I have been here too long, haven't I?

I feel like this is the 100th time I've seen this question. Maybe 1000th.

Lola, it may help you to use a sort of metaphor when thinking about infidelity. It helped me.

Imagine that you and your husband were in a car crash and your husband was the driver. Your car and the affair partner's car crashed into each other. The other woman was driving saw the collision coming. Your husband was driving and saw the collision coming. Yet neither did anything to swerve or stop it from happening - or if they did it was clearly not enough.

Now, everyone is banged up and bruised. Everyone. Even the affair partner. But YOU took the brunt of the damage. You didn't even know it was going to happen until you woke up bloody and broken and with bits of glass in your hair.

This isn't a 100% accurate comparison, but bear with me, yes?

OK, so now... you know your husband and this other woman knew what was happening. They were the drivers. They saw this coming. This is THEIR FAULT. THEY did this to you! Ammaright? Holla! Except... geeze, they weren't even thinking of you. It was never about YOU. It was about them being asshat drivers and ignoring everyone and everything else around them. They were making selfish choices that ended up in a LOT of people being hurt.

So how do you heal from that?

First of all, the best/fastest way to recovery if you stay with your spouse is to have the unfaithful spouse become the primary healer. The person who, metaphorically, cleans out these wounds and dresses them - EVEN WHEN IT HURTS YOU. And it will hurt to clean out those wounds. Believe me. It hurts like crazy to have your husband of (in my case) 16 years tell you, "Well, I DO love you, I never STOPPED loving you, but I don't really KNOW you anymore. I don't even think I like you." It hurts to hear the answers to your questions about how/when/why/who. It hurts to be betrayed. It hurts to feel inadequate. It hurts to be unsure of the future and unclear of what the past really was.

That pain is the initial pain of healing up. But it's only the beginning. Again: car crash. You have to heal from broken bones and deep cuts before you can think about physical therapy. Right? And a lot of that is just sitting around and waiting for the dust to settle. Waiting for the triggers to be less potent. Waiting for your own internal emotional roller coaster to be hills and valleys instead of loopdeloops. Yes?

But then you have to start the physical therapy. You have to reteach yourself to do the things that just came naturally before the accident. You have to LEARN to love, to trust, to share, to communicate all over again - and this time - you have to do it even better than before the accident.

So how do you do that?

Some people get out of the car and say adieu - see ya forever, chump. You suck at driving and I refuse to be in a car with you ever again.

Some betrayed spouses stay in the car, clutching the dashboard, constantly tensed waiting for the next collision. They live in fear but they do nothing, say nothing, change nothing. Maybe they think, "I don't want to walk home, so I HAVE to ride with this maniac!" or maybe they think, "I still love him (her) and I believe this was entirely an accident, so maybe if I just pretend everything is ok we can just keep going and nothing bad will happen!" Or maybe they think nothing because they're so in shock all they can do is shut up, sit down, and hold on for dear life.

Then there are those of us who are like, "Babe, I love ya. Seriously. But you NEED to learn to freaking drive." They learn to say, "I appreciate you taking the wheel, but this is a partnership and we need to make this trip TOGETHER. They figure out where the weaknesses are and where the strengths are in each individual and together as a couple and they learn to teamwork their way to a place even better than before the affair.

We chose that option. Because I do love my husband - and he does love me. We just were really, really bad at marriage. (That's just us - not everyone who finds themselves in this situation is/was!)

It took me awhile to learn that to forgive is not to condone. Just because I was willing to *let go* didn't mean I was excusing his choices or that I would EVER be OK with them. It also didn't mean that just because I forgave him that I was perfectly OK and healed. No. It just meant that I no longer blamed him and that I was willing to move forward.

I hope Cole will share a link to his article he wrote about different types of loves. It actually really, REALLY helped me when it came to understanding the ways I love(d) my husband and the ways I stopped loving him during different periods of our life. It helped me to understand agape love much better - to understand unconditional love (and nestled in there - forgiveness!) in a way I didn't before.

I have made grievous errors in my marriage and in my life. Things that some might think unforgivable. I have been unkind. I have yelled at my husband. Called him names. I have thrown things at him. I have neglected him. I have put others before him (friends and family and even our kids.) I am not proud of these things. (And please don't misunderstand me, I am not correlating those to his affair! His affair was HIS choice!) No, I am just saying, I AM NOT PERFECT. I am flawed. And he has loved me and stood by me, anyway. He has helped me to overcome my anger issues. He has helped me to be a better person.

Why wouldn't I want to do the same for him?

Empathy is a huge help in moving forward and finding your way through forgiveness.

Also... and I was just saying this to someone else recently: recovery from infidelity is NOT a linear path. Cole and Gabi have been model citizens in their journey to recovery, yet even they have had backslide moments where things were difficult or frustrating or sad. You will not move from points A to B to C flawlessly, effortlessly, and gracefully. You will trip, stumble, fumble, and sometimes you might even fall. You might be GREAT - truly great! - for months, and then have a rough day. It's ok. It really is.

This is your journey. You will find your way. I truly believe that as long as you're both in charge of the car ride together as partners and as long as you both take driving lessons (and lessons in being a supportive passenger when it's your turn!) the forgiveness will come. I won't say "naturally" - I do believe there has to be some sort of recovery plan in place, but what that plan is will be customized to YOU and your husband and your personal journey.

Good luck to you both.

(holy cow... I go quite for months and then barf all over... sorry for being so long!)

The article Allora mentioned can be found here.

http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2014/03/am-i-in-love.html

I also wrote an article titled "Healing Infidelity Through Forgiveness"

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/healing-infidelity-through-faith/news/view/4055904

The short answer is yes you can forgive despite the pain. Hopefully the above two articles will provide context for you. Feel free to ask any questions about it.

Thank you, Cole. I am a lazy bum and didn't want to hunt it down.

:)

Forgive? Why do you feel you have to forgive?

I have not forgiven my H. I never will.

If he wants forgiveness, he better find Jesus.

I do not think forgiveness should even be an issue here. This behavior is UN-forgiveable!!

My H and I are still together. He still works with the OW although he swears he is maintaining
no contact other than essential work issues. My H and I are getting along. His ugly treatment
of me has stopped. The MC said she is impressed with our progress. So, I guess one could
say things are good. But I will never forgive him.

I do not think you need to forgive to "move on" and "heal". I agree that if you stay married, that the cheater
is the one who helps you heal. My H does get that, thankfully.

For me, my H's actions, his decisions changed me forever. I had no say, no vote in this. I don't like these changes, I didn't want these changes to happen. I don't want to live this way. I feel like he kicked me into a dark crevasse and left me to find my way out and deal with all the repercussions. Then once I started to see
a glimmer of daylight, he realizes that I have evidence of his actions. I can show that to management, and he and his bitch will be ruined and disgraced by their own actions. Then I get his help to get out of the crevasse. He knows he's put himself in a real fix. Now he has to decide what he's going to do. He should have thought that way first. It's far worse than that, of course.

So why am I forgiving him?

For me forgiveness applies to the Law of Unintended Consequences. So someone is driving along, texting, and hits and kills someone. That's an accident. The loved ones of the victim are free to forgive and it would help them probably. That I get.

We went out to dinner. I was wearing a new and very expensive jacket. The waitress spilled a full glass of
red wine down my back. I was wet, my jacket might be ruined. Do I forgive her? Sure. It's an accident.
I asked for and received money for dry cleaning. I'll ask for reimbursement if that doesn't work. No problem.
It's inconvenient, sure, but there is nothing to be gained by holding on to negative feelings about what happened.

But infidelity? And in my case, I know the bitch OW, too. My H and I even went to her wedding years ago. I'll never forgive either one of them, ever. I pray daily that karma has something very powerful in store for them both.

I am sure they would love to be forgiven. Gets them off the hook. What do I gain? Absolutely nothing.
They are still on that hook. And they put themselves there. Let them own their actions and everything
that comes with it.

Oh My, forgiveness is a must. There are so many reasons.
1. It is supposed to give YOU a place to start healing. UN-forgiveness multiplies back on itself with ever increasing anger (which is actually a reaction to the pain).
2. Forgiveness does NOT excuse what the person did. It does not let them off the hook. But it is letting God - or Karma - settle the score.
3. Personally, after a good friend of ours died suddenly (a year post DDay), I did not want to die without telling the love of my life that I was at least beginning to forgive him. That does not mean I no longer hurt or get angry and resentful. It means that he is a good man who made a dreadful mistake (ONCE in our then 39 years of marriage).
He IS a good man. What he did changed our relationship forever. IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.
But >> we have learned new communication skills. We have learned to openly and frequently validate, and appreciate each other.
Dalege, the OW in my case was also 'supposed' good friend. The pain is so deep and immense, I know I will NEVER heal. I have spent so much time and energy reliving that time of our lives - and played many, many scenarios of how I'd catch them - or get even with her. I had to stop that and finally forgive them - for my own sake. It's one of those "God - or Karma - will get even." I have all I can do to take care of myself and my H. By the way - the hole in my heart - my soul - is either getting smaller - or a bridge, or path around it is being built - but sometimes the 'walls around it" cave in and it is ripped wide open again. I hope this makes sense.

I agree with everyone who says that forgiveness has to take place eventually if you want to move on from this. Not really sure *how* it happens, but for me I eventually put it all back on his side of the fence where it belongs and decided its up to God to sort it out with him. It's no longer my responsibility to carry it around, try to fix it, or try to figure out the "why" of it all. He did it because he wanted to, and he has to figure out what that means.

You can forgive the person without excusing the act. But to carry it around with you? It will just wear you down emotionally and keep the anger there. I got to the point where I was just tired of dealing with it and examining the situation from every conceivable angle.

When you don't forgive you remain bitter, and that's fine if you never have to see that person again. But when that person is your spouse, and you can't find it to forgive them, then there are unresolved issues.

Forgiveness enables clarity. All the weight of ill thoughts dissipate. You are free to think with a clear mind without any poisonous residue.

In order to forgive, you must eliminate all doubt, fear, and grief. If he still works with the other woman, that's a reason you cannot move forward. He is still in contact with her and as long as that remains, I doubt you will be able to forgive him.

You will have to establish a new relationship, one that's based on equal trust and caring.

The only remedy I see here is that he start looking for a new job with another company and have no contact with the OW. If he can do that for you, and start a new life together without the triggers of the OW, I think you might find it to forgive him, and have a very fulfilling future.

It starts by remembering you're forgiven.