What the Betrayed Partner Can Do to Help Their Marriage Heal After the Affair

How can a marriage recover?
Posted by Scared for Sanity

Last night, my husband said he'd seen how upset I was and he was sorry. He said he didn't realise how badly I'd be affected when he started the affair, or didn't really take my feelings into consideration at all. He said he's been thinking and he's realised he cares about me a lot and wouldn't want to lose the marriage. He wants to work to make it better. I'm still really angry with him sometimes, but I wouldn't really want to divorce him. I'd like to make sure this doesn't happen again and to improve our marriage. But what can we do?

I keep wanting to ask him questions about the affair, but I'm worried I'll find out things that'll just upset me more. What do you think I should do?

Jenny contemplates what to say and writes down what she thinks might help:

Jenny's Draft Message

It's good that your husband's realised you mean a lot to him. Hopefully, he'll be faithful in the future. Me and my husband managed to work things out after reading some self-help books together.

Asking Questions About a Marriage Partner's Affair

The author of the book I've just read says that if people want to ask questions about their partner's affair, there are advantages and disadvantages to asking:

She says the main advantage is that people will hopefully be told the facts rather than letting their imagination run riot by thinking up all kinds of worrying possibilities.

But she says the main disadvantage is that the truth might be much worse than they imagined. The details might be really upsetting, so the more questions a person asks, the more upset they might become with the answers.

She recommends people weigh up the pros and cons of asking questions before they do.

I hope you won't find out worse things than you imagined if you do decide to ask more questions. I'm not sure I should be suggesting that might happen. I hope I haven't upset you. But it might be worth taking into account. I wanted to ask my husband lots of questions, but I just got more upset with every answer. But now, I'm glad I asked, since I wonder if I'd still be worrying over what happened if I didn't know.

The author of the book says that the type of person who wants to ask a lot of questions will probably find they think they've asked all they want to know, and then a day or two later, more questions will come into their mind. She says people should accept this, since recovery from an affair can be a slow process, not something that can happen instantly.

She says the betrayed spouse will probably want to talk about the affair more than the one who was unfaithful, because the one who had the affair might be ashamed of it and remorseful, and feel as if they're having their nose rubbed in it every time their partner raises the issue.

They might wish their partner would just be able to forget the past and move on. But she says that although eventually that will need to happen for the marriage to heal, it can't happen in the early stages when a person's only recently learned about the affair. The healing can't be rushed.

So she says that if the spouse who was unfaithful is giving the other one a hard time about talking about the affair all the time, the betrayed partner should tell them that it's a necessary part of the healing process, although it should only be a temporary one.

So perhaps you ought to say that kind of thing to your husband.

The author says that if the betrayed partner asks questions, they should resist the temptation to attack their partner when they answer, since bitterly criticizing or that kind of thing can put people on the defensive, and the last thing the betrayed partner will want is for the one who had the affair to defend their behaviour. So she advises that the betrayed partner just listens to the other one talk, and then maybe tells them that though they are very angry about their behaviour, they appreciate the fact that they've decided to be open and honest about what's been going on now. She says that while the betrayed partner won't like what they're hearing, the fact that the other one is now talking ought to be recognised as a good thing, since it means they care enough about the feelings of the hurt spouse to answer their questions, even though they'd prefer not to talk about it.

So I know you said you're very angry with your husband, but things will probably work best if you can try your hardest to listen without expressing anger towards him when he tells you things. I know me and my husband had some hurtful rows before I started doing that.

I hope things work out, whether you decide to ask him more questions or not.