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Can You Have A Healthy Relationship After An Affair?

good relationship after cheatingFixing the relationship after cheating

It might seem unfathomable when you first find out about your partner cheating on you, but it is possible to repair your relationship and emerge as an even stronger and happier couple. The success of your relationship after an affair hinges on both partners wanting things to change, and on knowing the right areas to focus your efforts on. Follow these top tips on how to have a happy and healthy relationship after an affair:

Have realistic expectations.

No relationship will magically be healed over night. Overcoming an affair takes hard work, commitment, and lots of time, but you can have a good relationship after cheating. Keep your expectations reasonable and don’t expect things to improve right away. There’s a long road ahead when it comes to mending a relationship after it’s been rocked by a cheating scandal so be patient and prepare yourself for the work to come. There will be times where you feel your progress is moving backwards, times where you’re frustrated with each other, and times where you feel like giving up. Stick with it and make the promise to each other that you’re going to put your relationship first, no matter what. Creating a happy relationship after an affair is a journey that you’ll both need to take, and the end result is worth it if you can put the time and effort in together.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

The importance of communication cannot be stressed enough. It’s a critical for any couple, especially when you’re working on fixing your relationship after cheating. Both people need to learn to express their emotions and not keep them silent or letting them build up inside. Your partner will never know how you feel unless you tell them, and they can’t do anything to change the way you feel if you stay quiet. Communication is easy once you get into the habit of saying what’s on your mind and letting your partner know how you’re feeling. Work through the complicated feelings during the aftermath of an affair by talking it out and keeping things in the open.

Have separate interests.

It may seem counterintuitive but doing things apart can actually help a couple be closer together. Life can get dull when if you do everything together. Keep things interesting and fresh in your relationship by ensuring that you both have your own lives as individuals. When you do spend time together you’ll have more to talk about, find each other more interesting, and have more respect for one another. It’s more exciting to spend time with your partner when you have new things to tell them or they can teach you something new that they’ve learned on their own.

Make sex a priority.

While it might be hard to be intimate right away after your partner cheats, there will come a time when you’re ready for sex again. If you want to create a happy relationship after an affair you’ll need to make sex and intimacy one of your top priorities. This means carving out time to make it happen, making sure you both initiate it, and putting extra effort into attracting and enticing your partner. Remember how the sex was when you first started dating and try to keep that spirit alive as you work towards repairing your relationship. New couples have sex often and have fun doing it while people in long-term relationships tend to be more complacent and sex becomes monotonous. Act like newlyweds and put sex at the top of your to-do list. A healthy sex life is a major indicator of a happy and successful relationship, and any couple can achieve this, even after an affair. It’s simply a key component to fixing a relationship after cheating.

How To Save Your Relationship After An Affair

save your relationship movingSaving your relationship after an affair

An affair is enough to rock even the most solid relationship to its core. The after-effects of cheating can be felt for years, and it can even be enough to damage a relationship beyond repair. If you aren’t ready to kick your partner to the curb you’ll need a game plan for how to save your relationship after an affair. These steps are critical for any couple to take if they’re focused on moving on after an affair:

Communicate your feelings.

Healthy relationships are based on openness and honesty, and communication is critical to the success of any relationship, especially when you’re trying to save yours after an affair. Make a promise that you’ll both come clean about your feelings, as they happen instead of silently stewing over problems that you might face. No matter if you’re feeling hurt, angry, rejected, anxious, or hopeful, voice your feelings to your partner and let them in on how you’re processing the affair. If you can both communicate your emotions and keep things out in the open you’re more likely to succeed in saving your relationship.

Give it time.

You can’t expect that your relationship will bounce back right after your partner cheats on you. It takes time to recover after an affair, and it won’t happen overnight. Allow yourself the space to go through the full range of emotions that you’ll feel after you discover an affair and let the trust build back up between you and your partner. Tips like these will help you understand how long it takes to recover after an affair. Be realistic and give your relationship plenty of time to heal and it can become stronger than ever.

Make an effort.

Your cheating partner is in the doghouse, big time, after an affair, but they aren’t the only ones who need to work on saving the relationship. Both people in a couple are responsible for the success of a relationship and you’ll need to put in your own time and effort to make it work. Think back to when you were dating and some of the little things that you did to make your partner feel special. Compliment them, put extra effort into your appearance, plan unique dates instead of just watching tv, and carve out time to spend together. When your partner sees how hard you’re working towards saving your relationship after an affair it will motivate them to do the same and will show them how much you care about being together.

Seek professional help.

As tempting as it might be to try to fix your relationship on your own, sometimes it takes a professional to help you and your partner recover, especially in the early stages when it might seem impossible to get over it. Couples counselling can help create a neutral space where you can both speak freely with professional guidance to help. A counsellor will be able to give you and your partner practical advice and actions to take to work towards moving on from an affair.

Make sure you both want it.

No relationship can be saved after a cheating scandal if both parties don’t want it. If your partner cheated because they’re no longer interested in the relationship then your efforts in repairing things will be wasted. Part of your communication with each other will need to cover whether or not you both want to put the time and effort into finding happiness after an affair and moving forward with your relationship. If you’re not both invested in fixing your relationship then you’ll never be able to save it, no matter how hard you try.