Sink Or Swim? - 5 Ways to Stay Afloat in Your Marriage After an Affair

When you first learn about an affair, you'll feel a little like you're drowning. That's because you are. You're drowning in a sea of sorrow, anger, hurt, disillusionment and distrust. Hold on. You can soon find your footing.
It won't be easy. It won't be pleasant. But if you're both willing to work at it, you can learn to swim, stay afloat, survive and even thrive in your marriage after an affair.
Let's look at some marriage lifejacket tips you can use as you struggle to keep from drowning after you've learned of the affair.
Marriage Lifejacket Tip #1: Ask only relevant questions
You may think that you want to hear every sordid detail, but in actuality, unless you want to put additional emotional weights to drag you down further, keep your questions to only the important things you need to know.
o Who was the affair with?
o Is the affair truly over?
o Was this person also married?
o Did you have unprotected sex?
o How long did it go on?
o Was it just physical or did you have a strong emotional connection as well?
o When did it start?
o Was this the only indiscretion or were there other affairs?
o Did you seek out this person or did they seduce you?
o Why did the affair start?
o Who else knows about the affair?
The answers you get will be very telling as to what part you may have inadvertently played in the affair, why didn't you recognize the signs of the infidelity sooner, the need to get checked out for sexually transmitted diseases and so forth.
Marriage Lifejacket Tip #2: Don't act irrationally or impulsively
If you want your marriage to survive after an affair, it's important that you try to keep a clear head and not act irrationally or impulsively. If you immediately throw your spouse out of the house, your not only widening the chasm between the two of you, you're now going to make it more difficult to work together to rebuild your relationship. Plus now you will have to involve your children. Yes, they may notice the tension between the two of you as your work through your problems but they will be able to deal with that better than a separation.
It's also probably tempting to be openly hostile to your spouse in front of everyone, especially if you "publicly" announce the indiscretion. This will cause your spouse to be embarrassed further than they already are and will cause even greater friction between the two of you. It also will diminish your chances of surviving the storm.
Yes, you may want to seek counsel from a family member or friend or they may become aware of the affair, but if you want your marriage to survive after the affair, you need to make it clear that while you may be going through rough seas, you hope to find calmer waters soon and that you're working toward that.