Healing from Infidelity

What does it take to heal from infidelity? There are many turning points and “ah ha” moments along that way that change the course of one’s feelings, thoughts and perhaps the course itself of the infidelity.

Here are some comments from readers of Break Free From the Affair as they relay their turning points or insights that accelerated their healing from infidelity.

I am still reading and rereading your book. I have learned a lot about the different types of affairs and am grateful to discover that my husband’s truly was a one-time episode and has a very good prognosis. I am an RN married to a psychologist. I found your book after I had already discovered the affair, and had unfortunately gone through many of the behavioral ‘mistakes’ you described. I now realize how those behaviors only made things worse. I felt like I didn’t even know who he was after 23 years of marriage. But in our situation, when my medical results from testing I had (after he had assured me I ‘didn’t need to have anything done’) came back positive, I was so glad I had finally made the choice to take care of myself. This gave me the strength to realize and tell him that, whether we stayed together or not, I would come out of this okay- more than that, I would continue to relearn how to take care of myself and become the stronger person that I knew was inside of me – a better role model for our children. With that medical news he suddenly discovered the ripple effect of his actions and how he actually had put my life in danger. In doing so he, literally overnight in our case, rediscovered his conscience, broke off contact with his OP (who lives in a distant state) after sharing the medical news as mandated by the situation and has recommitted himself to our marriage and our family. As you say, I always lived by the mistaken belief that taking care of myself was ‘selfish’. I began individual counseling and have thus far made a great deal of progress in the areas of self esteem and assertiveness. I am making the decision daily to forgive my husband, to stay in this relationship, and together we are pledging to rebuild our marriage to be better than it ever was before. I am discovering that these decisions do get easier as the months go by. So far he is living up to this commitment and continues working hard to rebuild the trust in our relationship.

Charging neutral seems to be very effective. This is not my preferred communication style, although it should be.

– realized it was much more complex than I originally thought – gave different persectives to help frame the reason behind the affair