Learn to Speak the Language of Connection after an Affair
By Susie and Otto Collins

If infidelity has happened in your love relationship or marriage and you're trying to rebuild trust, you probably already know how important communication is.

It could be that the ways you and your partner tended to communicate in the past contributed to distance between you two.

As you and your mate re-commit to working on your relationship in an attempt to heal and rebuild trust, we urge you to focus some of your attention on improving communication.

This can be one key to putting the infidelity behind you and moving closer together.

Learning to speak the language of connection is one way to point yourselves toward the relationship you want.

Judy is willing to try to rebuild trust and connection with her partner Chris.

After Chris cheated, Judy promised herself that she'd do everything in her power to get their relationship back on steady ground.

She loves Chris and doesn't want to lose him.

But Judy is also still very angry with Chris. She can't believe that he betrayed her in this way.

Even though his affair happened over 2 years ago, to Judy it still feels like it was yesterday.

Especially when Judy and Chris communicate about their relationship with one another, that past pain seems to refresh and intensify for Judy.

She is aware that she puts up walls and becomes more distant from him, but she doesn't seem to be able to make herself open up and trust again.

"After all, he should be the one opening up and proving himself to me," thinks Judy to herself.

Intend to connection
If you find yourself and your partner in conflict or
simply distant from one another when you communicate, take a look at how you are approaching each other.

What is your intention and priority?

Ask yourself if it is most important to you to be "right" or for your mate to "prove him or herself because of past actions."

These may not be your conscious intentions, but they could still be driving you.

When you hold on to your role as the victim of infidelity and your partner's role as the perpetrator, an inevitable wedge forms that infects your relationship-- including how you two communicate with one another.

We're not suggesting that you automatically "forgive and forget" about your mate's cheating.

This is not something you can force yourself-- or anyone else-- to do.

Instead, we encourage you to do the internal work to process and release the past and along the way, practice setting aside your need to be "right."

If you want to continue to stay in this relationship and rebuild trust, make it your intention to connect as you communicate.

Does intending to connect mean that you can't assert a boundary, request an agreement or speak honestly about how you feel?

Of course not.

It means that even as you speak and interact with
integrity and set those boundaries, connection is your priority.

When Judy begins to make connection with Chris a priority, she can request that he be transparent with her, for example.

As she communicates this request, however, she
speaks from a place of love and from the present moment.

She does the inner work to release her anger about his affair as it arises.

In communication she meets Chris where he is today and keeps at the forefront of her mind the two of them gradually moving closer together.

Share information clearly and openly
Judy starts to realize that in order for communication to improve and be a point a connection for she and Chris, she needs to make a shift.

Of course, Judy believes that Chris needs to also be working on their relationship.

But she is aware that she can only effectively change her own attitude and behavior.

The shift that Judy chooses to make is to stop
symbolically holding the affair over Chris' head every time they come together and try to talk about their relationship.

She sees that she maintains different
standards for him in communication than she does for herself.

The language of connection in relationships is to be as open, honest, respectful and clear with your mate as you want him or her to be with you.

This seems obvious-- until you are in a situation where you feel hurt and betrayed.

In those cases, like infidelity, it is easy to fall into
communication habits where you expect your partner who cheated to listen more to you, perhaps share more openly and possibly offer you a deeper level of respect.

Again, we're not asking you to pretend the affair didn't happen.

This wouldn't be genuine in most contexts.

Take a look at the way you expect communication to go between yourself and your mate.

Be sure that there is a sharing in which you treat each other with the same openness, honesty and respect.

Be clear about what you need and make requests based on those needs.

Be open, even when it seems difficult, to what your partner has to say.

Just because your mate is the one who had an affair, doesn't mean it's ok for you to disregard or disrespect his or her words and needs.

Communication is the way that you and your partner share how you are feeling, what you want and how you'd like your relationship to progress as you rebuild trust.

It is a sharing-- when you both stay as open and clear and honest as possible.

Learn how to speak and listen in ways that bring you two closer together.

Learn the language of connection and watch as trust grows.