Recently you discovered that your husband was having an affair. After suffering through the anguish of pain, anger and betrayal, you are attempting to rebuild your marriage bonds. However every time you see him smile or laugh while talking with another woman you feel painful pangs of jealousy. You want to be able to control your jealousy so you can begin to trust him again.
After experiencing the painful emotions an affair causes, you are most likely still having negative thoughts that bring on strong feelings of jealousy. There are ways to manage these attacks of jealousy so that they don’t destroy your attempts to save your marriage.
Jealousy is a powerful emotion that can occur when you feel that someone is trying to come between you and the person you care for and threatens your relationship. In some cases, jealousy can be beneficial when it warns you of a possible threat to your relationship. However, it can also be very destructive to your relationship if you don’t know how to understand and control it.
Jealousy can be a helpful emotion when it alerts you to someone who starts acting a little too forward toward your spouse. It can be a good early warning along that can alert you to the situation that someone may be threatening your relationship and help you defuse it in a friendly way before it can become harmful. Expressed in a positive way, jealousy can be helpful and show your spouse that you value your marriage and him.
On the other hand, paranoid jealousy that doesn’t have any real justification can poison a marriage. This type of jealousy can cause you to imagine threats that don’t exist. In many cases this type of jealousy leads to temper tantrums and bitter accusations where none are justified. This kind of erratic behavior can quickly kill any chances to rebuild a happy marriage even if it was him who had the affair.
After the discovery of an affair, it will take time before you can really trust him again. In the meantime, you need to work very hard to control your anger and emotions to become friends again. This will require hard work and patience but you can save your marriage if you both will work at it.
[callout title=Learn To Control Your Jealousy]If you are confronted with a situation that does justify jealousy, you must be able to control your reaction so it doesn’t destroy your efforts at reconciliation.[/callout]
When the situation does trigger jealousy, don’t lose control and just react without thinking. Force yourself to take a deep breath and get control of your emotions and calm yourself the best you can. Don’t let your feelings just immediately explode into an intense fit of anger. It could ruin your hopes for rebuilding your relationship.
If you do experience a strong fit of jealousy, don’t fly into a rage but evaluate what caused your intense emotion and discuss it calmly with your spouse. Once he is aware of situations that you are very sensitive about, he ought to care enough to avoid hurting your feelings.
If you and your spouse can communicate and understand what causes your pain and agree to avoid those situations, it will make reconciling much easier than arguing about suspicions. Control your jealousy and use it as a warning system not as a weapon.
Charles Moore -
About the Author:
I’m Charles Moore and I hope this information has been helpful although it is just a small step to save your marriage. For a free report on surviving an affair and saving your marriage from an expert with over 20 years experience in counseling this problem, simply click: Survive Affair