Ways To Affair-Proof Your Relationship

Ways to affair proof your relationship. Affairs don’t happen by accident. They can be prevented, read on to find ways to affair proof your relationship..

PRIORITIZE EMOTIONAL SAFETY

Create an environment in your relationship where you both feel safe enough to be completely honest with each other.

This safe space allows you can talk about your needs honestly. Share everything, your deepest, most vulnerable thoughts and feelings with your partner knowing that they will be heard, respected and validated.

Going outside your relationship to get your needs met is unnecessary and counter-productive.

SHARE YOUR RELATIONSHIP NEEDS AND MEET YOUR PARTNER’S NEEDS

Take some time to write down your relationship needs. Rate each need based on its importance. Then rank your needs in order of importance.

Have your partner do this too.

Now sit together and share your needs with each other.

Discuss the needs that are not being met and find ways to get those needs met inside your relationship.

Being completely honest with each other and both you are getting your needs met, the chances of an affair happening in your relationship are slim to none.

AN EMPOWERED TAKE ON AFFAIRS

My primary interest for you is personal growth, as a relationship counselor and marriage counselor it my job is finding the hidden growth opportunity inside an affair.

In order to take advantage of that golden opportunity to grow, you have to be able to see yourself as being partly responsible for having created the environment that allowed your partner’s affair to happen.

Stay with me here…

AN AFFAIR DOES NOT HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT!

Just like the health of a plant is dependent on the soil it grows in, so the health of your relationship is dependent on the environment you both co-create for your relationship to grow in.

An affair is something that emerges over time as the result of the environment the two of you co-create together. The space you co-create can pull an affair into existence or pull a lifetime of fulfillment into existence. I know I’m getting existential, so let me land the plane.

If your relationship manifests an affair, both of you are responsible for having co-created the environment in which the affair could grow.

You probably weren’t aware of it at the time, and you may not have been the one having the affair, but you played some part in creating an environment in your relationship that invited your affair.

It’s your affair because even if your partner cheated, the problem affects both of you.

I’m planting the accountability for your partner having an affair in both of your courts.

As I see it, the most empowering way to approach anything in life is from the perspective that you are accountable for what shows up in your life. (which is different from “you are to blame”)

When you can see yourself as being at the source of your partner having an affair, then you also have the control to do something about it.

When you blame your partner for having an affair, you become the innocent victim of your circumstance…

…and an innocent victim has a lot less power than someone in the driver’s seat of their life.

I prefer being empowered over being a victim personally.

AN AFFAIR HAS ITS BENEFITS TO YOUR RELATIONSHIP

If reading that above statement makes you want to ask what did I just read? I completely understand.

However, if you’re open and willing to forgive each other, an affair can have many hidden benefits to your relationship:

It acts as a wake-up call;
forcing you to deal with issues you were previously ignoring or unaware of
It can be an opportunity to create deeper intimacy and connection between you
It can be an opportunity to finally get your unmet emotional and sexual needs met by your partner
In healing your relationship from the affair, you’ll have to grow (a lot) – and that’s always a positive thing

Not suggesting having an affair will give you both these benefits.