Staying Together After Infidelity: When Does It Get Easier?
By: Katie Lersch: I often hear from people who have made the very difficult decision not to walk away from their marriage after an affair. Many have committed to this decision because they really do feel that it is the best thing for themselves, their family, or their marriage. But despite their determination or best intentions, there’s no question that this is a very difficult process that moves on its own slow timeline.
Since it’s no fun to go through, people will often want to speed it up, or at least know when it might feel easier. Someone might ask: “when is my marriage going to feel easier after my husband’s affair? I agreed to try to make our marriage work. And it took me a long time to get to that place. In the first couple of weeks, it made me feel ill to even have him in my presence. But eventually, I decided that splitting up would be so hard on my kids. And my husband did seem genuinely remorseful and was begging me to give him a chance. So I told him that I’d give him three months to show me that he was serious. I can tell that he is trying. But things just feel so darn awkward between us. When he hugs or tries to kiss me, I recoil and I am always suspicious of his motivations. I wonder if he really feels this affection toward me or he is just trying to make me feel better. I keep telling myself that tomorrow is going to be better. But it never feels all that much better. My husband alternates between being tentative and resentful. I alternate between being distrustful, angry, and sad. I was willing to give this a try. But if it always going to feel this awful, I don’t know if I have it in me to stick it out. When does it get better?”
Having gone through this, I can tell you that time does help. But time alone typically not completely ideal. I’ve thought long and hard about this and I believe that I can identify the happenings that made things easier for me. I know that everyone’s experience is going to be different. But maybe sharing this will offer someone a little reassurance.
It Helps When You Notice Your Husband Showing Sincerity And Integrity Over Time: In the beginning, all you really have are his words and his promises. You want to believe him. But he’s proven some dishonesty. So understandably, you worry that he’s not trustworthy. In order for him to prove that he is in fact trustworthy, some time is going to have to pass. And you are going to need to see that, over and over again, he is doing exactly what he has promised. You need to see him having integrity and being sincere even when he thinks that you are not looking. You need to see him doing the right thing even when it’s not easy to do so. Once this has been happening again and again, you can start to relax about his sincerity.
It’s Extremely Helpful When You Obtain A Plan Or Some Guidance: One of the biggest problems I see is that people proclaim that they are going to stay in their marriage, but then they don’t make any change or try to implement any rehabilitation. As a result, every one lives in fear of the cheating happening again. No one can relax. There’s no progress because there’s no plan. It’s vital to have a roadmap to get yourself out of this. A counselor can mean that you don’t have to work as hard or feel as lost because they can create the road map for you. But if you don’t want to go the counseling route, there are many self help resources that can allow you to do this for yourself.
It’s Beneficial When You Begin To Understand That With Determination, This Isn’t Going To Beat You: I know first hand that there is a real tendency to beat yourself up after infidelity. Even when you are not the one who cheated, you can feel like you did something wrong. You can feel like you’re being punished again and again. I found it helpful to get out of the victim mentality. It also helped immensely when I worked on building my self esteem. Once I gained confidence, I realized that no matter what happened, I would be OK. I realized that I did not need to define my life and my happiness through someone else.
Don’t misunderstand me. I want my marriage. I want my husband. But I also know that if either of these things were taken away, I’d be OK. Because I am always going to have myself. Knowing that you are going to be OK regardless is very freeing. And it helps to remove the intense pressure and the paralyzing anger. When you realize that you are responsible for your own happiness and your own experience, you feel so much more in control.
And frankly, a lack of control is one of the things that makes an affair so devastating. One way to take back that control is to strengthen yourself so that you know that someone else’s whims and mistakes are not going to define you.
No one expects all of the above to happen immediately or simultaneously. But when they do happen, you feel relief. It does get better.
I remember when I was in the same place that you are now. I was afraid that every day was going to be the same miserable experience. Very slowly, as I acted with deliberation and kept track of my progress, I began to see some improvement. I learned that things moved more slowly when I waited for improvement rather than actively trying to get it. You can read more about that process on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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