Your marriage partner having an affair is probably one of your greatest fears. Sometimes, this fear leads to paranoia, which is not healthy for your married life. The rising cases of infidelity across the country do not help either. More often than not, you may have friends or acquaintances that may have had to suffer after knowing that their spouses had been unfaithful.

Admittedly, there is no fool-proof way to prevent your spouse from having an affair. The key, however, is to establish a trusting and rewarding partnership with your partner. Some of the following precautions might help save your marriage from the pain and heartaches brought about by third-party affairs:

1. Make your spouse your top priority. In terms of relationships, pay closer attention to your partner over your family, colleagues, friends, and other people. Spouses who feel neglected have more tendencies to have an affair over those who are given first-class treatment.

2. Talk. Marriage counselors will never fail to cite communication as an essential way to save a marriage. Do not just talk about events that happened during the day but bring your discussion to a deeper level. Women especially have this need to share their emotions be it joy or frustration. It is important to be able to develop a deeper connection with your spouse.

3. Show appreciation. Oftentimes, husbands take it for granted that their wives’ prepare their meals and do the laundry and so on everyday. It would help to keep saying “thank you” and compliment your partner once in a while even for the smallest things.

4. Hang out. Another thing that is often taken for granted once married couples get too busy with work and other chores is that they need to spend quality time together. Couples who have lasted 50 years together and so on usually go out on a regular basis. Try something different every time you go out. You could even watch TV at home together on lazy afternoons.

5. Spice up your sex life. If your partner does not have a satisfactory sex life at home, he or she will be more likely to receive sexual advances from people outside. Make time for sex and try something new in bed once in a while. Do not let stress or tiredness get in the way.

6. Tackle issues immediately. Having excess baggage could ruin your marriage. Try to resolve problems as they come up to save your marriage. Couples need not agree on everything. You could agree to disagree on some issues without clawing each other’s eyes out. Your partner should be assured that he could talk to you about anything and vice versa.

7. Support your spouse’s goal. One popular piece of advice you would do good to follow if you want to save your marriage is to understand and fully support your partners’ need, wants, and goals. The two of you could come up with a common goal or goals then work together in achieving them. For personal goals, each of you must make your spouse understand that you are behind him or her every step of the way.

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Often in a troubled marriage, an affair by one or occasionally both spouses is the last straw. The emotional trauma of infidelity causes so much pain that it’s hard for the other spouse to think clearly enough to find a solution. The cheater, on the other hand, is lost in a fantasy, and likely doesn’t want anything to change. They like having the security of a family along with the excitement of the affair. It’s often difficult to see how to save marriage from divorce.

If you’ve discovered that your spouse is involved in an affair, the first step is to take a long, hard look at the relationship and decide if it is worth saving. The steps you’ll have to take to save a marriage after an affair are not easy. Of course, neither is divorce, but unless you’ve been dealing with abuse or destructive behaviors, even a long, difficult rebuilding of your relationship would be easier than divorce.

If you decide that you do want to save the marriage, you need to steel yourself for some difficult steps. Your spouse will become very angry, and there are no guarantees. However, if you constantly remind yourself and them that you’re “fighting to save your family,” eventually they’ll understand. Remember your goal is to end the affair and save your marriage. You’ll both have to work on rebuilding the relationship after the affair is over. But until that happens, you can’t move forward.

After you’ve decided that your marriage is worth fighting for, you have to work to end the affair.
Before confronting your spouse, review all of the evidence you’ve gathered. Is it conclusive? Are you certain? If so, you’ll need to find details about the other man/woman. Where do they work? Are they also married and cheating on their spouse?

Now for the difficult first step.

You need to contact your spouse’s family, friends, and work and tell them all about the affair. This needs to be done in one fell swoop. Make all of the calls at one time so that your spouse doesn’t have time to formulate a “story.” Tell your pastor. Tell your kids. Tell your neighbors. Your spouse has a support group. Once they know of the affair, they won’t support that activity – especially if they know you’re “fighting to save the family.”

During the same session, you need to call the other man/woman’s spouse and tell them about the affair. It seems drastic, but they also deserve to know. It will put pressure on the affair from both directions. Affairs are usually very fragile fantasies, and this kind of pressure will quickly bring them to an end. Suggest to their spouse that they also make calls like you’ve done to bring down their support as well.

Your spouse will be very angry. “It’s none of your business.” “We’ve already ended the affair, so how could you do this?” “You’re making me out as the bad guy.” They don’t know it, but they’re just following a script. You need to follow yours by saying, “I’m fighting to save our family.”

Any time the anger begins to escalate (and it will), calmly repeat that phrase.

Do not move out. Do protect your finances. If your spouse threatens to leave, tell them that they are welcome to, but the kids are staying. Tell them that the only ways out are to leave without the kids or completely end the affair.

Eventually, either they will move out or the affair will end.

If they choose to end the affair, you need to both openly close all possible means of contact. Get them a new cell phone where you get the bill. Get a new unlisted home telephone number. Change churches (if they’re both in the same church). Make them change jobs (if they work together). Move to a new neighborhood – or city. Do whatever it takes to completely sever the relationship.

Once it’s over and some time has passed, your spouse will understand what they’ve done and the process of saving marriage can begin in earnest.

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