Marrying the person of your dreams isn’t enough to ensure that the marriage will last. You need to want to do whatever it takes to keep your relationship solid, healthy, and protected against infidelity. Are you looking for ways to infidelity-proof your marriage, so that you can be happy and your marriage will last forever?
Infidelity is something that no one sets out to do in a marriage – it is something that is often borne of unhappiness in a relationship, of a disconnect that has grown over time.
Of course, some people are just chronically unfaithful but, more often than not, there are things that can be done to keep your marriage strong, and protect it against the risk of infidelity.
Luckily, learning the tools to infidelity-proof your marriage is not difficult, and there are things that you can put to use immediately so that your relationship can grow stronger quickly.
Here are 5 ways to infidelity-proof your marriage NOW.
1. Share
I know, I know. Every blog that you have read says that communication is the key to every healthy relationship. The reason that every blog says this is because it’s the truth.
Think of every marriage that you know is unhealthy. Looking in from the outside, do you see an inability to communicate, to share feelings, to explain when they have been wronged, to address how they feel about an issue, or even to ask for what they want?
Do you see people who aren’t willing to be vulnerable and tell their person how they feel about them, or that their person is causing them pain? Do you see people who share their deepest thoughts and emotions with others but keep their partner in the dark?
Every healthy marriage is based on the ability to communicate with each other in a meaningful way, to speak up when something is bothering them, to feel safe knowing that if you do speak you won’t be attacked, to know that your person will listen to you with an open heart.
So, set up healthy communication with your spouse and infidelity-proof your marriage from the outset.
2. Maintain trust.
The number one way to strengthen your relationship so that nothing can break it apart is to establish trust and maintain it. When trust is lost, it’s hard to regain. When trust is lost, it is easy for a marriage to fall apart and for infidelity to be a risk.
Trust can be lost in big ways and small. Big ones, of course, include infidelity and betrayal. It is the small ones, surprisingly, that can be most destructive to a marriage.
A client of mine had a husband who was always making her promises. He said he would go look at new windows for their house but went to the office instead. He said that he would take out the garbage but watched the game instead. He promised to be home in time for dinner but rarely was.
One small instance at a time, by saying he would do something but then not do it, my client’s husband eroded her trust in him. As time went on, she trusted him less and less until, one day, she found herself with one foot out of the marriage. She no longer felt like she could be with someone she couldn’t trust.
So, think hard about maintaining trust in your relationship. Whether it’s about big things or small, when trust is lost, it’s almost impossible to regain.
Read 15 Surprising Things You Didn’t Know About Cheating in Relationships
3. Assume nothing.
I can’t tell you how many clients of mine have told me when I ask them how they communicate their feelings to their spouses, that they don’t need to tell their partners that they love them- ‘because they know’.
I can’t tell you how many of my clients spend weekends with their parents or take walks with their friends or watch TV alone in the living room, assuming that it’s okay with their partner that they not be doing things together.
I can’t tell you how many of my clients treat their partners with contempt and disregard, assuming that they will always be there, no matter how they are spoken to.
One of the things that happen in a marriage is that, after a while, we start to take each other for granted. In the beginning, we stay constantly in touch, we spend time together, we share our feelings, we include each other in activities. As time goes on, we become less attentive and fall into a pattern of taking our spouses for granted.
Taking each other for granted will NOT infidelity-proof your marriage. It will, instead, leave it highly vulnerable to someone from the outside stepping in.
