The Sunday News
IF you realise you are married to a cheating spouse, you may believe that divorce is the only answer but before you take the drastic step of ending your marriage, there are some things you should do.
Take a deep breath and get some facts and remember this is about you and not your family or friends so proceed with calm. I know there is no justification for cheating, but be willing to work on the reasons why your spouse cheated. If boredom with the marriage is one reason, there are many ways to change things up.
Realise that everyone has problems and faults and jumping out of a marriage or breaking up a family is not always in everyone’s best interest. Consider marriage counselling and go with your spouse. I know this is not so common in our country and people often think it is a waste of time and money but sometimes I think it is a necessary evil. Be honest with yourself if you are capable of rebuilding trust with your spouse then divorce should be the last resort.
Love and marriage should never be taken for granted so cherish what you have and try to fix the parts that are broken. I personally feel divorce should be the last thing one resorts to, please do not get me wrong lest I get lashed out as I am sometimes misunderstood. Cheating is not right but divorce is not the answer to all our problems, life is not a true/false section. It is real.
If you are experiencing or have experienced infidelity in your marriage, all the things I am writing probably mean nothing because you have set your mind on divorce and right now, all you can think about is the way infidelity has and is affecting you.
If you are normal (I had to say normal), you are experiencing a wide range of emotions and, you might fear that you are losing your sanity because of the deep, negative, emotional impact of infidelity. It’s the depth of betrayal and emotional pain that often leads to divorce. Such negative emotions are hard to put behind you and many people feel there is no way to ever rebuild trust.
When one partner goes outside of the relationship for emotional or physical needs, the other partner may end the relationship, or forgive and stay in it, but either way, extra-marital affairs have major effects that can be felt for some time.
First, let’s be clear what we are talking about here, we are not talking about mutually voluntary (bilateral) divorce, in which both spouses agree that dissolution of the marriage is the best option for all parties concerned.
We are talking about unilateral divorce, initiated for the purpose of pursuing a romantic and or sexual relationship with another person, as opposed to remaining married and engaging in adulterous acts. In the past week when we were talking about cheating in marriages and all that, several commenters (including me) noted that while that may be an obvious and relatively costless alternative for some (particularly unmarried couples), factors such as children and financial constraints may make divorce more difficult for others.
Every situation is different, and each person must use his or her judgment to make a decision he or she is ethically comfortable with, such as whether divorce will have a net positive or negative impact on his or her children.
Divorce may sound like the best way out but at times it is not, in one e-mail last week one woman wrote in to say she regrets the day she sealed her divorce because she could have easily forgiven. But because she had to put a no-nonsense appearance to her family and friends she ended her marriage just so she could be a heroine. If you have been cheated on please take time and think things through and when you finally decide on what you want to do, do it for you and not the outside world.
One e-mail read: “After I was cheated on I so much wanted a divorce I was embarrassed so much that I left my church, changed my salon, and changed my spots and all that. Until I took time out and decided to think things through, I changed my focus from, “Should we get a divorce?” to “Okay, we have been through all these hard things and we’ve made it through. I sure hope it does not keep going like this, but we are going to keep trying and this is a challenge that is worth taking up.
“Then I was brave enough to face my husband not fighting but talking like adults because when I took my vows he was the only person right next to me holding my hand so now that I wanted to cut my vows he had to be a part of it. We decided that from here on out this is our marriage now, and we are going to be committed to each other. We had to lay that foundation again, because we felt like something was broken.”
When commitment seems to be fading, it can be helpful to remember the good times in the relationship and talk about your dreams for the future together and most importantly remember marriage is between two people and the third being God. So listening and taking advice from outsiders is good but also remember at the end of it all it is about you.
Let’s keep talking e-mail [email protected] and next week we are talking life after cheating.
