Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By Katie Lersch: If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve been through one of the worst emotional earthquakes a marriage can face: an affair.

And let me just say right off the bat — if your marriage has survived the initial blow, that’s already something to acknowledge. I know it might not feel like “surviving” on some days. Some days might still feel like barely hanging on. Some days, it might feel like pretending. Some days, it might feel like a battle between wanting to believe and wanting to run.

That’s totally and perfectly normal. And it’s part of the healing.

One thing I wish someone had told me early on is that healing doesn’t always feel like what you think it will. It’s not a straight, clean, triumphant path where each day gets a little brighter. Sometimes, it seems to get worse and some days it will feel far easier.

A lot of the time, healing is messy. It’s filled with doubts. It’s full of moments where you wonder, “Am I crazy for trying to stay?” or “Will we ever actually be okay again?” It’s filled with times when you wonder what family and friends would think of you if they knew.

But here’s the hopeful part: even when it doesn’t feel like it, there are often small, quiet signs that you’re healing – that your marriage is finding its way back, little by little. You just have to know what to look for. Here are some that I have learned to recognize.

You’re Having More ‘Normal’ Moments Than You Realize: In the beginning after the affair, every moment feels tinged with pain. You can’t look at your spouse without thinking about the affair. You see awful visuals in your mind’s eye. You dream about it. You can’t make small talk without feeling the giant elephant in the room.

But slowly — often without you even noticing — you start having a few “normal” moments again. You laugh at a joke. You watch a show together without thinking about the affair. You talk about dinner or bills or the kids without that sick to your stomach feeling.

At first, these moments might feel wrong or even make you feel guilty — like, “How can I be laughing when we’re still broken?”

But that’s actually what healing often looks like. It’s just everyday, ordinary stuff. And it can feel good after what you’ve been through. It’s the heart remembering how to beat normally again, even if just for a few minutes at a time.

2. You’re Not Obsessively Replaying Every Detail (At Least Not As Much): If you’re anything like me, you probably went through a phase where you replayed everything — every lie, every excuse, every gross assumption — in your mind on a loop. You wanted to understand every little thing. You needed answers.

And I get it. Affairs shatter trust, and your brain works overtime trying to piece the world back together.

But one quiet sign of healing is that the urge to dissect every second of the affair starts to lessen – just a teeny, tiny bit. You don’t have to struggle and strain make it lessen — it just naturally, slowly, doesn’t take up quite as much space in your mind. It’s no longer living there entirely rent-free.

You start finding yourself thinking about your own life, your own needs, and yes, even your future — instead of just living inside the hurt.

3. You’re Actually Genuinely Talking (Even When It’s Awkward or Hard:) Another huge, often overlooked sign of healing is real communication. I’m not talking about fake, surface-level conversation where you both pretend everything’s fine.
I mean the gritty, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes emotional talks where you tell the truth.
Where you say things like:

• “I still don’t know how to trust you, but I want to try in my own time.”

• “I’m scared we’ll never get back to what we had before.”

• “Some days, I still hate you — and some days, I genuinely miss you.”

Real communication after an affair isn’t pretty or silver-tongued. It’s not always sweet or kind. But if you’re still talking honestly — even if it’s messy — you’re giving yourselves a chance.

Couples that stay silent or avoid the hard conversations tend to drift. Couples who are willing to sit in the discomfort together? They have a shot at real healing – if they want it.

4. You’re Starting to Feel Moments of Genuine Empathy (Even If It’s Tiny:) This one can be complicated — and you might not even like hearing it. But when you start to see even a flicker of empathy for your spouse — when you can recognize that maybe they hate what happened too, maybe they regret hurting you deeply — that’s actually a huge sign. You don’t have to excuse what they did. You don’t have to forget it. You don’t even have to fully forgive yet. (A lightbulb moment for me was seeing my husband as someone who was actually vulnerable and the affair was the result of his desire for validation.)

But being able to acknowledge that your husband is human — flawed, broken, remorseful — shows that your heart is softening. Not for them, but for yourself. Because staying locked in anger forever keeps you stuck.

5. You’re Eventually Thinking About a Future (Even If It’s a Tentative One:) Early after the affair, it’s common to feel like your future together was stolen. Like your marriage as you knew it died. And honestly? In some ways, it did.

But if you find yourself thinking about things (perhaps in the distant future) like planning a trip together or making joint goals, this is a sign that you envision a new marriage.

Because that’s what affair recovery really is: not going back to the old marriage, but carefully, deliberately, building something new. Something honest. Something real.

If You’re Not Seeing These Signs Yet, Please Don’t Panic: Healing after an affair is not a race. It’s not something you can force on a timeline. Some couples see these signs within months. Some take years.You are not failing if it still hurts. You don’t get a report card.  The important thing is to stay open to the possibility that healing can happen — even if you can’t feel it today.

Some days, surviving is enough. Some days, getting out of bed and saying, “I’m still here” is a victory. And sometimes the healing is happening in the background, even when all you can see is the mess.

You are stronger than you think. Your marriage, if both people are willing, can be stronger than you think.
Healing is rarely loud or flashy. It’s quiet, slow and fragile. One step at a time. One day at a time. Baby steps.

This perspective is hard won from someone who has been there. I had to settle for a gradual recovery, but I’m glad I did because it has been lasting. We recovered fully. I share how we did that on my blog at https://suviving-the-affair.

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