Is Your Husband Lying to You After His Affair?

If you’re struggling with the issue of honesty in your marriage after your husband had an affair, it is only natural. After all, you trusted him all those times he told you he was working late at the office or going out for a drink with the guys. Who knows what else he could be lying about? And has he really changed his ways or is he just saying that to appease you and smooth things over? It is perfectly normal to be suspicious of him and what he tells you, and maybe that is causing some tension in your relationship. Maybe he just wants you to accept that he’s going to be honest from here on out and leave it at that. Maybe all your questions and prying is getting under his skin. Transparency Is the Answer The first thing you need to do is establish a code of transparency between the two of you. Both of you must agree to be completely honest and forthright with everything you do. If there was an affair in your relationship, then there was probably not much transparency in your relationship, you can definitely benefit from this. By practicing transparency, the two of you will essentially be becoming the kind of people that deserve and earn the trust of others (but most importantly, your spouse). Now, both of you need to commit to doing this. This isn’t just something that your husband needs to do to “prove” himself to you. You both need to do this or else it will come off as some kind of punishment or humiliation for what he did. Even if you are extremely angry at him and you want to punish or humiliate him, you have to understand that that kind of behavior isn’t going to help make your relationship better in the long run. Define the Emotional Triggers of Deception We each have our own unique things that may cause us to feel as is we are being lied to. Maybe for you it is when your husband suddenly closes a window on the computer when you walk in the room, or when he is late coming home from work and doesn’t tell you ahead of time. What you need to do is talk with him and make sure he understands the specific things that make you feel like he’s hiding something and not being completely transparent with you. He, on the other hand, needs to come out and tell you the places where he felt the need to be secretive about things in your marriage. Then the two of you need to switch roles. Even if you didn’t commit any sort of adultery, have you been being secretive in any way toward your husband? Even if it is withholding emotions or thoughts. Remember that transparency needs to be a two-way street if this is going to work. I know that trust is a big issue after an affair, but with a clear-cut agreement between you and your spouse to heal the affair by adopting a code of transparency and being wary of your spouse’s triggers that make them question your actions, you can start to rebuild the trust and save your marriage.