Surviving an Affair - The Do's and Don'ts For Making it Work

Surviving an affair is a little like recovering from a serious accident. You're deeply hurt and suffering and it wasn't necessarily your fault. But just as you need time to heal from an accident and go through rehabilitation, it will be the same thing when you're trying to survive an affair.
Here are the do's and don'ts if you want to go about surviving an affair and making your marriage whole again.
DO:
o Insist that the affair ends immediately and completely.
o Ask for only the most important information you need to need to know if you're going to go about surviving the affair such who, what, when, where, why, was this the first time, were their other indiscretions, who else knew, how long did it go on and so forth.
o Allow yourself time to grieve. You have suffered a shocking blow and the image you had of your marriage will be horribly disfigured. You should grieve over the wounds you may see etched on your face and on the picture you had of your marriage. But like all wounds, this too will heal in time. And with any wound, there will be scars but eventually they will fade and you won't notice them as much.
o Find a positive way to express your emotions. You can join a support group where you can talk about your feelings or seek counseling from a friend, family member, clergy member, or marriage professional.
o Take up a sport, if necessary, to release your emotions. Keep a journal. Start a blog. Just find a way to let out your emotions that doesn't involve constantly haranguing your spouse.
o Expect a total and sincerely apology, confirmation that the affair is over and your spouse's assurance that they will never put you through this again.
o Work toward forgiving your spouse. You won't ever forget the affair but if you can't forgive the indiscretion, you cannot heal. But do this only when you're emotionally ready.
o Insist on getting all of your spouse's screen names and passwords to the computer, social networking sites, cell phones and any other forms of communication devices your spouse may have so in the future you can keep tabs when you think it's necessary.
o Try to find happier ways to reconnect with your spouse.
o Keep the lines of communication open.
o Work toward rebuilding trust and respect.
Now that you know what you should do, here is what you shouldn't do when you are trying to survive the affair.
DON'T:
o Act irrationally and throw your spouse out of the house. That will only make it more difficult to come back together rno Expect that everything is going to get better overnight.
o Think that your spouse isn't going to go through a mourning period as well. They went through a breakup and even though they want to be back with you, they are likely going to feel an emotional toll for the loss of their lover.
o Constantly bring up the affair. If you are going to go about surviving the affair, you need to get past it once you have had all of your questions answered fully and to your satisfaction.
o Think that there won't be rough patches and, in a sense, emotional "flashbacks" from time to time.
o Let the affair creep into every other aspect of your life and your relationship or you won't be able to heal.
o Accept all of the blame or dump all the blame on your spouse. It's very unlikely that someone would want to start affair when things are going well in their marriage. You both played a role in putting your marriage in a place where the affair was possible or even inevitable.
With more than fifty percent of marriages ending in divorce and out of those more than eighty percent involving a third party, you may think that the odds of surviving an affair would be impossible. But with the tips you just learned, you eventually will heal from the wounds you suffered and you'll see a happier and more realistic picture of your marriage in the future, scars and all.