How to survive an affair – How much should I share with my spouse?

I’ll be honest, I hate puzzles, but some of my family members love them. For some strange reason they find pleasure in what I consider to be a tortuous activity designed to move me toward insanity. This year, for instance, they are working a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle called “Will the Real Santa..." It’s made up of over 32 Santas who all look basically the same. Each has a white beard and red costume. For hours my family sits around a table taking each of the thousand pieces comparing them to the picture on the lid trying to distinguish slight differences in hopes of getting just one more piece to fit. They claim it’s relaxing and rewarding, but to me it’s enough to make me want to sharpen my pencil and fall on it. But oddly enough, this story has a profound parallel to those yearning to know how to survive an affair. So stay with me, I want to paint a picture of how most betrayed spouses dealing with infidelity can utilize this puzzle discussion.

To go a step deeper, what if there were no picture on the box and all you had were a thousand pieces to try and put together by your own rugged determination? How difficult would that be to undertake on your own? I’m sure my family could still work it, but I bet it would slow them down a bit and you can be assured there is no way I would even participate. Then there are those puzzles where they give you extra pieces, and even go a step further and take away the picture of the puzzle. Wouldn’t that make it a little more difficult? And if you really wanted to make it seem insurmountable, you could always turn out the lights. Even for my experienced family members, I’m not sure it would be possible to work a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle in the dark. Would you even want to try that? And if you were willing to risk the personal pain, and proposed mockery by casual outside observers, where would you even hope to begin? Would you try to find all the outside edge pieces, by mere feel, and then begin to see if you could fit them together? What about the corners, would you be able to identify those pieces simply by touch? And if you did get it together, do you think you’d be able to get all the pieces in their right places? And finally, if you were by some miracle able put it all together, you’d still be in the dark and still not be able to clearly see all the detail to what you had worked so hard to put together in the first place.

Having worked with couples dealing with infidelity for over 25 years now, I know countless numbers who have tried just that. If a spouse learns of a betrayal, but is given no details, it can seem very much like trying to work a puzzle in the dark. Yet, in these emotional firestorms, we’re not dealing with mere puzzles, but with real life disasters and feelings, along with years of time spent together, and even children’s lives. This “how to survive an affair” puzzle is a mess.

To expect a betrayed spouse to put together the pieces of a highly emotional and gut wrenching puzzle in the dark, is simply incomprehensible. Do you think anyone dealing with infidelity and betrayal would ever be able to get it right after having absorbed so much pain and heartache? Simply put, if a husband (or wife) suspects an infidelity of any sort, and his (or her) mate refuses to address the issue and details of the betrayal, what is he (or she) to do? Spouses in this position may try to work the puzzle, and arrive at the picture, but frequently they are in the dark and due to the unlimited human imagination, they can be working with extra pieces. They can create possibilities in their minds that probably never happened. But how can we expect them to work such a puzzle in the dark? If my family were to come across a puzzle too difficult to complete, we would simply put it back in the box, maybe even throw it away: but for the hurt spouse, it will never be that easy. And specifically for an unfaithful spouse that seeks restoration of any sort, we surely hope it’s not that easy.

Our experience has shown that for most people, it’s impossible to move forward from a betrayal until the hurt spouse knows what has happened. Admittedly, there are those individuals who don’t want to know every little detail, and are more comfortable living in denial, or at the very least, living with a limited knowledge of what has gone on. In addition there are many others who want to know how to survive an affair but who feel they can’t go on until they know what has occurred. In fact, the level of detail seems to be driven by the hurt spouse’s personality. Some may be content to not work the puzzle at all; others must work it, understand it, and bring it all into focus in order to heal. Some spouses need to know exactly what they are going to be forgiving and letting go of. Moving forward and recovering from an affair for some means needing to know the general details of it all. Most every spouse needs to know some sort of details if they are going to find forgiveness and hope. There is just no easy way around that need.

Some betrayed spouses are forced to work 500 piece puzzles. They don’t need a lot of detail, but they do need to know what they need to know. Others need to work the puzzle at the 1000 piece level and still others at the 2,500 or even 5,000 piece level. It’s important to check with your mate about the level of detail they would like, but for the sake of helping him or her heal and get unstuck, it’s important to give the proper amount of information they need. I’m sure you can understand no one wants to work a puzzle in the dark with an imagination sized box of extra pieces.

Some unfaithful spouses may feel no obligation to give information for the sake of their mate’s healing, but if one’s actions seriously wound another person, then it is one’s responsibility to give the hurt individual the information necessary to heal. The overwhelming majority of hurt spouses have to understand what has happened and get that puzzle worked before they can ever begin to even attempt to forgive and move on in both life and marriage.

If I were to hit a parked car in the parking lot there are several actions I could take. I could avoid responsibility and drive on as if nothing had happened, thinking that if they didn’t catch me then it’s their problem. Conversely, I could recognize that even if I had no evil intent, I still have done someone else harm and should accept the responsibility for my actions and, at the very least, write a note with my contact information on it. Failure to take responsibility by helping the wounded spouse heal is nothing more than driving away from an accident. Refusing to take responsibility for our actions when dealing with infidelity can cause more damage than perhaps our natural eyes can see or comprehend.

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s a truth I strive to live by: Love will always act in the best interest of another. Even if you’ve made some horrible choices and caused pain to your spouse with infidelity, if you truly love your spouse, you’ll do what is in their best interests to help them heal.