Can a marriage survive??

The broken trust would be worse then the actualy cheating to me.

sucks!

Does he take full and complete responsibility? Is he truly sorry? If so then yes, it can survive. Don't listen to the "Once a cheater, always a cheater" and "men are dogs", and "It's just in a man's nature" and all those others who have nothing to offer but silly one liners. You have to BOTH want to get past it and you have to BOTH want your marriage to succeed though. If that's the case then you can move past it and you can even build a stronger bond. But if he's trying to lay the blame on you even a little it won't work. HE cheated. I don't care if you never had sex with him, never cooked or cleaned or took care of the kids. Those are reasons to separate/divorce - not reasons to go have sex with someone else while staying married.

Yes you can survive!!! It took such hard work and humble hearts for both of us. Although he did something horrible we both had to accept blame for certain situations. The ONLY reason our marriage was fixed was that we went to counseling at our church where after our wednesday service and rather than the average counseling session.. we would think of a problem that we had in our marriage and spent time looking in the bible and finding out how we should have handled the situation.

I can't express to you how painful that betrayal was. There are no words for it and it hurts so much.

I will tell you that fixing it won't work unless you both are willing to fix it together.

I will also tell you that your faith and trust will eventually be restored. We separated for 3 months before we decided to go to counseling to fix things. Until then I had fully planned on divorcing him. When we planned to fixed things I even waiting for a while after going to be sure I still wanted to be with him. I was so so so hurt. After I called off the divorce we lived apart for an additional 6 months while going to church together, going to counseling together, and having one or two dates a week. We had to completely restart in order to understand each other again.

I'm sorry this happened to you, but this affair is a result of worldly thinking. That if your heart isn't "in it" or you don't "feel in love" anymore, that you should find someone new or pursue something more exciting. Once your thinking begins to change, then things begin to look differently. Jeremiah 17:9- The heart is deceitful above all things.

Fixing it takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Much of our time was spent crying and yelling until we were tired of both. I remember the day that we had gone out together, took turns saying what we each did wrong and what we should have done or admit we understood how we hurt each other, then promised that from that day forward we were done with it and would try to no longer bring it up.

If you fix this, many of your friends and family wont understand. Many of ours didn't and we lost a few over it. But that is only one way to learn who your true friends are. The ones who will remain by your side even if they don't understand your decisions.

Add me as a friend if you ever want to vent, or talk, or ask me anything. Fixing our marriage was the greatest thing we had ever done outside of our children. Since the "bad year" (that's what we call that year) we have had 2 anniversaries, one baby, and we are working on another.

The key is repentance. The person having the affair needs to admit it, regret it and commit to it never happening again. S/he needs to be accountable for their whereabouts at all times and accept that it'll take time to rebuild trust.

This is exactly it.

If the person that had the affair is not willing to give up certain freedoms (access to phone, texts, email, accountability of their whereabouts at all times, etc) trust will never be rebuilt and the relationship is doomed. If giving up those freedoms is not an option the person that had the affair is already checked out.

Depends on the person. Me? Never. My husband ever cheated we would be done. No if's and's or but's. I am the least forgiving person though

Personally I have ZERO tolerance for that crap and my husband knows it. Relationships depend on a strong trust, he not only broke that trust by cheating but then by LYING about it! If he can do it once he can do it again. You only live once so, dont sell yourself short by staying with someone who doesn't have the any respect or decency towards you. Whatever reason he had for cheating the first time isn't going to just disapear, and we all know you can't change someone.

Get out now and don't drag things out forever.

See if he is willing to set up the appropriate boundaries that it will take to build your trust. Boundaries such as completely cutting that person off, looking for a new job if the other woman is at work. Not having female friends. No pornography. Changing phone numbers....and so on. Whatever is reasonable that would make you feel as though he really has turned away from the affair and is committed to you. If he has a male friend you trust ask him to be an accountability partner who will also check in with your hubby and make sure he is on the right track. That's what I would do. I know couples in that boat and they have survived this. If you want to you can. It is a choice.

The key is repentance. The person having the affair needs to admit it, regret it and commit to it never happening again. S/he needs to be accountable for their whereabouts at all times and accept that it'll take time to rebuild trust.

This

Just checked out your profile, you're only 30, you've lost a LOT of weight, and are gorgeous! WHY WOULD YOU PUT UP WITH THAT???? You need to evaluate what you want in life and go get it, don't put up with anything less than what you want, and personally a lying cheater isn't on my list!

I wish you the best, you have so much potential and a LOT of years ahead of you, don't waste them.

Love is a choice. You can choose to love him regardless and work on things....or not. That's only for you to decide. Many marriages survive affairs and get better...and many fail. It all depends on the effort you both put forward to rebuild trust, keep open lines of communication, and forgive.

Yes, seek counsoling or support from your church! Yes it can survive!

You say you love him. That's a start.

Now you have to work on things, if you really do love him and want to make this work. Communicate, spend time together, be open and honest and try to just have fun once in a while too.

Infidelity is rampant, we're not a very monogamous species. The difference between the couples who last and the ones that fall apart is whether or not they're willing to work on things.

This^^^ I know couples who have survived it and other that haven't. Both have to be willing to work at the marriage. Marriage can be such a wonderful thing. If you both love one another it's worth trying to save. To repeat some of the other posters advice... Seek counseling, he has to truly end any other relationship and you truly have to choose to forgive him. I wish you the best of luck.:flowerforyou:

I tell people all the time:

Love is probably the strongest emotion there is. It will make people forgive a lot of things.

My marriages have survived, so yes. You should probably be in marriage counseling if you want it to happen to yours, though.

^^It can take a long time to rebuild any sort of trust. def. hit up marriage counseling

My mother had an affair on my Dad when they had been married for about four years. They have now been married for over 40 years. I would say that they are still in love and that they are happy. However as long ago as that affair was I think there is still small grain of something there still, hurt, resentment, something I don't know. They don't talk about it. I didn't even know about till I was 18. I overheard a aunt talking about it. The guy was a friend of my Dad's, that made matters worse. You just have to know yourself well enough I think. I know me, and I know that no matter how much I loved my husband ( and I do we've been married 10 years) I just know that hurt would never go away. It might heal, but it's a scar that would always be there. It would always make me sad... so I wouldn't stay. That is just a betrayal that I could never abide by.