It may seem impossible to save a marriage once one person has had an intimate connection of the deepest level with someone else. In fact, for many people knowing that their loved one was emotionally connected with someone else is much more painful and harder to overlook then a purely physical affair would be. So, how is it possible for a couple to rekindle the flame after an emotional affair?
It is the emotional aspect that makes this situation so unbearable. Couples move past physical affairs and one night stands rather quickly, but the knowledge that one spouse had a serious intimate connection to someone else is much harder to brush aside or talk away.
The first step is for the person who experienced the actual emotional affair to honestly decide whether the affair is genuinely over or not. If there is still deep feelings that are not likely to be let go anytime soon, then there may not be a way to really move the marriage forward. You can’t have a happy marriage if one person’s heart is withdrawn to someone else.
Given that the affair is officially over, that outside emotional connection has been broken, or at least the person is sure that their feelings for their spouse are much more intense than the bond of the affair, then the next scenario moves to the spouse that was cheated on.
The spouse that was actually cheated on is fully entitled to feeling their own set of emotions, but in order to save the marriage they must also open their heart and their mind to the rekindling of romance with their spouse. Both people have to want the marriage to survive or it simply will not do so.
Things will likely never be “normal” again after an emotional affair. Yet, if both people are actively working toward the future together then a new normalcy and an even stronger sense of happiness can come about in time. It will just require a period of time where both people work toward reconnecting, rebuilding a strong sense of trust, and becoming closer together again.
It is entirely possible to save a marriage after one person has experienced an emotional affair, but it must all start with open conversations. That doesn’t mean screaming and yelling, but genuinely talking and listening so that everyone is heard and understood. Only then will it be possible to move forward with action that makes it better.
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