Here you are, standing at a crossroads you never dreamed you’d be standing. You betrayed your wife, your best friend, and the mother of your children. Standing in your living room, you pulled the pin and dropped the grenade, blowing up everyone and everything you’ve ever loved.
You slept with (and maybe even thought you loved) the enemy. Now everyone is left to pick up the pieces.
Can you save your marriage after your infidelity?
If you’re reading this, then I’m sure you’d give your left kidney to take it all back, to wipe it from your past. I’m sure you’d give anything to reverse time and make a different choice. But you’re now standing in the rubble of a shattered marriage and we both know there’s no going back.
Where do you go from here? Is it possible to restore what you’ve broken? Can she learn to forgive and love you again? I’m here next to you as living proof that YES! Recovering from infidelity is by far on of the hardest things you’ll ever do.
You can make it through this, and not just barely, but with an over the moon, blow your socks off, brand new kind of love and intimacy with your spouse.
After Matt’s affair, I didn’t know if I would physically, mentally, or emotionally survive. There were days it took every ounce of my energy just to breathe. I even had an emotional breakdown, but through it all there was a still small voice that whispered, Maybe. Just maybe we can make it through this.
When Matt decided to end his other relationship and work to restore our marriage, he committed to do whatever it took to make it happen. He was the one who chose to do the work to build the bridge back to me.
You’ve got your work cut out for you, but if your spouse is sticking around, I say, be brave. Lace up your boots. This is the best work you’re gonna ever do.
Warning: I need to pause right here and say that this will be the most painful and hardest work you’ll ever do in your life.
Are you up for it? Will you trust me and not run away, sweep it under the rug, and pretend it never happened. Will you promise me, yourself, your spouse, and God that you will do the hard work to heal and restore your marriage? Will you commit to fixing what you broke?
Even though you can’t make your spouse forgive you or move past your affair, you can make it easier for the healing process to begin.
Here’s how to help your spouse heal from your affair:
1. End the other relationship.
I feel like this should go without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway. If you’re 100% committed to your wife, then you’ve got to break all ties with the other person. I mean, all ties. You can’t be friends with or work one cubicle over from the other woman. No, you can’t still be friends or just be co-workers. Delete, block, and transfer. Remove all traces of her. Period. If you still are drawn to the other person and desire to continue your relationship with them, then this is where you can stop reading. It’s not time to fix your marriage. It’s time to figure out what you want.
2. Face the pain.
Staring into the broken, shattered eyes of your wife, knowing you’re the one to cause all the pain is like a thousand knives in your own heart, and you’d give anything to make it all go away, but resist the temptation to ignore the affair. I’ll repeat it. This isn’t water under the bridge, so please don’t sweep it under the rug. This is trauma to yours and your wife’s heart. Covering it up with a prayer, and scripture will only make the wound fester and spread, causing deep pain for years to come. It’s a bloody mess, but you must be brave and face it.
3. Rebuild trust.
Your first plan of action is to rebuild your wive’s trust, so you need to become an open book. Give her all access to your phone, email, passwords, and social accounts. Check-in with her throughout the day or any time you’re away from her. This is not the time to hide anything, even Christmas gifts. Any sort of secret will trigger a PTSD response from your wife. So, if you have secrets you still want to keep, focus on #4.
4. Go to therapy.
I probably should’ve made this number 1. I can’t stress this enough, get yourself into professional counseling. Please, for the love of all that’s good, not a pastor or “mentor” friend, get in with a certified professional. Marriage counseling is ok but also get into personal therapy because you’re going to need a safe place to process your own healing. You need to face yourself, the guilt and shame. You need a place you can process everything that happened, be honest about what you hold inside. If your spouse is in the room for marriage counseling, you’ll hold back, keep the secrets inside to protect yourself and your spouse from the pain of the truth.
Matt and I each went to different therapists where we could share our deep dark thoughts that we were ashamed to feel and say out loud about the other person. Some of our most healing and intimate conversations were after one of us returned from therapy.
5. Give your spouse permission to hurt.
Talk to your wife and commit to giving her permission to hurt openly. Promise to answer any questions she wants to know, honestly and without anger, defensiveness, or frustration.
Don’t get upset when a date night ends in an emotional breakdown. Hold her as she sobs after sex. It’s ok not to know what to do or say. In those moments, don’t put up defenses or try to fix her pain. Simply stay close and weather the storm with her.
6. Give your spouse all the time she needs.
After a while, you’re gonna get tired of the tears and long conversations about the same thing, but promise your spouse all the time she needs to heal. Healing is a slow process and takes time, trauma like this can take even longer, but I promise this one thing. The more you face the healing head-on, the more you commit to doing the hard work of healing yourself, the fast the process will go. Resistance and avoidance will only prolong the process.
7. Don’t force the process.
Let your spouse lead the process of moving forward. Don’t push your way back into the bedroom (if you’ve separated) or push to be intimate too soon. It’s ok to voice your wishes, but then leave it up to your spouse to make the first move of moving forward and moving closer together, physically and emotionally. This isn’t a race to get back to how it used to be. This is a building of a new relationship and if you’re patient, you’ll build something a million times better.
I want to end with one last thought.
You’re not a bad person. Let me say that again, you’re not a bad person. From a wounded and unhappy place, you made some very poor decisions, but you’re not flawed, broken, or undeserving of forgiveness. You’re allowed to hurt too. You’re can be forgiven and you do deserve to be loved fully and wholeheartedly.
You’ve got this. You’ve got a beautiful life ahead of you. I’m in your corner, cheering you on.
This whole article was hard. But the end you said I’m a beautiful person and I’ve got this and you’re in my corner. I broke down at that.. I’ve been hating myself, gone into a deep depression, feel like the ugliest most undeserving and waste of space ever. Thank you for giving me hope
I’m so sorry to hear how much you’ve been suffering with self-hate. I hope you find the courage to rise up from the ashes and discover just how strong and beautiful and enough you are. don’t let this betrayal define you. Let your resilient define you. xo
I’ve been a the worst husband ever and have beeninfsithful multiple times and have been trying to show her how much I’m sorry and really want to help her heal and rebuild our marriage and Everytime she starts to feel some type of way she and acts on the triggers starts arguing and accusing and yelling and it feels as if I’m not able the day or do anything and it always turns into a fight and seems things get worse i have a hard time trying to showdher anytbing that cld help I’ve suggested getting help from a therapist but she refuses she says she wants to fix our marriage Everytime we start or it feels we are on the right path I always say or do something I don’t even realize I do she isn’t willing to stop talking to her other guy friends she has been with after my infidelity and even tho she says she wanted us to wrk she refuses to stop talking with them one guy on particular and Everytime I upset her for anything I do or say this guy is invited right back in and she stops talkibg to me and leavesbme alone unt8ll hes dobe with her then she hitsme up ask8nf me to come stay the night making me feel she wants me again in the past yr she has put me off 6 times for this guy thatvonly uses het for thevmomentv5hen leaves and now she is wanting things from me that she isnt willing to do herself and tells me she dobt havecto do anything to help fox us cause shes not 5he one who destroyed us she don’t have to stop talking to guys and tells me she don’t care about my feelings she’s not the one wanting me it’s me trying to get her back the thing is as much as I try not to make anything about me I can’t just act as if those things dont bother me and tells mei have no place to say anything or i shldnt feel anything about watvshe does. The bottom line is I feel as if Im always dealing with all these side arguments and fights and can’t do wat needs to be done to help heal the main and underline problem . Any advice wld be appreciated
Thank you very much for this tips of words I just cheated on my wife and I feel guilty infact I am not happy with my self but the trust is I can’t stand it to tell my wife cos the person is more like a friend to her and if I do it is going to spoiled things alot and might even end the marriage cos I know my wife and I know what she can do,how do I go about what will the church says that their pastor cheat, even though I told her I know whenever there’s is issues she will still use it to abuse me insult I don’t know
Thank you for sharing this information. I am grateful that I came across this article. I am less than a week into the discovery of my affair. My wife has called for a divorce and is believing the other woman’s lies over my truth. I revert back to your words of being honest without anger, defensiveness,wir frustration. I will continue to pray, do the hard work like you said and I re-read your article.
Corrected version:
Thank you for sharing this information. I am grateful that I came across this article. I am less than a week into the discovery of my affair. My wife has called for a divorce and is believing the other woman’s lies over my truth. I revert back to your words of being honest without anger, defensiveness, or frustration. I will continue to pray, do the hard work like you said because hearing my wife say I don’t & never loved her, I protected the other woman & not her, seeing her tears, and hearing her say other things have nearly killed me. I will keep re-reading your article as an inspiration of what could be on the other side.
Really messed up don’t know if she is coming back hopefully this helps, regardless thank you