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Anyone who has ever stepped out of a marriage for physical or emotional comfort knows how difficult it can be to restore the relationship once their spouse finds out about the affair. Whether it be a one night stand based purely on lust or a year long side relationship with someone you had genuine feelings for, it is possible to restore the holy matrimony between you and your spouse.

The first step on your part is to thoroughly analyze the reasons you cheated. Just blowing it off as “being a man” or “taking a slip” isn’t good enough because if you let yourself off the hook too easy you are more likely to do it again. You need to dig deep and determine whether you really had feelings for this other person, or if something else was going on.

If you did not fall in love with the other person, then there is something else that led you to the affair. Ask yourself what you got from this other person or from whatever it is you did together that you no longer get from your spouse at home. It could be as simple as not getting the physical and sexual attention you crave or as complicated as feeling everyone in your life has let you down, so you have to get them before they get you.

The reasons will be different for everyone, but I guarantee there is something there that allowed you to let your guard down and turn outside the marriage.

Presenting the reasons you went outside the marriage to your spouse can be a touchy situation. You want to let them know that there are things lacking in the marriage that you need in order to be happy, but you want to avoid stating it in a manner that blames your spouse for your affair. The blame for this cannot fairly be placed on their shoulders, even if some of their actions or lack of action is at the root of the problem. If your spouse feels you are blaming them they will react defensively and assume you are not willing to work on your own issues.

Being able to express deep regret and strong emotions over what you have done will go a long way, but you will also have to convince your spouse that the problems leading to the affair can be fixed between the two of you. Not you alone, and not just by them changing, but by working together. Without the root cause being exposed and appropriately dealt with, there is little chance of the marriage moving on successfully.

It is not impossible for a marriage to return to happiness and stability after one or both parties has an affair. In fact, it is happening every day as people decide that the problems leading to the affair are in fact worth fixing. If you believe your marriage is worth saving, then roll up your sleeves and prepare for the hard work of making amends.

It is not unusual to have conflicting feelings about whether you want to remain married or cut the strings and become a free man or woman. While it is a very personal decision that will have to be made eventually one way or another, there three factors that often weigh in heavily.

1. Staying married for the children. Children do suffer tremendously from the divorce of their parents and all of the changes that come along with it, but they also suffer from the tension, fighting, and other negative aspects of living with parents who are not getting along.

The absolute best scenario for a child would be for the parents to work through their issues and return to a happy union. Whatever emotional damage has already been created from the tension in your marriage is best healed by allowing the children to see you problem solve and restore peace to your marriage.

2. Affections for someone else. When there is another love interest involved on the side or when one spouse has growing feelings for someone else (even if they are not cheating) this weighs heavily on the decision to remain married or separate. Even if you think you are being rational minded and are trying to resolve the marriage before entering a steady relationship with that other person, you have to assume that on some level in your mind those other affections are playing a role.

In this situation you have get to the root of your emotions for the other person. Are you genuinely in love with this other person, or are they merely filling a hole for something you are not getting in your marriage? The best scenario is when you are filling a hole, because you can work with your spouse to fill up the hole.

3. Financial Considerations. Love and money will forever be tangled. Many people who want a divorce feel it is not in their interest because of the financial strains that will come from paying child support, new living expenses, and all of the legal fees to work out the terms of divorce and get it finalized.

An unhappy marriage is not cheap in terms of emotional pain and stress, and no divorce ever leads to the happiness you think it will deliver. The best scenario is to work out the marriage so that you remain happy and get to keep the fruits of all your hard work. When this is not possible, remember that it is expensive any way you go and base the decision on other factors.

The days of gentlemen sitting at their desks for hours penning stanza after stanza of deeply felt emotion are over, right? After all, who actually takes the time to put pen to paper anymore? We have computers for quick emails and cell phones for text messaging. With the price of stamps, forget putting anything in the mail!

If this is your way of thinking, then you need to reconsider.

Taking the time out of your busy life to actually write a love poem-or to look one up if you aren’t poetic-is actually one of the most special things you can do for your spouse or lover in our times. Just the fact that very few people do it anymore makes it more impressive. Love is what drives a person to put pen to paper and spill their emotions, and love is what will be felt as your object of affection reads your lines.

If you’re thinking poetry is hard, you are correct. If you are thinking you have no rhythm or you don’t know how to rhyme, no worries! Writing anything about what you feel deep inside is hard, whether it be a poem or just a love letter. When you are past those pimply years of raging hormones where every breath you take is filled with emotion, it is harder to get in touch with what your feelings and put them into words. The pressure to create clever lines that flow well together only makes it worse.

And that is exactly what makes love poems more special today than they ever were! You don’t have to be Shakespeare for your spouse to respond to the words you write. Just get them on that paper no matter how many times you have to start over. One way to do this is to just sit down and start writing about how feel about your spouse. You can write about their physical appearance, special times you had together, and your overall feelings toward them. Let the pen flow (or warm up your keyboard) and write whatever comes to mind.

You may be very surprised at what comes out.

After you have that text down in front of you, forming a love poem will be easier. You have material at hand and have explored some of the things you might like your poem to say. Now get busy forming lines, and no they do not have to rhyme!

Living in a home filled with hostility and negativity leads to a lot of bickering and possibly all-out scream fests. A marriage that has deteriorated into extreme chaos can even cause physical discomforts if the tension becomes too intense for the people involved to handle emotionally. Similarly, a strained marriage can lead to the couple not speaking to one another at all, and the silence or waking to find the other one slept on the couch again can be more painful than all the screaming matches others have.

In these situations it is understandable to feel as if you have to escape, to get out of the home before you lose your sanity. Few people can take that kind of stress for very long, and in fact no one should have to. If there are children inside the home understand they are feeling all of that overwhelming tension, hearing every fight, and are catching the smaller cues of marital problems such as odd silence at the dinner table or cold stares at one another.

So, what if you do walk out the door? Can separation help a tense marriage, or will it only make things worse?

In many instances a voluntary separation can actually help in the long run. Being in separate houses for awhile will give everyone time to de-stress, relax, and start to think about the problems. Some people will also be able to think deeper into their own issues and problems and start to solve them on their own, which will make the marriage stronger when the couple reunites.

If you can come together to decide on a length of time for the separation and the rules as far as when contact will be made and whether it will be by phone or in person, your chances of it going smoothly are higher. Also, understanding what each person expects from the other during the separation is crucial so that you can both do your best to live up to those expectations.

Having such a separation takes a lot of sacrifice and emotional control when things between you and your spouse are tense. It is so easy to storm out the door in the middle of an argument, but it is harder to sit down and say to your spouse’s face that you think a separation is in order. Make sure you clearly tell your spouse you love them and want the marriage to work out, so that there are no misunderstandings. Also share why you feel it will help and let them know how you are feeling at the moment.

Sometimes, just knowing their spouse needs a separation is enough to make a person realize how bad things have gotten in the marriage. Besides a voluntary separation, some couples may also seek a legal separation. These arrangements are expensive and longer term, and if they involve lawyers the negative tension will likely be made even worse. Working it out together gives you both the chance to move forward in your life with a lot less stress in the household.

Have you wondered why the divorce rate is so much higher today than it was fifty years ago? So many people think back to the good ol’ days when couples aged into their nineties, still sitting on the front porch in rockers hand in hand. For most people, it seems times have just changed. It is common for people to blow it off by saying women or men just aren’t bred the same anymore. Blaming the other sex or using other excuses is easier than facing the hard work that goes into sustaining a marriage long term.

A lifetime marriage is not just a matter of sipping tea together on the front porch. It takes dedication and true commitment as feelings, personalities, and life situations change with the years. You don’t give up on your exercise routine just because your muscles get a little sore, so why would you give up on your marriage when you hit a rough spot?

Here are five things you can start doing right now to save your marriage, no matter what the issues pulling the union apart may be.

1) Recognize the real issues. There are all those things that you fight about on a regular basis, and then there are the real issues that cause all those petty disagreements. The real issues are based on emotions and often are a result of unrealistic expectations of what marriage is supposed to be like.

For example, a wife’s long working hours may cause feelings of neglect in her husband. The husband may have the expectation that he be a priority in her life and that they spend a lot of time together as they did while dating. If she is more wrapped up in her work now, those feelings of unmet expectations and neglect will come to the surface as arguments over her forgetting to pick up milk on her way home. Yet, her remembering the milk is not going to fix the underlying problem.

2) Identify barriers outside the relationship. Consider a nagging mother who is always putting down your spouse and making negative comments about her clothing, the way she talks, or any other part of her life and personality. Consider that demanding job from the previous example above, or a group of friends that you spend a lot of time away from home with. Most people try to keep work, extended family, and other groups of friends separate from their home life, but any of these people or situations can make your home life with your spouse more difficult.

If you find a parent who does not love your spouse is causing some doubts or fueling the negative talk inside your own head, then you would need to set aside the opinion of your mother and remember all the reasons you fell in love with them to begin with. You would likely need to ask your mother to stop making comments about your spouse, even if it means you simply don’t discuss your marriage with your mother in the future.

A demanding job or any other situation that takes one spouse away from the family for extended periods of time may also be adjusted to improve the marriage, if needed. For our husband above, if his wife acknowledged his feelings and agreed to be home earlier a couple nights each week to spend time with him a lot of their arguments could clear up immediately.

3) Don’t tell; show. Over the years most couples begin to say “I love you” on autopilot. They say it every time they hang up the phone or leave the house for work, but the actual emotion that used to be conveyed through those words are no longer there. If this has happened to your marriage, it is not because you no longer love one another. It is more likely because you have grown too comfortable in the relationship and the stress of life has gotten in the way of true emotional connections.

The good news is love is best displayed and felt through actions. Fill up the gas tank when you know she will be using the car in the morning. Cut the grass while he’s at work so he can relax with you for the evening. Watch the new baby and let her take a hot bath and a long nap. Take some of the pressure off your spouse and watch the flame come back into your marriage!

4) Get to know one another all over again. After the honeymoon phase passes, marriages become like old blue jeans. They are comfortable and relaxed, yet not as supportive or clingy. That’s awesome for kicking back around the house, but it’s not always so great for a marriage. Get too comfortable and you let your guard down. You stop trying to please one another. The little things we just discussed get forgotten and usually you stop spending quality time alone together.

Add children into the mix and alone time goes right out the door. If your marriage is struggling it is time to make it a priority once again. Watch movies together snuggled on the couch while the kids sleep if you can’t get a sitter. Do whatever it takes to make being together, laughing together, and loving one another a priority once again.

5) Seek Outside Advice. If you cannot agree on the real issues or you feel you are not getting through to your spouse, you will need to seek professional direction. If you cannot afford actual counseling sessions, then go for a good book or make use of other online resources.

There is no excuse for sitting back and crying as your marriage deteriorates further and further. You don’t get to those good ol’ times of holding hands on the front porch without a little work along the way. Everything in life worth doing takes time and effort. Incorporate these 5 into your life and begin today to save your marriage!