My wife had an affair. What can I do?

Question

I left the house for a few days until she decided to end the relationship with the other man. She promised she would never do something like that again. I love my wife very much and agreed to forgive her. She is having hard time excepting my forgiveness because of the guilt she has and she would not have forgiven me if I had done that. We are going to counceling and she says she does want to try to work things out. She still says she loves me and we did have sex but it is not the same as it was before. Is it possible to repair a relation ship like this? We have two kids and I don't want to lose my family and be a weekend father. She thinks I will never trust her again but I feel like I must trust her. How do I show I trust her? Any advice?

Answer 1

Only with time. Some things can't be rushed and this is one of them. She just wants everything back to the way it was before you discovered her affair. Life just doesn't work that way. Continue counseling and tell her. you do want to trust her again, but she also has to have some patience.

Answer 2

She's right.
You will never trust her 100% again.
You can get better and you can get close but the thread of doubt will always be there.
Does that fact mean you should leave, probably not.
You can set the groundwork for a continuing relationship and move on.
To me you have already achieved the first two steps, that she knows what a big mistake she made and that she will never do it again. The third step for me is that if she ever pulls this again SHE is the one to leave the house, the marriage and the children with nothing more than her clothing. This I think is a fair agreement.
Your relationship is forever changed. No loved one can inflict quite so much pain as infidelity does. There is no easy recovery. As usual she probably came up with the "I didn't mean to hurt you" or the " I did not think it would affect you that way" lines.
Sir, rewrite the rules for your continuing marriage to your benifit. She deserves to kiss your butt for quite some time.
You deserve her to do just that. She also owes you one. You have a free pass which you will never use but the threat is there.
You will never view her the way you did before. This was her making so she has to live with it.

Do not show her you trust her because you can't. Trust is hard to build and easy to destroy. She must rebuild your trust and it cannot be given it must be earned.

You can get by this and move on. She has given up the right to unconditional trust and love. This was her choice. In future protect your own emotional health and be suspicious.

This damage is done, there really is no benefit to divorce right now so put that aside. Take care of your home and your kids. Let her stay on your terms and move forward. it will be very difficult for you to bury you memory of this for quite a while and it will always crop back up. The reality is that it will regardless of whether you are together or apart so you might as well work on getting some payback.

Go to counseling but do not let anyone put this on you. You were not the one to go do this. Whatever the reason you may have may given her for wandering,short of physical abuse she forfieted by showing her darker personbality by being a cheat.

You can move forward but it is difficult.
We did and that was 25 years ago. Was staying together better than the alternative, yes it was.

You will hear about dumping her from more people than the stay together ones. If you stay together this will become your secret which you will not broadcast. There are a lot more who work through it than you think. Good Luck

Answer 3

You are one of a kind most men couldn't forgive their wife for doing such a thing.My husband cheated on me over 10 years ago and i still think about it every single day. A song comes on or something he says or we pass a certain place where i know the two of them were. And as far as the sex goes it will never be the same how can it be when you know she was doing the same thing with another man. You can say you forgive her all you want but tell me how does one forgive when you will never forget about it it will always creep up know matter how hard you try to keep it out of your head. Before the affair it was the two of you that made everything feel right, you two had a bond and she took away the one thing that made it special and that was the innocents of your marriage. You two starting out in the world together exploring everything for the first time as man and wife learning how to please one another in bed. This is the guilt she is feeling and the only thing you can do is tell her it's just the two of you and always will be because you love her that much and to lose her would feel much worse then what she did. This one is on her you can't fix what she is feeling nor should you have to.She will get over her guilt just like my husband did all though it did take him about 5 years before he could look at me without getting upset. When you see she is upset just hold her and tell her how much you love her and everything will be ok.

Answer 4

BACK UP A SECOND.

My wife had an affair awhile back too and I have some advise for you.

#1 Trust is EARNED not given.

Trying to "give" you wife your trust at this moment and time will hurt you in the long run. Remember people put more value into things they earn.

Now back to fundamentals:

Women want to be with their EQUAL. The guy that gives them everything they want (LIKE TRUST) is simply trying to buy their affection and the same can go for the guy who does everything the woman says. You need to say "NO" every now and again.

She is supposed to love YOU and not the stuff or things you get her, so this means you can just be yourself and she should still love you.

"In love" is seeing only the good in someone and dreaming of a perfect life together.

"Loving" is accepting the other person completely good and bad. Once you really get to know someone you can't go back to only seeing the good.

The more honest you are with who you are the more you allow the other person to know you and thus loved more by that person.

Good luck

Answer 5

Wow, you are a much bigger man than I am. Everything your wife is telling you would be so true of me. I would never forgive and never trust her again. That is why I divorced my ex, and there was no trying again, I just could not do that. Given that, it is not a matter of you showing you trust her, she is the one that needs to forgive herself and trust herself and accept your forgiveness. More than likely, she has this fear in the back of her mind that you are either going to throw this up in her face later on or you are just setting her up so that you can do the same thing to her. Ask her about that and see if maybe she thinks either of those things or maybe even both. It is her fears that need to be dealt with, because she knows she did wrong, way wrong and now she fears the back lash from it.

Answer 6

If you truly want to work it out; it can and will be done. If either of you go at the half heartily then you may never be able to forgive. Whether it be you forgiving her or her forgiving herself. Either way, only time will tell. It doesn't hurt to try your damnedest. That way if the unfortunate happens and either of you can't move past this; You can at least say that you tried very hard. And then I'd do what the first answerer said...fight for custody and make her the every other weekend parent.

Answer 7

sex wont be right for a long time. it becomes a reminder of everything each time you make love. also trust is hard to give once it has been violated. you two have to become open books to one another. the only way to build trust is to prove yourself again. that means no lying, no hiding, you need to be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. everything has to be open and honest. i gave my wife my email, i leave my phone and wallet where she can look if she wants. i am always where i am supposed to be. the friends that count know what happened, and if she wanted i would put them on the phone in a heartbeat to confirm my story. when you've cheated, you have no right to privacy. you abused that right.

go get some therapy, and give it time. i was on the other side, i cheated, but like you, my wife didnt want the kids to suffer for my mistake. she worked very hard to forgive me. it still haunts us to a degree. when something like this happens, it never goes away completely. you can't pretend it didnt happen. you own it and you live with it.

Answer 8

You want mature responses? What you are doing isn't mature and is rather careless, barging in on someones relationship and being upset because the man your kickin it with only wants the sex, not too bright!!!why would you assume this man is gonna give out more to you than sex when he's only doing this becuz things aren't going well with his wife. If your up for drama then stay with the embecile, if you have any sense at all LEAVE!!! It doesn't take someone mature to say that!!! The question is how old are you and much maturity do you have.

Answer 9

this is one of those things that only time can fix. you guys are doing all of the right things. Just keep going to counseling and give it time. If she's having a hard time forgiving herself she needs to talk to the counselor about that. It is not your job to try to make her feel better. If you said you forgive her and want to move on, then you've done all you can. Let her work through her own guilt. She needs to. It's the healthy thing to do.

Answer 10

Look, we are all human and everybody makes mistakes. No one is perfect. We are also animals and sexual attraction is a powerful instinct...even hormones come into play.
Admit the facts...your wife having sex with this other man was obviously very pleasurable and exciting. She got caught and the shock of getting caught, confronted, and the possible consequences of her actions, brought her back to reality. Tell her you understand how it could happen, both of you acknowledge it was wrong and you forgive her and she promises to be faithful and not do it ever again.