breaking up – Page 10

Is There Life After Cheating? Can You Survive An Affair?

No matter how long you’ve been in a relationship, an affair can completely turn your world upside down. Whether you were the cheater or the one who was cheated on, when the affair comes out into the open, it seems like life will never be the same.

Can a relationship survive an affair? What can you and your partner do to work past the affair and become a positive, healthy couple again?

Can a relationship really survive an affair? What’s the secret?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZTa4CwDxfk[/youtube]

The Causes Of Affairs

Too often, people view affairs as the problem. In reality, affairs are really not the problem at all. For example, having a runny nose and itchy, watery eyes are not a problem. They’re a symptom of the bigger issue of allergies.

Similarly, affairs are only a symptom of a problem in the relationship. If there are no allergies, there won’t be itchy, watery eyes and runny noses. If there are no problems in a relationship, there won’t be any affairs.

This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially if you’re feeling victimized, but to begin working past an affair you have to own up to the causes of the affair.

The causes of the affair were unlikely to be “because your partner is a horrible person.”The more likely causes of the affair were that there was a problem between you and your partner to begin with.

Once you learn to accept that and own up to it, you and your partner can begin working through the affair.

Stop Feeling Victimized.

If you are the one who was cheated on, it’s normal to feel upset, hurt, betrayed and even victimized. Some people, however, stay in that state of mind for too long following the affair because they’re comfortable in the position of being the victim. Who wants to be the bad guy anyway?

It can be extremely difficult to own up to the contribution to relationship problems, and it’s a lot easier to sit back and feel like the other person did you wrong. You’ll never move past an affair if you continue to let yourself feel victimized. Take some time to think through how both partners contributed to the affair and what the possible problems in your relationships might be.

Solve Your Relationship Problems.

If you’re able to get to the point where you and your partner can both own up to your contributions to the affair, you’re ready to move on and start building your relationship back up. Counseling is a great way to work out your relationship problems and it’s very important that you do. If you ignore the underlying problems that caused the affair, the symptoms will continue to present themselves.

Enter into couples counseling or marriage counseling so you and your partner can begin to work through the deep seated problems that were behind the affair in the first place. It’s important to go into counseling together rather than individual counseling, because you stand a much better chance of solving your problems as a couple if you go through counseling as a couple.

With time and effort from both partners, you can begin to work through the affair and learn to trust each other again. When you begin to realize that both parties contribute to an affair, not just the cheater, your relationship has a much better chance of surviving the affair.

Should I Give My Cheating Man Another Chance?

By loveandsex

Whether you’re in a brand new relationship or a years old marriage, being cheated on is devastating. The idea of losing a relationship and the person you love can be even more devastating.

Should you give your cheating partner another chance or does it end here?

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

I’ve had the feeling my bf was cheating on me. I’ve caught him in multiple lies about were he was, why it was taking him hours to get home from work, where his money was going… In the end through checking his voicemail and email I found out that he was cheating. I have even gone so far as to show him the emails and tell him about the voicemails. He still insists that it never happened. I am willing to give him one more chance if and only if he comes clean and is completely honest with me. Am I foolish to think that our relationship can be saved?

–Marie, MA

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGVvt4xcseE[/youtube]

Cheating And Apologizing

Everyone makes mistakes, its human nature. It might have happened because your partner was a little too drunk or it might have been a flat out mistake. A person who cheats and it was obviously a mistake may try to hide it, because they’re afraid of what might happen if they’re honest.

When confronted about the cheating, however, this type of person will usually own up to the mistake and apologize for it. In these cases, it can be easier to forgive and forget and give your partner another chance.

Cheating And Lying

On the other side of the coin, there’s the type of person who will cheat, continually even, and deny or lie about it even when confronted with evidence that they’ve been cheating. Even worse is when this person continues to cheat even after they’ve been confronted about it and denied it!

This type of cheater is definitely more difficult to forgive and in some cases, it’s better to move on and find a new relationship. If your partner isn’t willing to own up to their mistakes and promise to be honest and move past the cheating, there’s really no way you can forgive them.

How can you forgive someone who isn’t sorry or who won’t even stop cheating? This is something you really have to think about on your own and figure out what you can live with. This type of cheater is generally the type that is considered “once a cheater, always a cheater.”

Giving A Cheater Another Chance

For a relationship to be successful, you need to have a level of trust, understanding and confidence in each other. You need to be able to trust your partner and have confidence that they love you and won’t cheat on you. Regardless of how they cheated or with whom they cheated, if you can once again build your relationship on a foundation of trust and honesty, your relationship may stand a chance.

This is essential though. If you try to rebuild your relationship on mistrust, lies and dishonesty, the only way your relationship will be headed is in the dumps. You can try to prolong the inevitable, but if your partner continues to lie to you, continues to cheat or in any way isn’t open and honest with you, your relationship isn’t going to be worthwhile.

You will eventually get tired of lies and mistrust and move on, but knowing ahead of time whether you can really save your relationship can save you a great deal of time and heartache in the long run.

Whether or not to give your cheating partner another chance is not a decision to make lightly. It’s something you really need to sit down and think about before making your choice. Try to talk to your partner and find out what their feelings are towards the situation as well.

Does your partner want forgiveness or do they seem to not care? A lot of your decisions will come from how your partner reacts when you approach them about the cheating.

How Dating Is Different After Divorce Or The Death Of A Spouse…

By elainewilliams

Is there a difference in dating after loss of a spouse or following a divorce? Each occurrence is a major life change, subject to emotions of loss and anger or perhaps betrayal and abandonment.

Some who have lost a spouse may argue that death is worse, being final and out of your control, while divorce is a choice. I disagree.

How Death & Divorce Are Similar

If the spouse you love has divorced you, the choice has been taken away from you, similar to losing someone to death. You also have the added complication of perhaps feeling as if you’ve been thrown away, an understandably devastating experience.

I have experienced both divorce and death, and the aftermath in each instance is neither pretty nor painless. Aftershocks in each case can be experienced years later.

Both situations involve pain. Does death hurt more than divorce? When you lose the person you love, however that occurs, it is a permanent wound on the heart. Loss of any kind is never easy.

Dating After Death or Divorce

Dating after major life changes such as divorce or death, many times holds the same difficulties and rewards. One thing remains the same irrespective of your previous relationship status; dating again after being in a long term relationship means taking your time and re-entering the dating world with the mindset of proceeding slowly.

Start a relationship with no expectations other than starting as friends and see what may develop. If the relationship doesn’t enhance your life, be prepared to move on.

If you’ve lost your spouse and are considering dating, you have to be mindful of not falling into a trap where you’re looking for an exact replica of your previous partner. Your loss has changed you, so you’re no longer the same person with the same needs.

Divorce can carry its own burden of loss and changes. In the aftermath of divorce or death, neither life experience should be rushed through or downplayed. Both take time and energy in which to heal.

After the death of a spouse, there’s a period of time where you may be unwilling to allow another person into your life. Emotionally, you’re on an up-and-down swing with the grief process, and adding another facet to your life such as a new partner is sometimes untenable. If you’ve been out of dating for many years, expect dating to have changed.

Be Sure You’re Ready to Date

If you’re not sure you’re ready to date, you may be open to making poor choices in a new relationship. Whether divorced or widowed, sometimes we think we’re healed but in reality we’re just lonely and want to fill the empty void. In either situation, give yourself time before making any big lifestyle changes.

A divorced person getting back into dating could also be emotionally grieving the loss or abandonment of a spouse. Perhaps you should ask yourself if you’re ready to pursue a new love interest or do you really need some time to remain single.

One of the most important things in resuming dating, no matter what the past scenario may be, is to allow someone into your life who shares the same values emotionally and psychologically as yourself. Don’t settle into a relationship just to have someone in your life.

Being single doesn’t mean you have to be lonely, not if you enrich your life with people and activities you enjoy. Don’t depend on another partner to make or keep you happy, because you’ll be doomed to disappointment. Ultimately, what’s inside fulfills us and adds to who we are; no matter if you are divorced or widowed.

Divorced After 23 Years – How Do I Move On?

By loveandsex

It’s difficult when any relationship ends, whether you’re the one who ends it or not.

It can be especially difficult if the relationship has lasted for several years, even twenty or more years. If you’re not the one who broke it off, being on the losing end of a break up or divorce can be a tough thing to handle.

How do you begin moving on? Where do you start?

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

We have 2 kids and were married for 23 years and suddenly she asked me to leave and said it’s over. We’re now divorced and she’s dating again. Now she acts like she hates me.

All these questions torment me. I need answers. How do I move on when she won’t even talk to me?

— Youtube Viewer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsgC13nVftQ[/youtube]

The only thing you can control is yourself.

If your partner is the one who ended things with you, you probably feel rejected and out of control. You may want to find out why they left you or what went wrong. Your partner, however, may not be ready to give these answers to you and even more likely, they don’t know the answers either.

The truth is, you can’t control anyone but yourself. You can’t make your partner take you back, you can’t make them tell you why they left and you can’t make them act the way you want them to.

You can, however, control how you react to the situation. You can be petty and vindictive if you choose, but you can also be calm and forgiving too. Only you can choose how you act towards the situation. It will be more difficult to move on, however, if you choose to be vindictive or if you harbor ill feelings and anger towards your partner for ending things.

If you choose to take the higher road and work through your feelings of anger and ultimately let them go, it will be easier to move on.

Working through your anger.

After a relationship ends, it’s normal to go through the stages of grief. You lost something and someone that was dear to you and to the human psyche, it’s the same as if someone you loved passed away. You’re going to feel guilt, denial, anger and frustration. You’re going to be hurt and sad, and you’re even going to want to try to get back together with your partner.

The first step to moving on after a break up or a divorce is to realize that all the feelings you are having are normal. It may not help you feel any better right away, but telling yourself that “you shouldn’t feel this way” is not going to do you a bit of good.

When you’re feeling a particular feeling, let yourself feel it. Let yourself be angry and let yourself feel hurt. Then, let it go. Don’t harbor it. Don’t give those feelings a place to stay. Work through your anger and frustration rather than letting it consume you. In time, you’ll feel better about the end of the relationship and you’ll feel yourself start to move on. Don’t rush the process. It takes time.

The end of a relationship, especially a very long one, is tough for both parties involved. There may never be an answer as to what exactly happened to end the relationship because in almost all relationships, it’s more than a single thing. When you begin to focus on yourself and realize that you are in control of only you, you can start to let go of the hurt and anger and make room for a newer, happier state of being.

How To Break The Communication Gridlock And Save Your Marriage

By melody

As a child I heard that “children are best seen not heard” so often I never spoke up in public about anything. We are taught to keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves from an early age.

Gender differences in communication

Girls are taught subtly in the classroom to keep their ideas to themselves.

There was a study done years ago (sorry, I don’t recall the source) where they counted the number of times girls were called upon in class to boys, and the number of times girls were punished for speaking out of turn as opposed to boys. This study revealed that girls are called upon less, and punished for speaking out of turn more.

Boys, of course are taught to hide their feelings from toddlerhood. Our culture doesn’t even allow boys to learn the words for feelings. Then, older boys, fathers, brothers, teachers, and coaches shame them if they show any sign of having a feeling other than happiness or anger.

So it’s no wonder communication is so hard for us. Yet those of us who can overcome our difficulties with communication are the best equipped for any career and have far more financial and social success.

Environmental effects on communication styles

For myself, my “dysfunctional family” further complicated all the cultural edicts against communication. I learned to keep secrets, to protect others from my feelings (I didn’t want anyone to know how badly I hurt because then I would have to tell them why), and to try to guess what others wanted from me since they wouldn’t come out and tell me.

Coming into a marriage with this kind of baggage at age 43 and a history of two failed marriages did not bode well from my new partner. Yet he took the gamble (Yea!) and I think it has paid off for both of us.

To get to good communication from the very beginning we had to fight a number of difficulties.

First, I was phobic of his anger (anger in my family meant someone would get abandoned or hurt) and because of his own Self-Protector mode anger was his primary emotion. Second, I hid my real feelings because of how I had been trained as a child.

The first year of our marriage was turbulent and extremely painful at times. It was a good thing we were so crazy about each other or we could never have survived it!

Overcoming communication difficulties

Overcoming the fear of really being heard was a tough thing for me. I was pretty thoroughly entrenched in the “Victim” role. It has been an evolving process that resembles the peeling of the layers of an onion.

My husband loved me enough to hang in there with me as I peeled off the excess skin and let him see my real self. Because of my childhood wounds I never believed anyone would or could love the “real” me. Yet the opposite has proved to be true. The more I allow my real self to be exposed the more he loves me and the better friendships I develop.

But exposing my real self means telling people what I really think, feel, and need and that can make me feel very vulnerable. What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t like me? What if they get mad at me? What if they leave me? What if “something terrible” happens?

But the worst thing that can happen is my abandoning myself. It may not feel like that is the worst thing in the heat of the moment. In the heat of the moment the fear of the other person’s reaction feels worse than the consequences to the quality of the relationship, or the impact it has on you. But it is not. Abandoning yourself in this way prevents you from getting what it is you really want in your life and in your relationships. And ultimately, it keeps you from feeling good about yourself.

The ugly truth

The ugly truth is that if we speak our truths, if we say what we really feel and want (in ways that are both respectful and empathetic) the other person could still reject us and we could lose them.

But which is worse, rejecting ourselves or being rejected by another person? My personal experience is that if we are maintaining the relationship with a lie about who we are the relationship is doomed anyway.

In the course of my second marriage I seldom told my whole truth, I struggled to keep up the lie that I was okay with how things were going. I have never been so depressed as I was during those years.

Today, though my husband doesn’t always like it, I tell him what I think and what I need. This adds depth and authenticity to our relationship and cements our commitment to each other.

Speaking our truth may be hard. It may be terrifying in fact. But not speaking our truth can condemn us to unsatisfying, painful relationships with others as well as with ourselves.

Taking Ownership if our needs, wants and feelings while being Respectful and Empathetic with those we love can transform our lives and our relationships. It may be unsettling at first, but oh, is it ever worth it!