How to solve the other party's cheating and I don't want to divorce?
In the crisis of marital derailment, whether you can survive the difficulties depends on whether you have the sense of self-help.
"Self-help", as the name suggests, is self-help.
I want you to substitute a scene and see if you have any good strategies for facing such a scenario:
You are a housewife but have no financial resources, you witnessed your husband cheating, you were desperate for many days and finally calmed down and wanted to communicate with him, but he blocked you, you couldn't find him at all, and he didn't come home. Your child asks where your dad is every day, and you don't know how to deal with your child at all.
Cheating, not getting divorced, not going home, money, children, stay-at-home housewives.
At first glance, it seems that each keyword looks like a headache, and it seems that the current marriage is a dead end, and all the minefields in the marriage are occupied, how to solve this?
But even if it is a dead end again, a woman with a sense of self-help will do her best to get out of the current quagmire, which is the power of human nature.
This is also common in my work, and I have seen many women born from cheating marriages in my consulting work, and I admire their strength.
And I would like to talk to you about my work experience: in a cheating marriage, if your husband avoids solving the marriage problem in a cold and violent way, how do you communicate with him at this time?
First of all, you need to communicate now.
Lots of communication.
Okay, the question is, how to "communicate"?
First of all, I would like to express my admiration for the courage of the subject to ask questions, you are keen, at least you can use your intuition to feel that you need to "talk" at the moment, and more importantly, you "want" to talk.
This shows that you have taken a very important step in this moment of crisis in your marriage.
Many people stop at the courage to take that step first in marriage counseling, and they will lose their cool when they encounter cheating, regardless of 3721, they divorce with an iron heart, regardless of the dissuasion of the people around them, and do not consider the consequences, they want to take a bad breath.
So for those who are willing to calm down and communicate, and are not in a hurry to make decisions, I admire them, these are the resources in your human nature.
You are a person who has a sense of self-help and is willing to save yourself, save your marriage, and try it.
At the same time, I wonder if you're missing a key point:
Now that you're in a quagmire, how do you feel? You okay?
Because I have witnessed a blind spot that many people who cheat and come to marriage counseling have:
You are so anxious to fix the superficial problems that you neglect how you feel as a person in marriage.
01Open up the space and express the soft "feelings" of your heart
Your true feelings at the moment may be a hidden key that can unlock the impasse in your marriage.
Many people may scoff at what they hear: Feelings? What's the use of feelings? Can I feel like I can eat it? Can you help me solve the problem? Can you help me punish a third party? Can it make my husband change his mind? I refuse to express my feelings, which only make me appear weak.
I can understand many women who don't want to divorce after cheating, for you, now you are struggling and helpless, and you also want to find a crutch to rely on, and now your husband has just become the enemy of betrayal, how to cooperate and communicate with the enemy? Besides, he has the heart to tear him apart, let alone cooperate.
I understand that you want to focus on superficial simple and straightforward solutions, but what I'm trying to say may disappoint you - I may not be able to give you a perfect solution.
Because as a consultant, you basically don't give answers and suggestions directly, and it is better to teach people to fish than to teach them to fish.
And the reason why I want to focus on your "feelings" first is because I want you to realize that you are also a human being.
You can now allow yourself to be sad, sad, angry, crazy, to allow yourself to not solve problems for a while, to allow yourself to be in a state of overwhelm in your marriage right now, instead of rushing to solve one problem after another.
Maybe it's time for your marriage to stop, breathe, and give both of you a breather instead of continuing to chase after it. The two of you have been working hard for so long that you can give each other a space and you can not try.
I can say that the cheating you are currently facing, the financial pressure, the neglect of your husband, ignoring you, and the state of no communication at ordinary times are not something that can be completely cured by a life-saving straw all at once, this is a fantasy.
The person who tells you that doing this and that will make you completely okay may be able to ease temporary anxiety, but it will not allow you to actually go to the depths of your current marriage.
Human feelings don't lie, it's vivid, sensual, real, soft, and it represents the connection between you and your body.
Are you sad? Crashed? Self-reproach? Angry? Maybe your husband is too, and you are mirroring his feelings.
You are using yourself to feel the other person's feelings, and he uses the way of leaving you to temporarily unable to contact him, on the one hand, maybe because of his relationship model, and on the other hand, after his marriage cheated on him, he packed and threw the feelings that he couldn't face to you.
In the process of marriage counseling, I often find that many people will be in a "stress state" when they cheat -
Constantly talking, giving others no room to speak at all;
There are also people who seem to be very rational, and they are also using rationalization to defend their torn hearts, wives are, and husbands are too.
Everyone has endless stories to tell, but rarely stops to listen to their partner's feelings, perhaps in addition to being in a state of stress, there is also a part that reflects the true side of their usual marriage:
Emotions are rarely communicated.
They also want to catch me and treat me like a judge, and I often encourage my wife to turn her face to her husband and ask him how he feels about what she has just said.
For example, I would say:
"You've talked to me so much, but your husband is sitting next to you, and the person in question is here, so you can go and ask your husband how he feels when he hears your words?"
"You ask him, how did he feel after cheating? Does he really feel the way you say he is? ”
My wife sometimes responds without a hint of hesitation: "No need to ask, I know, he is not sad at all, he has long wanted to leave me".
But often at this time you go to observe the husband, and the husband is actually silent.
He was silent because he had a lot of feelings, but he didn't know how to tell his wife. What exactly is in this, only he knows.
But only when he speaks out can he know that they are in a state of sadness after cheating, and no one is happier, even if they are happy, it is just a defense.
Perhaps, your marriage has always lacked an opportunity to cooperate and communicate together on an equal footing, you both want to face it, but you don't know how to communicate, and you will only use violent communication to maintain your dignity and final sense of security.
The most common situation is that the husband will feel guilty for cheating and ruining everything, so he wants to run away.
It's like leaving at the beginning, and I can't get in touch, but in the eyes of my wife, it's a deeper betrayal and abandonment, and I don't think about my feelings at all, and I don't want to solve the problem at all.
The misunderstanding between the two sides is getting deeper and deeper, constantly guessing each other's feelings, and they both feel that they have been let down.
At this time, I realized how lacking a space to talk about in their marriage, to carry the feelings of two people who were overwhelmed.
They can't talk about their feelings, because they are afraid to experience their emotions after being cheated on, as if as soon as they open their own feeling system, those emotions seem to be like a runaway dam flood, bursting into an army.
Every time I come here, I feel very distressed, what the husband and wife lack is not love, but space.
But their space has long been squeezed and destroyed, and cheating is just a way to tell the story of the fact that marriage can no longer meet the needs of one of them.
Both people will tend to blame each other and not feel themselves, and perhaps both you and your husband will feel:
The current state is terrible, no one wants to be "present" with me, I'm so lonely-
Women will think: the husband must stand with a third party! They wish they were together every day;
Men think: My wife must be scolding me with others.
The feelings of the two people are actually similar: no one wants to help me, no one can be trusted.
Therefore, the person who is willing to express his feelings honestly at this time is actually the person who carries the banner and leads the two people forward in the marriage.
But many couples are often stabbing in their communication after cheating.
For example, I've heard many wives say:
"Cheating means that he has done something wrong, and he has to express his position and he will solve it!"
"What do I have to say and do? If I do this, he cheats, is he still human? ”
These words will only make him feel more guilty and want to stay away from the person who cheated on him.
Maybe the wife's attitude in the eyes of the husband is: "This is your business, you solve it, it has nothing to do with me".
The husband's disappearance after cheating may also be the same expression: "Okay, then I'll solve it myself, my affairs have nothing to do with you".
At this point I'll try to clarify:
Cheating is sometimes because he feels that he can only rely on himself in marriage, and the other party will definitely not bear his own troubles, and he is not willing to take responsibility for his own life. This kind of fake independence will make him use cheating to express his disdependence on his wife. Because he didn't believe that his wife was willing to face it with him, he reached out for help and got a rejection.
Therefore, in counseling, I often provide a direction for them to express and communicate like this:
"You're cheating now, I feel ......, because ......, so I want you to ......"
"I cheated because I felt ...... and I wanted ......"
Do you see the importance of both parties taking the initiative to express their feelings?
Expressing feelings, asking for needs, and clarifying reasons are nonviolent ways of communicating in marriage.
At the same time, it is also a silent invitation, you invite two people to go together to see the loopholes that have already existed in the marriage, this has nothing to do with the third party, this is the feeling that the two of you missed each other before facing each other. Before, because I thought that the past was over because of luck, but now it's not, you are willing to talk about your soft feelings and collide together.
Whether or not you can solve the problem is secondary, what is more important is communication, equal communication, and being willing to take the initiative to hear each other, rather than always asking the other party to hear yourself first.
Remember, opening up space, "space" is always an important thing in marriage. Even if you are facing derailment now, don't let the space be closed, sit down and talk.
Of course, it's also important to express your feelings in a safe environment. It is necessary to talk calmly and steadily on both sides.
02 Don't let the word "cheating" bind your life value
In marriage counseling, I sometimes say: the problem is the problem, the person is the person.
What does that mean?
It's cheating is cheating, you are you, don't let your husband's cheating make you feel that your life is a failure.
Sometimes I will compare "cheating" to a demon in marriage, or invite you to compare it yourself, trying to make this illustrate by "externalizing":
You're not the problem.
That is, cheating does not define who you are.
It's like a cold, just because you have a cold doesn't mean you're a person who can't get better, you're just sick temporarily.
Cheating is the same, or so are many problems in marriage. None of them means that your life is over, it is just a "symptom" of your marriage, and the symptoms do not represent you.
On the contrary, you can use this time to look inside your own life and see some truths.
For example, you may find that your husband does not love you, and you may think:
What exactly is love?
Is just being together love?
Giving you money is love? Earning money for children is love?
The responsibility of two people to play their own well in marriage is love? What exactly is marriage?
Do I have to divorce if there is a problem in my marriage?
Or don't say the macro, back to the individual:
What exactly do "I" need in marriage?
Many people are often unable to answer this question.
Cheating is an opportunity for both of them to return to their original growth state, and pick up the feelings they lost and the lost selves in their previous growth process.
I will find that some cheating people are often also people who think about these issues in advance, which is why they are labeled as "selfish".
Cheating is a constant trade-off:
What exactly are my own needs?
My child is in puberty, what was I doing when I was young?
What did I lose before? Why am I unhappy with my wife?
But I can't bear my wife, what do I really need?
You can understand that someone who cheats is not incomprehensible and uncommunicative. They are constantly struggling and constantly examining themselves.
It's just that you can't see or hear their inner cry. In fact, they suppressed a lot of feelings and did not express them.
A cheating person sometimes has a fantasy, as if he is constantly squeezing his own needs and satisfying the needs of the other party, and the other party will satisfy himself in the same way. But in the end, it turns out that the other party is not so sharp at all, and his illusions are shattered, and he will be angry, disappointed, and turn to begging.
For example, some men are always belittled by their wives in marriage, and their wives never praise him or appreciate him, at this time, if the third party can meet this need at the right time, he may arouse the idea of revenge against his wife to cheat.
It may be an escape, but for him it is shameful but useful.
Many people have suspicion and internal friction when they find out that their partner is cheating, perhaps because they can't accept marriage and don't go in the direction they expect, and once this desire is shattered, it can inspire a person's deep sense of shame, which prevents them from seeking help.
And at this time, I will remind them, maybe you are feeling a sense of shame. The feeling that you are not good enough is actually a feeling that your partner has a hard time tolerating in a marriage, and this is a good opportunity for the two of you to face the shame of these marriages together.
Just like many people, there is a sense of shame in expressing emotions to the person they love.
Slowly not expressing feelings is to force yourself in a corner, and these inner feelings can only be digested by yourself, which will deepen the hatred, suspicion, jealousy, and desire to devour and destroy your partner.
Just like a lot of people come to me and tell me a lot of bad feelings after being cheated on, I say, instead of saying to me, if you have the chance, you can say to your partner that expression itself has a healing effect -
If your partner doesn't listen and doesn't want to listen, then wait.
This waiting does not mean waiting for the cheating party to finally be willing to communicate, but waiting for an opportunity for your own feelings to be caught by yourself, and it may not be your partner who catches you, but it may also be yourself.
As for money, children, work, when these are entangled with cheating, maybe it does make people feel hopeless, especially when you worry that your child will be affected by this, and maybe you will also feel deeply guilty and sorry for your child.
But in any case, at this time, the most important thing is that you take care of yourself, you can only show your children that you can take care of yourself without hurting others, and not like cheating parents, and this demonstration of yours will also bring new corrective experiences to children.
This self-care is an aspect of the body and mind, seeing what you need at this time, maybe you will see that you have actually ignored your feelings before cheating, silently paid for the marriage, and forgot to see who you really are.
And when you ignore yourself and allow yourself to be instrumentalized, you will also acquiesce to the instrumentalization of the other half, and he cheats? Okay, then I'll punish him too, and I'll ignore him and let him go to a third party.
This is a bit of a gamble, your anger just happened to hit his "wish", this wish is subconscious, and he himself may not be aware of it. It's a life where two people don't do anything, live each other's lives, don't divorce, and don't interfere with each other like roommates.
But he also has another subconscious that is saying "I want to talk" and "I want to see together", which is why some men leave after cheating, and he is also protecting the relationship on the one hand.
I have said so much to explain to you that cheating is not so terrible, and in most cases, the third party is just a substitute for your marital dilemma.
What's more, I still want the two of you to talk, and the two of you to think together:
How to chat? Don't look like you're talking but you're still poking a knife, it's a vent of anger, it's still a violent communication, which can only add fuel to the fire.
Finally, I want to say that cheating is a kind of harm in the final analysis, from the perspective of secular morality, or from the perspective of personal feelings, the person who is cheated on is hurt, you will have a feeling of being stuck in your throat, you want to cut off the relationship but because of the child, all aspects of weighing the pros and cons can only endure the relationship, this is really not easy, you have worked hard.
No matter how indefinite the cheating party is, maybe he has his own bitterness, but he is the perpetrator in the matter of cheating, and he needs to admit the harm he has caused you in this matter, otherwise it will be difficult for you to forgive him, and it is even your right to even want to cheat. You don't have to push yourself.
Only if both of you are honest with your heart, he can humbly realize the trauma caused to you, the trauma to the marriage, not to avoid, but also to confess his feelings, you are also willing to open up your feelings and talk to him about cheating, both parties do not want to shirk responsibility, maybe the impact of cheating on both of you will be lower.
Maybe even cheating can make you husband and wife more united, understand each other's hearts, know how difficult it is to stay together, and know how to love and respect more than before.
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This article was first published on the Zhihu platform: Chen Man, Wang Xiao, Zhang Yan
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