How to Rekindle Feelings of Affection After an Affair

If you’ve recently discovered that your husband had an affair, I first want you to know that I feel your pain. I know exactly what you’re going through: those agonizing days at work where you struggle just to keep yourself together, those awkward moments with your husband when you just don’t know what to say, and those feelings like it’s all just a horrible dream that you wish you could wake up from. But how do you go from that point to even beginning to heal the wounds of the affair and start to rebuild your marriage? I’d like to share with you a simple little technique you can do to help spark that level of caring and love between you two again. I call this the Relationship Reset technique. Try to do this for at least one whole day with your spouse. For most people, the weekend works the best since they don’t have to deal with other things like work. Have you ever not really wanted to do something, like say going to a party for example, but you decided to go anyway for one reason or another. At first you really feel lousy or bored, but then after a while, maybe you just decided to pretend as though you were having fun. What happened? If you’re like a lot of people, you probably actually did to start enjoying yourself after a while. This is what you and your husband will be doing for the entire day. You will “fake it till you make it” so to speak. You will be doing things for each other, and acting as if the two of you are madly in love again. Sit down with your spouse and each one of you should write down a list of specific and positive things that you could do for each other. For example, you might write down something like “I would appreciate it if you would cook my favorite dinner for me tonight.” This is specific and written in the positive. A poor example of something to request would be “I don’t want you to ever act angry toward me again.” Not only is this written in a negative way, but it is also incredibly vague (how can he know when his actions will be interpreted as “angry” by you?). Make a list of about three different things that your partner can do for you and have him make a list of three things you can do for him. Then exchange lists and do the items on the list as if the two of you were madly in love again. There may be some resistance or it may feel awkward at first, and that is normal. But after a while, you may notice that things take a new direction and the two of you actually start to enjoy doing things for each other again. Maybe you’ll even improvise and come up with some special things to surprise each other with that you know your partner likes. This is just a small and simple thing you can do to start rebuilding the love in your marriage after an affair. Although, you may only try this for one day, don’t feel that you are limited to do this only once. After all, if you really do start to feel a genuine sense of love for your spouse again, you may decide to just keep doing this every day and continue to cultivate that sense of love and affection.