Survive His Affair: Steps To Take When The SOB Cheats On You

Boom! It hits you hard and rips out your heart. The love of your life has been cheating on you with another woman. That dirty SOB of a husband has done a lot of things over the years to make you angry, but nothing he has done in the past even remotely compares to this. His affair has violated your love and trust leaving you feeling helpless and asking "Why?". Now you have to deal with a lot of emotions and feelings so you can begin to piece your life and your relationship back together.

After learning about their husband's unfaithfulness, most wives want to try to deal with this bad situation and find a way to save their marriage, particularly if they have children. Women tend to do what is best for their family and their marriage, even if that means swallowing their pride to forgive their cheating husband.

So for the purposes of this article, we will assume you are one of those wives who wants to heal their marriage by forgiving your spouse and taking the steps to rebuild it. It is human nature though to want to know why your husband cheated, so your first step may be getting his side of the story. By understanding why your husband cheated, you will be able to decide what help you may need to get through this difficult time.

You could find that his unfaithfulness was a symptom of a much deeper problem in your marriage or it could be totally unrelated to you and your marriage. While may never know exactly why it happened, you will get some basic understanding so the both of you can work together to rebuild your relationship.

Below are some things you need to do to heal your broken heart, forgive your husband, and save your marriage:

The first thing you need to avoid is making any major decisions about your marriage right now. Your emotions are raw and you need to process things slowly. Now is the best time to do some personal reflection on your marriage, your husband, your family and you.

He needs to end the affair immediately with no further sexual or physical contact with this person. If he is not willing to do that right away, then you know where he stands. If he does end the relationship immediately, then you and your spouse need to be tested for AIDS/HIV and STD's before you resume sexual relationship without protection. You do not want to complicate your situation further by contracting a disease.

You need to cry and let out all of the emotions inside you. With that said, just remember this is usually a slow process that will take several weeks or months to work through both individually and together as a couple.

A good thing to do at this point is start keeping a daily journal where you can write down your thoughts and feelings. Writing these feelings down will help you to deal with them and give some clarity to what you are going through emotionally. It is very normal to feel anger, frustration, pain, depression, loneliness and uncertainty so writing about these emotions on daily basis will help you chart a course to personal healing.

You need to make sure you are taking care of yourself throughout this difficult time. You must eat even though you may not feel like it at times. It is very common for wives who are dealing with infidelity to experience a lot of physical ailments including, nausea, diarrhea, sleep problems, nervousness and other similar issues. Additionally, some women turn to alcohol and/or drugs to help deal with this emotional roller coaster they are on now. You don't want to abuse your body with these chemicals during challenging time.

You need to have some fun by doing some things that bring you pleasure and happiness. There is a lot of truth to the old saying, "Laughter is nature's best medicine". You must get out of the house and do some things that will bring a smile to your face and make you laugh. If you don't treat yourself to some fun during this emotionally trying time, you may become depressed and your anger may eat away at you to the point of becoming bitter.

Write your husband a detailed letter telling him exactly how you feel. By writing this down, rather than trying to talk to him face-to-face, you can avoid any potential emotional breakdowns and/or extraordinary feelings of anger. When you write this letter, express everything in terms of your specific feelings. Let him know the feelings you are experiencing because of his thoughtless act, but don't be mean. Write something like, "Your selfish act made me feel disrespected and useless. You made me feel deep anger and I have lost my faith and trust in you." No man wants to make their wife feel terrible things so by writing this down for them you are clearly stating what is going one inside you.

As a part of the healing process, you need to ask your husband all the questions you want. You need to hear his answers to your tough questions. His answers may shed some light on some deeper problems or issues in your marriage that both of you need to work on to completely fix your marriage. You need to realize that you may not get all of your questions answered to your satisfaction because your husband is unsure of why he did what he did or he may be unwilling to share everything with you right away. Just remember, this is healing process so it usually takes time.

In asking your husband questions, you will probably learn a lot about the type of affair he was involved in with the other woman. Obviously, a one-night stand for sex probably would mean less emotional involvement between the two of them versus a long-term, emotional relationship that also included sex. Additionally, you need to see if he was thinking that this other woman was someone he would consider marrying if the two of you divorced. By understanding this, you will get a clearer picture of where his heart is related to you.

If necessary, you need to get professional counseling help. Most wives need this help to deal with all of the emotions and feelings that are rushing through them. A few wives can survive this situation by using online resources or reading marriage-help books. You need to do whatever you think will work best for you, just don't try to get through this by yourself.

One thin you need to avoid is telling too many people about his adulterous affair. While most people want to help you in any way that they can, they also could give you a lot of bad advice or stir up feelings of anger that you have already dealt with previously. Carefully decide who you want to share this personal information with then ask them to respect your privacy by not sharing this with anyone else. These close friends and relatives can be great help and support to you so reach out to them as often as you feel you need them.

If you have children, you need to let them know that you are going to be fine. And depending on their age, you may want to share with them what is going on with you and their father. It is important that you are honest with your children during this time, but don't share too any details with them. You don't want to create any undue stress for them in their lives.

Be careful not to start blaming your husband or the other woman. In most cases, this act of infidelity is just a symptom of a greater problem in your marriage so tread lightly here until you have a chance to learn more about your husband's thoughts and feelings. Also, solely blaming the other woman would not be helpful. Remember, it takes two to tango so both of them must share the responsibility.

Finally, it takes time to work through the pain and anger of an affair. You cannot expect the painful feelings and the mistrust to go away quickly. You may have made a commitment to your spouse and yourself to forgive them and rebuild your marriage, but that doesn't mean all of the negative feelings will go away rapidly. Your marriage has been altered by this horrible situation so being patient in dealing with all of these emotions and feelings.

It will not be easy, but your marriage can survive your husband's selfish act of infidelity. In time, you may even find that your relationship will grow stronger and more meaningful because of your commitment to rebuild your marriage.