Rebuilding a relationship out of the upheaval of infidelity

Rebuilding a relationship out of the upheaval of infidelity is no small task. It takes commitment, work, and lots of patience – both on the part of the betrayer and the betrayed.  One of the challenging aspects of the rebuilding process is the restoration of trust. Indeed, for many betrayed partners, the lying and secrecy that were part of the affair package cause far more pain than any sexual infidelity that may have occurred.

It’s for this reason that if you’ve cheated on your spouse, you must be scrupulous about maintaining honesty and transparency in your relationship as you try to piece it back together.  This may seem obvious, but there are situations that can try your commitment to honesty and transparency that you must be mindful of. A very common example is when something minor happens that you’d rather your partner didn’t know about. Your affair partner texts you, even though you told them not to. Or you spot them at the same professional event you’re attending. Or you find yourself visiting the website that got you into trouble in the first place, even though you don’t “do anything” there.

So you think to yourself, “Look, nothing happened here. My partner isn’t going to know about this unless I tell them. Why cause them pain for nothing?” And you genuinely mean it. You don’t want to cause distress to the person you love, and you know that you didn’t do anything wrong. So why bring it up?

This pattern of thinking is totally normal and understandable, and yet it is a very big mistake. Recall that often, the honesty is an even bigger deal to a betrayed partner than the fidelity. When you fail to be completely honest, you are causing much more damage to your relationship than the minor occurrence did – even if you did slip up a little bit (e.g., you texted the affair partner back). Telling your partner that you ran into your former lover, or even that you messed up and texted them when you know you’re not supposed to, is far less destructive than keeping more secrets, insignificant as you think they might be.

In fact, being open about those incidents and even about your slip-ups goes a long way towards building trust, not impeding it. When your partner sees that you are being transparent even about your mistakes, they will eventually come to believe that whatever there is to know, they know. That is what trust is about – the feeling of confidence that there’s nothing that’s hidden. It may feel counterintuitive to share with your partner that you’ve made a mistake and crossed a line again, but I have heard betrayed parties agree time and time again that they’d rather hear and know about it then not hear and wonder.

The alternative to being open about the incident is to try to sweep it under the rug and hope they don’t find out about it. If you choose this path, the best-case scenario is that you succeed and they never discover it, and things continue on as normal. But in so doing you lose what truly is an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to honesty and transparency, and to build trust fully.

However, the best-case scenario is usually not what happens. It is common for partners to find out anyway (sometimes because in their current mistrustful mindset they are snooping and looking for such evidence). When they do find out, it is a major setback to the trust-building process. It reaffirms to your partner that you can’t be trusted. And if you can’t be trusted on minor issues, how can they trust you for major ones? Your protestations that you were just trying to avoid hurting their feelings over nothing will go unheard. Your partner will once again feel lied to, and the relationship with suffer another blow – perhaps a final one.

It may seem like telling your partner about a misstep, a violation, or even a coincidence you weren’t responsible for would do more harm than good to your healing relationship, but the truth is just the opposite. When there’s something – anything! – to tell, you are better off telling. Really. It might be scary, and yes, it might hurt your partner to hear that you did something you weren’t supposed to, but in the big picture of your relationship, the trust you build by being transparent is a far greater gain.

Don’t make the mistake that so many people make when trying to recover from an affair by once again hiding information. Choose transparency – your partner will appreciate it far more than your efforts to protect their feelings the involve yet more secrecy.

Raffi Bilek, LCSW-C, is a couples counselor and director of the Baltimore Therapy Center. He specializes in working with couples where there has been infidelity.