Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: Forgiveness after an affair is a huge milestone that not everyone is able to offer. Many choose to forgive in order to free themselves from the anger and despair that the aftermath of infidelity often brings. But some are disappointed to find that even after forgiveness, they still don’t feel exactly the same way about their spouse.

I heard from a wife who said: “my husband had a six month long affair with his ex fiancé. This nearly destroyed our marriage and our family. For the longest time, I couldn’t even stand to look at my husband, much less try to work things out with him. He lived with his parents for a while. But over time, I saw how much this hurt my children and so I felt compelled to give him a chance. Once we began to work on our relationship, I decided that I wanted to offer him forgiveness just because my constant anger was hurting me more than it was hurting him. I wanted to put all of the anger down because carrying it was such a heavy burden. And, I did feel better once I forgave him. There was a real sense of relief and I was hopeful that our family would recover. It’s been four months since this time, and I’m starting to have doubts. I find myself no longer feeling the same way about my husband. I admitted this to him the other day and he didn’t understand because he said he thought I forgave him. I do forgive him. But that doesn’t mean that his affair didn’t damage our marriage or change the way that I feel about him. I find myself noticing his every flaw. I find myself criticizing him in my own mind. I still want to save my marriage, but I have no idea if it’s going to be possible. I’m not sure that I want to be married to someone who I’m no longer in love with and who I don’t respect. Do the feelings ever come back? Are are they gone for good?”

While there’s no way for me to predict the future (as a marriage’s recovery is based on many factors,) I could tell this wife that the feelings can and do return if you are eventually able to heal and you have some patience. This doesn’t happen for every wife or for every marriage, but it happens to many. I will discuss this more below.

Sometimes, You Try To Get The Feelings To Return By Based Upon A Marriage That Is No Longer The Same: Probably one of the more common questions that I am asked is some variation on “when is my marriage going to get back to normal?” Or “when are things going to feel the way that they were?” These questions are often based on the assumption that you’re going to have the same marriage that you had before. It’s my experience that an affair or infidelity changes your marriage in some way. This doesn’t always have to be devastating. In some aspects, an affair can shake up your marriage and even improve it in some ways.  So your marriage may not be the same, but sometimes, it’s better.  And, I think that the couples who accept that they will have a new marriage (and that it’s up to them to make it stronger and better) recover more quickly and in a more meaningful way.

This is also applicable when you’re relying on your same marriage to restore the same feelings. You may have to accept that you will have to make new memories and have new experiences. In some ways, you have to rebuild from scratch because you are rebuilding the trust and the intimacy and reforming the foundations of the relationship all over again.

This is a time when things can feel different and foreign. And this can be true even if you still love your spouse or are committed to your marriage. Your relationship has just been dealt a very hefty blow. It is normal to feel this way.  A natural reaction to pain is insecurity and doubt.

Try To Focus On The Things That Will Help To Restore The Feelings. But Don’t Rush It And Get Help If You Need It: Sometimes couples get in the habit of wanting to constantly talk about what went wrong before and after the affair. And fixing your problems is something that you should not ignore. But, at the same time, you want to give your marriage the opportunity to not buckle under the weight of all of the negativity. You have to balance working on your problems with rediscovering one another with fun activities that allow you to bond and to create new memories that are distinctly yours.

Unfortunately, you can’t rush this process. No matter how committed you are, recovery just takes patience, time, and effort. It takes time to see that your spouse is so sincere, trustworthy, and transparent so that it feels safe to feel loving toward them again.

Many times, I think that the feelings are slow to return because we build walls around ourselves because we fear being hurt again. Once the trust is restored, you’re often more willing to be open and vulnerable again.  And, when this happens you might find that the feelings are returning.

Finally, there is no shame in getting help if you feel that you’ve been more than patient and still aren’t seeing sufficient progress. Counseling does help some couples. Self help aids others. And, some find that they just need more time.

But to answer the question posed, yes, sometimes the feelings can be delayed even with forgiveness. And yes, they do sometimes come back, even if they do feel a little different at first.

I will admit that I struggled with my feelings about my marriage and for my husband after his infidelity.  It took a while to rebuild the feelings.  It wasn’t a linear process.  Sometimes, the feelings were there and then they weren’t.  It took some time before I was secure again.  Yes, we do have a different marriage.  But in some ways, it is better.  And it is loving and filled with mutual feelings.  If it helps, you can read that story at my blog http://surviving-the-affair.com

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