A woman who has felt betrayed, and who has shut down emotionally because of that betrayal, simply does not trust anymore. There are a few things that you can do to help mend the relationship:

1) Check your own motivations.
Learn to understand yourself. Many times people are acting on impulse. But if you pay attention to your impulses, you can find the underlying truth to why you are doing certain things. Why do you "act out"? What are you looking for? What voids are missing? Identify the feelings. Are you: sad, lonely, depressed, frustrated, happy, celebratory, etc.? Unhealthy behaviors are connected to a wide range of emotions. And so, it is important to know oneself.

2) Pay attention to your wife's needs and strive to please her.
Listen to her for the purpose of truly understanding what she is saying. Let her know that you hear her and that you care about what she is talking about. Buy her her favorite gourmet coffee. Call her on your way home from work and ask her if there is anything that she needs. Go straight home after work and spend time with your wife - not buttering her up for sex, though. Spend time with her because you truly appreciate her and because she is important to you.

Note: Don't dramatically change your behavior. Use this information and apply these tips in a way that ring true for you and your relationship.

3) Require/expect nothing in return.
Do not act or speak in a way that even remotely suggests sexual activity. If you do, you are basically suggesting that there is a price for the things that you do for your wife. Not a good message to be sending, or to subtly subscribe to.

4) Be consistent with steps 1-3.
Remember that these steps, in and of themselves, will not fix your relationship, but they will serve the purpose of breaking down those walls so that your wife is more likely to begin communicating with you again.

5) If the issues have been severe enough, I would highly recommend that, in addition to these steps, that you both engage in individual and couples counseling. Individual counseling is important to help heal the individual. Couples counseling is for the relationship that the two people share. But if two people are unhealthy and trying to engage in a relationship, there is no way that that relationship will be healthy. The two participants in the relationship have to be healthy in order to make the relationship healthy.

Thank you for the insight Alyssa. It helps. I made the mistake of slacking off on my sobriety plan. I havnt acted out or had urges but the idea that I put in minimum effort and then forget about it is a pattern I don't want to continue. I agree therapy is what I need/want. The cost is prohibitive right now unfortunately.

I truly appreciate that you are putting in the effort into understanding your wife's trauma and being honest about your situation. It shows a lot of growth on your part in learning to empathize and feeling remorse. First I'd say look up the definition of empathy and remorse and research what those words mean. I say this because I've learned in my experience and with other spouses, our SA husbands do not fully understand either and confuse remorse with regret or empathy with sympathy. In learning about SA husbands that were successful in their recovery and with recovering their marriages, they were only successful when really taking the time to learn, understand, and work at remorse and empathy.

I would also recommend the book candycin mentioned. The authors of this book are changing the the way spouses of SA's were originally treat from the co-addict model to the trauma model. Look online for counselors that use the trauma model.

I found one for my husband and I to go to where I live. They also focus on the SA. We were able to have our own individual counselors. They even have counselors for children. Finding a place that focuses on the trauma model and that has counselors to meet each family members individual needs is the best thing you can do. Also, the counselors get to know you and can collaborate on how to best treat you individually and as a whole. Counseling is not cheap, I know. Most people don't know that they can ask counselors to discount the cost. Be honest about your situation personally and financially. The worst they can say is no. I good place will help you out bc their main concern is your recovery and wife's healing from trauma. My place cut the price in half!! A huge blessing!

With trying to understand your wife, it's important to realize and always remember that she has been dealing with trauma for quite some time and every indiscretion, every fight, every that may have made her feel dismissed, unsafe, unloved, disrespected, not valued, etc has only added to her trauma. It's also imperative that you realize trauma causes PTSD. Every flashback further traumatized her. Even good memories are triggers because they all feel like lies and are plagued with her painful reality. Realize that her hope and dreams have been shattered. Her normal and healthy expectations for your marriage together for a healthy marriage are gone. She's hanging on to hope and looking to YOU to give her some glimmer of hope. It's absolutely imperative that you realize that she does not feel safe with you. I don't say all this to add your guilt and shame, but you will never overcome your addiction and the guilt and shame for feel for having the addiction and for hurting your family if you do not face these truths. Avoiding any of this will only add to her hurt and keep you from overcoming all this and becoming the man you so desperately wish to be and can be.

Remember that your addiction is no longer your cross to bear, but hers as well. Do everything and join everything you can while including her every step of the way. Give her space to heal, but just as enough to not feel abandoned. She has been dealing with abandonment long enough. She may even feel crazy or stupid for not abandoning the marriage after all the time you have. Again, not saying this to hurt you, but to give you insight on how she more than likely feels.

Make time for her. Research how to built real intimacy that does not include sex. Intimacy is trusting, loving, loyal relationship with your best friend, confidant, and most trusted advisor. She needs to know you have her back. You're the man that vowed to love her forever and protect fiercely. So do whatever it takes to protect her now by fighting like hell to learn, grow, and overcome while including her. Open up to her. She will never trust you if she feels like you are withholding, hiding, or avoiding. She will only feel more abandoned.

Tell her your thoughts, your feelings, your fears. Share with her what you are learning and talking about in counseling. Share with her what you are learning about her trauma and needs as you wife, a woman, and a human being. She will never start trusting you if you she feels you're closed off. Trust her to share your innermost thoughts. The majority of wives want their husbands to be strong enough to take the lead. Of course we want to be strong to, but we want our husbands to be strong men of value and moral character who lead with kindness, respect, love, humbleness, and humility with sound judgment and discernment.

Show her you're fighting like hell to win her back the right way as well as win in overcoming your addiction. Show her patience. Listen to her and ask her how what she's saying makes her feel or what she thinks and not just when discussing your problems, but on anything she discusses or confides in you with. She wants a trusting friendship. Show interest in her and in her interests. Inquire and listen so your conversations and interactions will be richer. As you start to gain her trust, she'll start to feel safe with you as her husband and in th marriage. She'll also start feeling better about herself and her self esteem will start to improve. Her self esteem has been shattered, she's traumatized, depressed, angry, anxious, and has shame and guilt of her own from all of this. All these things keep her from reaching her full potential is every aspect of life.

Remember that you both are sharing many of the same emotions. Some for different reasons and some for the same. Find understanding in each other by sharing your emotions with her and provide a safe place for her do to the same. Remember that she wants many of the same things you do so trust her to share your life so she can trust you to share hers. Think of what you want from a wife, from your companion and realize she wants the same. Address her needs. Be gentle and understanding. You must be patient with her and not expect her to warm up even if you've been doing the right things and recovering without relapse for while. Don't expect her to be your cheerleader if you're not treating he like your wife and like an human being should be treated. Remember that she is exhausted mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, which can take a huge role physically. She's drained from the shock and pain with the reality of he life and marriage.

Don't expect her to give to you when she's struggling to give to herself and children if you have them. You can make a withdrawal if nothing was deposited. She's pouring from an empty cup. Don't expect her to be overjoyed with minimal effort or respond to you the way you want her to if you're not fighting like hell. You both are in a war battling against many demons. Put your amor on and defend what's yours.

Basically, don't have any unrealistic and unfair expectations of how she should handle you and your addiction. Any expectations you have of her you need to also have of yourself. Your wife married you having expectations of herself on how to grow a marriage and thought you had the same expectations of yourself so you could grow your marriage together. The disappointment in that this was not the case causes her a lot of pain. She thought you were on the same page and both willing to give the same effort. Recognize she hurts from this.

This next one is huge! Remember she has forgiven you for a lot and has had to do so many times. There are many things that she has not yet been able to forgive. She may very likely resent you. Show her forgiveness when her trauma is too much to bear and becomes angry or resentful. Forgive her when she does not trust you. Forgive her things left undone bc she was to exhausted. Forgive and keep forgiving. You may find that you can start forgiving yourself and she will start responding by forgiving you. Let her be angry, sad, and devastated. Never stop her process in coping.

Show her the oneness you long to give her by taking her pain in whatever form that comes out no matter how hard it is for you or how much it hurts. She'll never trust you or open up to you if you meet her moments of unbearable despair with minimizing ,being dismissive, becoming angry and argumentative, passive, blaming her or passing blame. Take ownership of her trauma and prove to her you're holding yourself accountable by letting her be hurt and getting it out in way she needs to with kindness and patience, and without opinions on what you think she should do, how you think she should react, or how you think she should be handling it. Any opinions on the matter is selfish and only another way to avoid the situation and removing responsibility of what's been done to her.

My last tidbit is this, do unto her as you would have her do unto you. This is the best expectation you can have of yourself.

I know this was a lot, but this is what us spouses long for when trying to continue in the marriage. Husbands that learned all these things experienced success in overcoming their addiction because learning these things made them grow as a person who would never want to disrespect themselves or anyone else in that way let alone the people they love most. The spouses of wives who learned these things found healing and forgiveness. Both spouses finally found and kept the marriage and oneness they always longed for. Keep fighting for both of you! You can do this!!

ChrissyE wow amazing advice. So many addicts (and more often because of untrained therapists) fall into the co-dependent model of how to rebuild a marriage after SA is discovered. The facility were my husband attended inpatient treatment has changed their model to the trauma model and the success rate for sobriety is higher as well as the percentage of marriages lasting after discovery.