Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: There is no question that the aftermath of an affair can put a damper on occasions that would otherwise be very happy. I once had a friend tell me that she felt as if the “firsts” after her spouse’s affair were like the “firsts” after a parent’s death. This may sound dramatic. But if you think about it, one can see the connection. The “first” birthday or Christmas or other celebratory holidays can feel off once you have suffered severe loss. An affair can have the same effect. And an affair can also be a loss. Many holidays and celebrations can feel awkward and false after your spouse has an affair. Your wedding anniversary might be the most loaded of them all.

Someone might say, “in two weeks, my husband and I will celebrate our wedding anniversary. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I feel very lucky to even be married at all. My spouse had an affair that almost ended our marriage. So while our marriage is most definitely still struggling and we have much work left to do, at least we are still together. However, it feels very weird and false to celebrate our marriage as if nothing has happened. Actually, we had planned for this to be a notable anniversary. We had planned to go to Europe and renew our vows. I canceled after I found out after the affair. And when I think about that now, all the anger that I’d felt toward my husband came rushing back. As I said, I want to remain married and am grateful that I am. But this brings back all that we have lost and all that we still need to make up. What do you do about your anniversary after an affair that almost ended your marriage? I feel that it was disrespectful to ignore it. But I don’t want to pretend that everything is fine, either.  If none of this had happened, I’d be heading to Europe and I’m resentful about this.”

I completely get where you are coming from. I had the same experience and I will tell you how I chose to navigate this below. I had some professionals who helped me come up with this plan and I think that it was a good one.

I Made It Enjoyable On Its Own Terms: I decided that I was not going to pretend that this was just any celebration. In no way was I going to insinuate that nothing unfortunate had happened. However, I also wanted to honor the fact that I was still in my marriage because I wanted to be there. We had both made an effort to stay put and hold our marriage together and I wanted to honor this. So I told my husband we were going to celebrate a new path and just have a nice evening without the baggage and longing.

Did that mean that I wanted to erase our past history? No, absolutely not. In fact, our past history is a major reason that we are still together today. That history is very important to me. But I felt that, at least for this one night, focusing on the past was not the right call. I actually told my husband that we weren’t going to exchange gifts and we were going to spend the money toward a fun, shared experience together instead.

I worried that exchanging gifts would be a loaded and awkward experience because one or both of us might stress too much over it. Instead, we had a very nice, pretty expensive experience that we would not otherwise have had. It was normally rare for us to do things without a great deal of planning and preparation or “just because.” But that is exactly what we did in this case. And we had a great time and we came home excited about our future without lamenting our past.

Make The Occasion As Individual As Your Situation Is: What I described above is not going to work for everyone. Some people feel that they need a traditional holiday. Or, they just do not feel like celebrating right now. Both things are completely valid. Ask yourself where you are in your relationship right now and what you would like to accomplish and honor with this celebration. It goes without saying that the time may not be right to have the wedding anniversary celebration that you have always had. I believe that it is perfectly fine to acknowledge this because if you try to force a traditional celebration which ultimately fails, then you will only feel worse. Ask yourself what you and your spouse truly want and need right now and give yourself permission to provide exactly that.

I had a friend who was doing individual work during her anniversary. She and her husband had agreed to keep in touch but to do self-work before coming back together and then deciding what to do about their marriage. So, they got side by side massages on their anniversary. They talked. They enjoyed themselves. But other people were in the room and they didn’t feel pressured to pretend that this was a romantic getaway when they were focused on self-work. So, they customized a holiday that reflected where they were on their journey. They had no regrets and the next year they celebrated a more traditional holiday.

Be Honest: It’s so important to be honest with your spouse about what type of celebration you do or do not want. Do not set yourself up for failure by hesitating to share how you truly feel.  I truly don’t think it really matters how you spend your anniversary as long as you are both happy with the experience. And this can’t often happen if you are not honest with each other.

Your husband is likely well aware how loaded this holiday is and he is likely just invested as you are to enjoy it. This gives you one more chance to work together to ensure that you both get what you want. This is an important skill in reconciliation and in making your new marriage work –  so now is a great time to start practicing.

If it helps, you can read about my own reconciliation after the affair here: http://surviving-the-affair.com  It was a long road but I really feel that we didn’t rush and this helped it stick.

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