Gracie1960's List: Affair

• Once it's out in the open, do not defend yourself. Take full responsibility and don't try to deflect any of this back onto your spouse. Saying things like, "If you had just tried harder to understand me," or other stuff like that will not help you now. The time to examine the roots of your infidelity and explore it with your spouse is later. But in the first moments of discovery, the best thing for you to do if you truly want your marriage to survive is simply accept all blame.
• Instead of making a big deal of having constant "sensitive chats," just reaching over at the breakfast table, putting your hand over his or hers and saying, "How are we doing?" and motioning at both of you can let your spouse know that you are interested and concerned with whatever feelings are being processed today. If the response is, "Not that good today," just pat the hand or try to put a little kiss on the cheek with an understanding nod and say, "Okay. Let me know what you need and I'll do my best." If the response is, "Good today," then smile broadly and give your spouse a little kiss on the lips. Say, "Yay!" and suggest a date, like a walk, a trip to the beach, a picnic. You know - romantic stuff that you used to do when you were first courting. That's what you need to do again, because just as you did in the beginning, you need to win the object of your love again.
• Giving him or her a lot of leeway is important right now. Don't press for sex. Don't insist on a football party for Super Bowl Sunday. Don't bug him or her if s/he just wants to sit in the yard and meditate, even if you're bored to death. Go with the flow for the immediate future.
• Once you know you've been cheated on, you want to flee. If your spouse is truly sorry, and if you want, in any way, to repair the relationship, you need to try to work it through together.
• It won't be useful to simply blame your spouse and hate the person s/he cheated with. If there were problems or signals before the infidelity, they will probably come sharply into focus now. If your marriage is to truly mend, you will need to examine whether or not your behaviors contributed to a situation where your spouse was searching for something s/he needed outside of your marriage. This is not to say that you are responsible for the decision to cheat
• You wonder if your whole relationship has been a lie. The good news is, it probably hasn't been.
• Let it go. The injured party will want to hang onto this longer than the one who cheated. The anger and the reactions that ensue are understandable, but verbal abuse is still unacceptable, and will do nothing to heal the marriage. After a certain amount of time, you must let it go, or else the person who cheated will simply resent it and become sullen and hardened to this form of punishment.
• Don't allow yourself to dwell on mental images of the two of them together.
• If you are religious, pray about it. Take refuge in your faith. Consult clergy. Pray together.

7 more annotations...

• Understand that the period of waiting is likely to be punctuated by long questioning sessions which delve for sexual details. It is likely that the victim of infidelity will be consumed by a need to know incidents and details of time and place. Curiosity may also be extended to the nature of sex acts participated in. This time can be made easier by not erecting further barriers but by answering questions as honestly as possible.

• The discovery of infidelity - ranging from secret text messages, phone conversations, or Internet exchanges to long-term extra-marital relationships - can be an "extremely devastating experience". Cheating on a partner and lying to cover it up naturally lead to distrust and suspicion in the betrayed partner