurtful things that can happen to any woman. You might have been suspicious for a while, or the discovery might have come like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. It makes no difference. Knowing your husband cheated is different from suspecting he is having an affair. You don't know if your relationship can survive.
Infidelity strikes a blow to the heart of any relationship. The victim of the cheating spouse will be flung into emotional turmoil. When you know for sure about your husband cheating, it is like being on a crazy carnival ride. You whirl through different emotional states and it is scary because you have no control over your feelings.
The first thing to strike you is the pain of betrayal. Other emotions such as jealousy, fear of the future, self-disgust, and anger soon make themselves known. The mad carnival ride seems to be decorated with images of the affair. Your mind is full of pictures of your husband with his paramour. You see them holding hands, laughing together, kissing, and it gets worse. It get so bad you feel like screaming for someone to take the pictures away.
All these feelings are perfectly natural. Your marriage is in crisis. Your whole life has been rocked. You need help. You need someone to talk to. Who can you turn to?
In the early days after discovering your husband's infidelity, you need help. You need to find someone to help you to get rid of your pain, get your emotions under control and decide how you can rebuild your broken marriage.
You will be tempted to turn to your friends and family for support. They will listen to you as you pour out the whole miserable story. They will be compassionate. They will take your side 100%.
But is this the kind of support that you need? Is this the kind of support that will help you in making rational decisions about how to cope with your husband cheating? The answer to this is no. There are three big problems with using close friends and relatives as a support group in this situation.
1. What happens in a marriage should stay as a private matter between husband and wife. Your husband has broken his marriage vows, but that does not make it right for you to share intimate secrets with anyone outside the marriage. He has transgressed, but the old saying "two wrongs don't make a right" applies here. A sacred bond is not something to be treated lightly. Your cheating spouse might never find out that you have broadcast things that should have remained secret. But you will have to carry the guilty knowledge. A guilty secret is not a firm foundation for rebuilding a marriage.
2. Telling all to your friends and family might ensure that they close ranks against your cheating husband. Having people unconditionally on your side can be a comfort. But, if you and your husband reconcile, it will be a different matter. It will be very uncomfortable if your family and friends can't forgive and forget. Even if they aren't openly antagonistic, there is bound to be an atmosphere of coolness. During the rebuilding phase, you will need the ongoing support of family and friends. You will need this as a couple. It won't work if one half of the couple is excluded from the warmth of the family circle.
3. Talking to family and friends will give you the chance to pour your heart out without any restraint or embarrassment. This is comforting for you. But family and friends, no matter how close, are not the best people to give you advice. Their advice will be colored by their personal opinions and experiences. This is natural and unavoidable. They might also hold back on certain things if they think the advice might upset you. Your family circle will be doing the best they can for you. But what you need is something they can't provide. You need impartial advice.
The third reason is the most compelling. You need help from a trained marriage counselor. This is the way to get the unbiased advice you need. And the sooner after discovery of the affair, the better the counseling will work for you.
About the Author
You can find help and unbiased advice on dealing with your husband cheating easily online. A doctor with over 35 years of experience working with couples in crisis has developed a program to help couples survive an affair. His free course can be obtained at http://survive-affair.com where you can also pick up a free guide to healing after an affair.
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