3 Ways To Heal After An Affair Or Cheating
By: Katie Lersch: Sometimes, I hear comments asking, “How to heal after an affair.” It’s true that when your spouse has an affair, you can feel as though you’re the walking wounded or as if you have a big gaping wound in your heart that you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to fix.
You feel as though there’s something wrong with you, as though you’re a different person than you were before you found out about the affair. You know you’ve lost your footing and you doubt things about yourself, your spouse, and your marriage that you thought you knew.
And, living like this hurts. But when you have a wound that you can see, it’s easier to heal. You can see its progress. You can see what it is responding to and what it’s not. But when the wound it’s inside of you, it’s much harder. You’re just sort of feeling your way and stumbling along. But I’m here to tell you that you can heal after your husband’s affair. I can’t tell you that it won’t take time and effort because it will. But I promise if you put in the time and the deliberate work, you can do it. In the following article, I will discuss how.
Believe That Healing After An Affair Is Possible. Countless People Do It. You Can Do It Too: I know that this seems like wishful thinking right now. I know that you might think that all of this is easy for me to say. It’s certainly easier for me to say now that I have healed, but I don’t say it lightly. I had some very dark days. There were times when I couldn’t even bear to look at my husband’s face, much less be in the same room with him.
But eventually, you get tired of living this way. Eventually, it hurts worse to hang on to the pain than it does to get up and do the work. Yes, exploring why the affair happened and putting safeguards in place while rebuilding the trust takes some doing.
But this is so much better than continuing to walk around hurt forever without making any real progress. One day, I realized I’d just rather grit my teeth and dive into a slightly uncomfortable process than live a life sentence of misery and pain after my husband’s affair.
So you really have to believe that you can heal. You have to commit to finding what you need to do so. (This is true even if you ultimately decide that you don’t want to save your marriage. The process really is the same.) And then you have to see it through and continue to tweak it along the way.
Don’t Make Apologies For What You Personally Need To Heal: Just for a second, ask yourself what you really want right now. What would make this better for you? What would be your first step toward healing? The answers to these questions are individual. But I can tell you what I often hear.
I often hear phrases like: “I want him to be truly sorry that his affair hurt me and our marriage.”
“I want him to understand how devastating this affair has been to me so that he won’t do it again.”
“I want him to love me not because he feels guilt or pity but because he still loves me, wants me, and finds me attractive.”
“I want to see the sparkle in his eye again and hear the laughter in my voice. I want to believe that we can be happy again both as individuals and together.”
“I want to be able to trust him again. I don’t want to live my life worried that he’ll cheat again. I want to believe that if he’s ever tempted or struggling again, he will talk to me first and take action.”
Finally, another common one is “I want to believe he’s still a person of integrity and that we will both learn something from this so that our marriage is actually better after the affair.”
If any of these ring true for you, then those are places and things you will need to be open and honest about with your spouse so that you can work through them together. If you still don’t trust him, ask him to be more accountable. If you still don’t believe he’s truly sorry, ask him to open up and discuss this with you in the spirit of healing rather than accusations.
Always remember that the whole idea of this is that you heal, not that you accuse, or point a finger, or lay blame, or continue on with the negativity. I promise that when you let some of these things go, it will be as if a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders.
Don’t Ignore Self Work (And Returning Your Self Esteem) On Your Path To Healing After His Affair: We all usually know that we have to work with our spouse and work on our marriage following an affair. But many people ignore themselves and their own needs. It’s very likely that your self-esteem was seriously negatively affected by your spouse’s affair.
Many women tell me they feel ugly, stupid, naive, and the list goes on and on. Many of us blame ourselves. Many of us tell ourselves that we were not good enough. We worry about our appearance and our skills in the bedroom. (Did the other woman have something that we didn’t?)
This thinking can eat us alive, and we have to do something to stop it. That’s why restoring your self-esteem after his affair is vital to your healing. Please do not ignore this step. Please give yourself permission to do this. I know for certain that your husband can do and say all the right things, but if your self-esteem is low, you will not believe them, and so the cycle of worry and pain continues.
This was so true for me. Once I took action rather than feeling bad about myself, I saw a difference in my marriage. If you are stuck and unable to heal, and you’re already actively working on your marriage, make sure you are also working on yourself. So many people neglect this,s and doing so can really slow your progress.
I know this is hard. I know that it might feel like you will never really heal. But put one foot in front of the other and tell yourself that just for today, you will be kind to yourself, and you will do whatever it takes to make yourself feel as though you are moving forward. If there are setbacks, just keep going. Don’t allow frustration to stop you and keep you stuck.
By no means am I an expert; I’m just telling you what has worked for me. You can read more about this on my blog at “Surviving The Affair” at https://surviving-the-affair.com
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