Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

by Katie Lersch: I often have spouses who tell me that they don’t think that they will ever be able to truly get over their spouse’s affair. They tell me that they feel like this one event put their entire life into a downward spiral that they aren’t sure that they can ever recover from. They often don’t even know how to begin to start healing when they feel so very defeated.

I do understand all of these feelings as I felt them myself. But, I can also tell you that it’s entirely possible to recover from this and to “get over it” once and for all. Sometimes, this includes remaining married to your spouse, and sometimes it doesn’t. The optimal and most healthy outcome is very individual for each person. But, there is no reason to let someone else’s actions change the way that you feel about yourself or to change the outcome and enjoyment of your life. I’m not saying that making your way back from this is going to be easy, but it most certainly can be done. I will discuss this more in the following article.

If You Can’t Stand To Be Around Your Spouse Or To Deal With Their Affair Right Now, Place The Focus On Yourself: People sometimes tell me that they feel so conflicted and feel such anger and pain every time they see their spouse. They often feel anger and resentment that overtake everything else in their life. These negative feelings often feed upon themselves and seem to just make things worse.

In the meantime, you often have your spouse giving you all sorts of explanations or apologies and making you all sorts of promises and excuses. These things may well be completely sincere. Your spouse may well be hurting too. But, often, you just can’t deal with their issues while you yourself are struggling. And, there is nothing wrong with telling your spouse that you just need some time for yourself to sort things out until you are ready to deal with the additional issues that the affair has brought forward.

Unfortunately, you will often have to take care of and protect yourself because no one else is going to do it, since there can be a lot of turmoil and confusion during this time. It’s so easy to put yourself on the back burner. But I can say with complete confidence that if you do this, you will only impede your own progress, and you may well prolong your own pain.

None of this is your fault. You are in this situation because of someone else’s mistake and because of someone else’s very unfortunate decision. Unfortunately, you can not change this, nor do you have any control over it. However, you have quite a bit of control over how you handle things from here. And, one of the kindest things that you can do for yourself is to give yourself the time that you need. Do not allow yourself to be rushed or to be pushed to make any decisions until you are ready to do so. You will sometimes need to very clearly spell this out for your spouse, who will often be quite desperate to have a fast resolution.

Surround yourself with people who are going to support you without judgment or commentary. Honestly, I can not stress how important it is that you choose these people very wisely. So many people will tell their friends and family about their spouse’s affair, and regret this later when feelings change. Or, they will choose a friend whose spouse was unfaithful also, and this friend will stress how she was never able to get over it and how it ruined her life.

This is not the type of support that you need. You really do need to focus on the people and the things that are going to strengthen you and will reassure you that you are valuable and special, that this is not your fault, and that you matter. You need to know that you are every bit as beautiful, competent, and desirable as you were before you found out about the affair. These things about you have not changed, but your perceptions about yourself likely have.

It’s so important to do whatever you need to do in order to build yourself up so that you feel good about yourself and are confident that you can handle what is in front of you and can make sound choices about what you want and deserve. It’s my observation and experience that women who are able to maintain and restore their self-esteem have a much easier time “getting over” their spouse’s affair than those women whose self-esteem has taken a huge hit.

The Most Important Things You’ll Need To Get Over The Affair: Other than a healthy self-esteem and a clear ability to see and ask for what you want and need moving forward, there are a few more things that many wives need in order to really move forward. You will often need to understand those things that contributed to the affair. Now, by saying this, I’m not implying that you should take any blame onto yourself. You should not. But if you can see where your marriage was vulnerable and you can fix it, then this will allow you to have confidence that you don’t have to worry about it happening again.

Also, you usually have to come to a point where you can believe that your marriage can survive (if you want to save it) and that you can eventually thrive in the months and years to come. If there is one secret to this whole “getting over the affair” business, it’s restoring your happiness and well-being. Once you can do that and can do whatever you need to do to come to a place where you are feeling joy and are at peace again, then you really have no reason to continue to dwell on or revisit the affair. In short, you have no reason to continue to live in the past because you are enjoying and are happy in your present, and are looking forward to the future again.