How to get past an affair
Friday, June 19th, 2009
Q: I’ve been married for more than 20 years. During this time, my husband has cheated on me more than once. I’d like to make my marriage work. I really want to forgive him and move on, but I can’t seem to get past my feelings of insecurity. I can’t get past the fear that he will hurt me again. What should I do? –Emotionally Distant
Dear Emotionally Distant:
It’s difficult for me to offer advice because, if I were married to your husband, I would have kicked his sorry ass to the curb a long time ago. I realize, however, that you still love him and want to make things work. To do so, you need to understand that the recovery after a marital affair is similar to the grieving process. You will progress through many stages. They are all normal and all necessary. As much as you’d like to just skip all of the negative stuff and get to that “we’re happy” place, you just can’t.
According to research done at Kansas State University, there are three stages of recovery after an affair.
Stage 1: The Roller Coaster
You don’t know what to feel because you feel everything! You’re pissed. You blame him. You blame yourself. You’re depressed. You’re demoralized. You still love him, but you hate him, too. You want him to love you, but you also wish he’d die a very painful and prolonged death, one that might involve the slow shrinkage and eventual disappearance of his private parts.
Stage 2: The Emotional Wall.
You don’t want to get hurt again, so you wall off your feelings. You find comfort from others rather than from your spouse. You still obsess about what happened, but your emotions are numb. You try not to feel anything, good or bad. During this stage, your mind will be filled with questions: Why did he stray? Can my marriage really be saved? Is there hope for us? Can I really forgive? Could this have been prevented?
Stage 3: Trust building.
You take steps to prove you are still committed to the relationship. This will require some hard work for both of you. He will work on proving his commitment to the marriage. You will work on forgiving him for what he’s done in the past.
If I were in your situation, this is what I would do:
- Get counseling from someone who deals with marital infidelity on a regular basis.
- Ask him why he strayed. I would explain that I really need to understand his motivations before I can move on. I would ask him to be brutally honest, too. What was he searching for that he felt he did not have within the marriage? Why did he do it? Why did he pick her? Why didn’t he have more self-control?
- Ask him to help me feel more secure. This might entail giving up some of his social life or calling in every so often. In a sense, I’d be asking him to voluntarily ground himself until we’ve had more time to build trust.
- Ask him to help me affair-proof our marriage. What does he need to eliminate the desire to be with someone else?
- Become more independent. I would assume that he’d be a lot less likely to cheat again if he knew, without a doubt, that I would not hesitate to kick his sorry ass to the curb if I found out about it. I would make sure I was a complete person with a full life. I would become financially independent. I would ensure that I did not NEED him to stay. I might want him to stay, but I would not be dependent on him.
- Build trust in small steps. A vacation by himself or a long business trip by himself would be so out of the question for a while, but I would try to take small steps toward trust and independence.
Do you have advice for Emotionally Distant? Leave a comment. I will be answering reader questions during the next week. If you have a question, send it to me.
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