Writings of an experience at The Infidelity Recovery Centre ....
From the people I talk to this comes up a lot. Their spouse will say this to them when they voice that they are still hurting over the affair. They will say they are still in pain over the affair and maybe the affair ended over a year or two years ago. Their spouse will then say to them, “But, I’m not doing it now.” Like we shouldn’t be in pain over something they are no longer doing.
I heard a story today that I really liked. Say you were severely burned causing you tremendous pain over a large part of your body. You end up in the hospital burn unit for months. To heal from this takes a LONG time. Would you really say to this person that you can clearly see is in pain, “Why are you in pain? No body is burning you now?” That would be ridiculous! Recovering from affairs is like recovering from burns. It’s a LONG SLOW PAINFUL process that one just doesn’t get over just because they aren’t doing it right now. And in it’s wake is left many scars.
The Wayward spouse needs to realize this point. We aren’t just going to “get over it” or sweep it under the rug. It takes YEARS to get over an affair. I’m talking over 3!!!! You can’t expect someone only one and a half years out from D-Day to just be “fine”. This just isn’t going to happen. At one year out I was still in pain EVERY DAY!! I was depressed, angry, hurting, devastated, etc. Was an emotional mess most of this year. I couldn’t focus on anything. Had to go on med’s just to function.
At 2 years out I was still VERY angry, mean, had my wall up, wouldn’t let him back into my heart, felt NO love for him at all, would have gladly left him if it wasn’t for the kids, and was still in pain at times. At times I think I really did hate him.
At 3 years out I was finally getting better. I didn’t have as much anger, I wasn’t nearly as depressed, my wall was about half down, we are starting to get along better, I have way more good days then bad ones, I’m still not “in love” with him but I don’t hate him either.
Today marks my 4th year. I found out on July 21, 2004. Today is MUCH better. I am not angry, we can talk about the affair without pain and anger. I can talk about it without getting upset or getting depressed. I am still working on letting down my wall and letting him back fully into my heart. I am still not “in love” with him like I want to be. You know the romantic heart swelling kind. I’m hoping that at year 5 I can say that I am truly in love with my husband that way. I got for DAYS without even thinking about the affair. When we do have disagreements it’s never about the affair and we hardly ever talk about it anymore.
I truly believe that it takes well over 3 years to FULLY recover from an affair. Now, everyone is different and has a different healing timeline. We did have counseling on and off during this time. We did the first whole year but not so much after that. Maybe had we done some things differently my timeline would be different. Not feeling “in love” with my husband does bother me, but I think I’m still blocking those feelings because I may believe that if I feel those feelings again then I’m saying that his affair was okay with me. I have to get past this belief and then I believe I will have those feelings for him again. I do plan on working on that this year because I do want those heart swelling feelings of love again.
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