Surviving Cheating

My wife and I were loading some stuff into the Jeep yesterday when our friend pulled up in his car. He dragged himself out and didn't greet me with his normal, boisterous, sometimes-obnoxious but always-pleasant salutation. I had to ask what was wrong.

Trouble on the home front, he explained, and I was guessing his everlasting financial problems were beating on him. But I was wrong.

He admitted to me without hesitation that he had, to use his phraseology, screwed around on his wife. My other half and I were taken aback; you think you know people, she later said when we were alone.

But we assured our friend that all was not lost. According to him, his wife wasn't about to let this be the end to their relationship. We told him that's a good sign. Because you see, my own wife and I know first-hand that there is life after transgression. Which is why the man confided in us in the first place, I assume: he knew we had been through it.

There is life after a single transgression, to be true. Granted, this is assuming you both (and most especially, your spouse) want there to be a life after (and it's also assuming the one who was unfaithful is not a career cheater). For it to be successful, there are some hard --- yet unequivocal --- rules you need to follow in order to get to that point. Though there's no guarantee they will save your marriage, these steps worked for us. Here are what we shard with our friend, and then some:

Admit it to yourself

As the Transgressor, you have to be ready to admit to yourself, above even your spouse that you did what it was you did. It sounds simplistic but it can be the hardest part. Trying to gloss over any aspect of the forbidden fruit is lying to yourself, and if you're lying to that person, you can not be truthful with your loved one.

Whether it's the amount of time you were in the other relationship or the dirty deeds you did, the first thing you must do is be prepared to admit to, then share the information wholly. You may not have to, but you must be prepared to. Your spouse may ask, and the best answer to give is to give the right one.

Sounds hypocritical but, be honest

Yeah, yeah; you really screwed up. And you lied about it for a long time. So it certainly will sound insincere coming out of your mouth that you want to come clean. Do it anyhow. The only way to start rebuilding what you tore down in the first place is one brick at a time. And right now (with everything you did, oh Unfaithful One), you aren't going to be allowed to use the car to go get new bricks, anyhow. So you'll have to begin by using those old, cracked ones. But if you cement them in right, you'll have more to build on later.

Let your spouse cry (and yell, and swear and whatever else)

Sure, another obvious point. But you have to be ready for it and allow it without question. Will it last for hours? Pretty damn likely. Will it last for days? It'll be more like months. So what? Do you want this thing to work out? Then let the tears flow and the fur fly. And you know what else? Don't interrupt it. Don't let it get physical, but don't butt in.

And continue to answer the questions without hesitation or padding.

Let your spouse make the next decision

The knee-jerk reaction would be that, after you tell your spouse everything (and I do mean everything, if you know what's good for you), you should grab the door handle, slip through and don't stop 'til you run out of road. Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

But you know what? I had already made some life-changing decisions without her. So when she told me to let go of the door handle and come back in the house, I did. Because the decision wasn't mine to make; she had invested all that time into making our house a home, I wasn't allowed to break that apart. Besides, I was overwhelmed that she'd want me back in the first place.

Not that every spouse will take back a cheater, forgive in time or start rebuilding their trust in you. And if they don't, then so be it. You seem to have wanted out anyhow, so now's your chance.

The point is: it's not your choice to make. In time, you'll both get to choose where you want the relationship to travel. In the meantime, you honestly have to let the chips fall where they may, if even for just a little while.

The texts stop here

Okay, so now that you've born your soul to the one you married, it's time to come clean with your affair, too. It's time to send a few texts to say good bye, we'll stay in touch and we can still be friends. Oh no, wait. No its not. It's time to realize that person's not the one to which you owe a damn thing. Nothing. At all.

On the contrary; in order to start this thing fresh, you need to sever all ties immediately and permanently. That's right: nada. No calls. No emails. No texts. No notes under the windshield wiper saying "I'm so sorry I hurt you" and "I didn't mean for it to end like this." You need to place an order calling an instantaneous halt to all contact. Period.

If you see each other on the street, make a wide berth, use a crosswalk, look up at the buildings or go temporarily blind. Your relationship with this person was severed the minute you decided it has to work with your spouse. Granted, it should have been over long before that, but that would defeat the point of this article.

Give it all up...

...privacy, that is. Keep your cell phone on the table and give your spouse access to your emails. Wait, what? Yes, I mean unfettered access to everything that was and is your life. You can't have hidden email addresses or passwords locked in a desk drawer. Unless you're keeping Above Top Secret military intelligence, or are hiding something juicy about me, your spouse should be able to access it as easily as you. It's the biggest step on the Road to Regaining Trust. And it is quite possibly the most important, because even hiding the password to an email address related to nothing more than your Fantasy Football League can keep the trust from ever redeveloping.

And you can't decide anywhere on this road that your spouse will have to "just trust you on this one". Where you're going, where you've been; you'll likely need to prove it all. Your other half may get crazy and ask to see the store receipt, just to note the time (or to simply prove there is a receipt). Know what? Hand it over. It's the least you can do.

Keep it to yourselves

This is not a bad idea for both of you. Your first reaction is to run out and share this with your best friends, your brother and your mom. But that may not be the best idea, at least not at first.

The sting is still fresh and emotions are at their highest. There's a lethal potential for the supportive party to be protective in a way that can be detrimental to your decision-making process. Until you and your spouse work through the initial hurt, it might be best to keep things to yourselves.

Maybe you or your spouse has never kept anything from Dad because he can see right through you anyhow. Well, that was for the broken basement window or the party where you said there'd be "no drinking". This however, is the relationship that at one point you intended to last a lifetime. The stakes are a little higher than two weeks in your room with no TV.

Work it out together

If you two have agreed that you want it to work out, you have to do anything and everything you can to follow through. Whether that's talking about how you got to this point, seeking counseling or any other partner-related idea. Either one of you slipping back to where you were when this all started or shrugging off a suggestion your partner makes will be the death of the relationship. Consider anything your spouse asks to discuss.

Speaking of counseling

Yeah, maybe you should have thought of this before the indiscretion. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. The point is, now you have no excuse not, yet every reason, to have someone help you through this. No matter your opinion of "shrinks" either; even if you just use the counselor as a sounding board, it gives you a confidential place to air your laundry while getting the opinion (as relevant or off base as it might be) of a complete outsider.

And who knows? This person could end up pointing the finger at you so much, that your spouse jumps in to defend you. If the love is truly unconditional, then there's no telling what will happen.

It's going to get harder

This whole fixing-the-relationship thing will be harder than you could even imagine. Your temptation may creep back in, and you might have to fight it off with a whip and chair. Your loved one's accusations and snide comments will pour out like hot water from a broken pipe. You'll both make each other feel uncomfortable from time to time and might even wonder why you chose to work it out.

You have to believe that, if you still want this (and if your spouse is strong enough and loving enough to take you back in the first place), the pain will be temporary. Keep in mind too, that any pain that you go through in order to save the marriage is an immeasurable portion of the pain you caused in the first place. I'm just saying.

It's going to get better

You can get through this; we did and we are better today than we were even before the affair. In some ways we both have seen places where the affair is what made things better. Not that I suggest any readers who haven't cheated, do so. We were able to look more deeply into ourselves, find the causes, and realize we both brought it on to some extent, and then made changes to assure it never happened again.

So is an affair survivable? For us it was, and I have to believe it can be for you as well. But you both have to decide that it's what you want, and you'll need to work together like you never have before.