How Can I Show My Wife I Love Her After Having An Affair?

how can i show my wife that i love her after having an affair in this video we're going to talk a little bit about four key elements that you can do if you've had an affair on your wife and you're trying to rebuild trust to help begin the healing process hey guys i'm glad that you're here with me i'm tell your wandering therapist this question today comes frequently through my practice as a marriage and family therapist and i wanted to share with you a few key elements of how to help rebuild trust with your wife after an affair to help try to support her to help her overcome the pain that she feels and to help to try to salvage the relationship if that's what you're trying to do so there's four key elements that we're going to talk about today but before we get into those key elements i want to talk a little bit with you about what it's likely that your wife is experiencing if you've gone out and you've been in a relationship with somebody outside of your marriage and now it's finally come to a head and your wife has has either found out or you've gone to her and disclosed because you finally feel like you can't carry the secrets anymore number one good on you either way you now have a chance to move forward you now have a chance to try to look at yourself in the mirror and make some choices about who you want to be regardless of what happens in your relationship and regardless of how it came out about your affair it's a good thing that you're here because this will allow you to start taking some steps forward in your own life i get this question a lot because a lot of times you're dealing with trauma your wife has experienced some severe trauma by the nature of the secrecy that's gone on and by the feeling of betrayal that happens when we step outside of our marital covenants we betray trust and we betray our ability to stay connected and attached with each other and so it becomes a very scary thing for your wife so a lot of times your wife is going to give you a lot of responses that are hard to handle maybe she's angry maybe she's extra sad maybe she shuts down and doesn't want to talk maybe she asks a hundred questions at a time what she's really looking for she's looking for safety and so if you're watching this video it's likely that you're looking for some ways to try to start establishing some safety with her so here's four things that you can do to help with that process number one clean out the closet a lot of times when things come out we try to cover up everything else that hasn't been exposed yet and we go to our wives and we say that's the only thing that's happened this is all there is i promise there's nothing else only to have more trickle out in the days and weeks afterwards one of the best things that you can do for your wife and for your relationship and for your own heart is to clean the closet out get real with everything that's taken place keep no more secrets secrets make people sick emotionally and physically they break relationships now that you have a chance this little iceberg of secrecy has now started to poke its head up above the water show it all give your wife all of the information that she should and can have to be able to make the decisions she's going to have to make regardless of what her decisions are going to be it's the only way long term you're going to have a chance to help continue in building that trust the second thing that you can do and need to do right now is to make sure that you're doing everything it takes to stop the acting out that's gotten in trouble whether that's a specific relationship with a single person or whether it's multiple affair partners whether it's different places that you go that end up setting you up to be in chat rooms or other places with other people that's causing the infidelity do what's necessary to make the change in the pattern of your life that's caused the problems so you may have to go and have a conversation to shut down any relationships that you have you might have to look at even maybe changing your situation a lot of times an affair takes place at work if you can't stop the relationship you might have to make some big changes and look for new work you've got to get the old out of your way clean out the closet make sure that there's nothing there that's going to keep you stuck and at risk of going back to the same old pattern that you're trying to stop i'm working with what somebody right now it's really interesting where they're trying to figure out if they can stay together and one of the ways they're trying to stay together is they're trying to date each other and things he currently is living outside of the house and he wants to date his wife to try to save the marriage but to this point he's been unwilling to let go of his girlfriend who happens to be living in a different apartment that he sometimes stays at that relationship is dead in the water unless he has the ability to go and end that relationship and show his wife that he's 100 in and committed to that relationship that's scary sometimes because there are no guarantees about what's going to happen but that's a necessary step if i want to be able to have a shot at salvaging the relationship that i've damaged number three take ownership for your actions and make sure that you remove any blame on your spouse there might have been marital problems before you had your affair you might have been lonely or hurting or in conflict with your wife before obviously there was something that wasn't quite working right and you were looking for a way to cope and unfortunately you found yourself in a situation where you're now looking outside of your marriage to find those ways to cope it might be true that those things are real and yet you made the choice take ownership for your behaviors you're the one who had the affair you're the one who stepped out on your wife regardless of what the other circumstances were one of the best things that you can do to help in the healing process is to step in with masculinity and take ownership repeatedly for your choices take ownership for the things that you've done for the damage and take ownership for the things that you're going to do to work on healing and repair and if you do that what you do is it allows you to have power in your situation instead of being dictated to in a weird way it's that ownership that you take even if you have other hard feelings it allows your wife to see that you're serious about trying to help things heal our fourth and final key here is to meet your wife continuously with patience and empathy when i say continuously i mean going to a ridiculous end to be patient with her it's going to be a hard process healing takes time healing is possible i work with couples all the time that not only heal and get back to where they were before which is not good enough they get to a better place than where they were before but it takes time the way to rebuild trust is with consistent effort and action over time if you have a thousand conversations with your wife and a thousand times you meet her with kindness and compassion with honesty with transparency and openness that will be the key to rebuilding the trust if you meet her half the time with defensiveness and half the time with honesty and openness it's going to continue to spiral feelings of mistrust so work on being consistent and the consistency is in patience and in empathy show your wife that you're seriously seeking to understand what her feelings are help her understand that it's okay that she has the feeling she has even if it's hard for you to hold those four things will help you in starting to rebuild trust and put you on the pathway to healing your relationship after having an affair hope this is helpful information you guys if you want more information you can go to lovestrong.com and there's some additional information on that website for you thank you guys have a great day thank you so much for being here with me if you found this to be valuable for you please hit the like and subscribe button if you're facing particular struggles that you need help with or roadblocks that you're running into please submit a question i'd be happy to answer it for you [Music] you