Intimate events that happen within your marriage are personal and should be kept private from the outside world. When all is going well in your relationship, keeping intimate details to yourself won't be an issue. The situation is different when your marriage is in trouble and you feel as if you are at breaking point. When you have found your spouse cheating, you need someone to talk to. Your first instinct will probably be to turn to your family and friends. You know they will be on your side and you need their support. As the victim of a cheating spouse, your self-esteem will be at its lowest ebb. You need the confidence boost you can obtain by relating your woes to people who will take your side and give you unconditional support. There are dangers in telling your troubles to friends and family. You could even destroy any chance of healing the marriage. You should be aware of the potential problems and understand where and why a line should be drawn. You need to be able to talk to those close to you about your feelings without going into the lurid details of your spouse's behaviour. There are several reasons why pouring your heart out to your family and friends can be damaging to your chances of reconciliation. We will look at those reasons in a second. But, first of all, it is important to make the point that you should not try to bottle up your emotions. There are three good reasons why you should confide in your nearest relatives and dearest friends when you are trying to survive infidelity : 1. Talking is healthy and will help your personal healing process.2. Trying to keep a problem of this magnitude from the people close to you just won't work. 3. You need the support of the people who care for you. When you have just discovered your partner has had an affair, saying "I'm fine" to your close friends and relatives, won't fool anybody. The people who love you will know something is wrong. It is better to tell them what you feel they should know rather than let them rely on their imaginations. The biggest problems with telling all to your nearest and dearest are: 1. The advice your friends and family will give you will not be impartial and logical. They will give you sympathy, which you need. But their advice will be based on their own life experiences and opinions. You might desperately want to work towards reconciliation. If your friends all say you should dump your cheating spouse, this will add confusion to your turbulent emotions. Any sort of biased advice is dangerous. You need to take advice from a trained relationship counselor. 2. It is not fair to your spouse to reveal the intimate details of your marital problems to people you both know socially. Of course being unfaithful was not fair, but you can't behave in a tit for tat manner if you hope to reconcile with your spouse. However much you might feel your spouse deserves to have their misdemeanours made public, don't do it. If your spouse knows you have poured out all the lurid details of the infidelity to anyone who was ready to listen, the chances of reconciling will be greatly reduced. 3. Rebuilding your marriage will be made far more difficult if your friends and family are full of anger and disdain for your spouse. They will stand together to protect you as the innocent victim. But in doing so, there is a serious danger that they will come between you and your partner. You need your personal support group to become part of a joint support group for you and your spouse as a couple while you are working through the healing of your damaged marriage. The urge to pour out every detail of your troubles will be strong particularly in the early days after discovering your spouse cheating. If you need to relive every intimate detail of your marital breakdown, you should seek advice from a relationship counselor. Your friends and family will give you the compassion and support you need without wanting to hear all the details of your spouse cheating. All you need to tell your circle of friends is that you and your spouse are having problems, but are working through them towards reconciliation. Ask them to help you to deal with your emotional turmoil and to overcome your negative feelings. You can tell the people closest to you that you don't want to go over the reasons for your current problems. Tell them you are starting over and want to put past difficulties behind you. You will find that the people who care about you won't probe for details. They will respect the privacy that should exist in a marriage.
Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
