What Now?
This is part six of my story of recovering from my wife’s affair and rebuilding our marriage. If you haven’t already, please start at the beginning with part one.
So. Where do we go from here?
I started writing all of this just a few days after I found out. I’ve revisited it almost every day since then, re-reading, making edits, adding on. As I write this, tomorrow will be two weeks since that Thursday morning when I discovered her affair and confronted her.
I initially started writing after realizing how rare our experience had been so far. We hadn’t fought over the affair, we had barely raised our voices at one another. We weren’t growing apart — far from it. As we dealt with the aftermath of this, we seemed to be growing closer than ever. I can say that for me, I feel as in love with her as I’ve felt since we were dating, with that thrill of newness from back then replaced with the deep connection provided by our shared experiences of the past twenty-five years.
I can’t say for sure whether she feels exactly that. I hope she feels something similar. I feel like she does.
That being said, we still have a lot to work through. I have things that I’m not sure how to get over. How do I get rid of the horribly upsetting thoughts and images that pop into my head? They do so less frequently now than they did two weeks ago, but I still don’t want them bouncing around my brain forever.
How do I know going forward how she feels? How do I rebuild my confidence that she loves me? How do we both work to rebuild my trust in her? How do I ever get rid of the nagging feeling — baseless as it may be — that I’m being compared to the other guy?
How does my wife work through her guilt and shame? How does she put this behind her and rebuild her self esteem better than it was before? What else does she need to work through that maybe she hasn’t even shared with me?
What underlying causes of the distance between us leading up to this do we still need to address?
These questions are why we start marriage counseling soon. I think it’s really going to help us. Even without it, I’m already more optimistic about our relationship going forward than I have been in a long time. I know we have something really special, something most people never find.
I know it’s something worth fighting for, something worth all of the effort we’re putting in now and will continue to put in. I feel hopeful, optimistic… excited, even, about our future together. So many great things to look forward to: traveling, seeing our kids move into adulthood, having grandkids, who knows what other adventures.
For the first time in a long time, I’m really looking forward to experiencing all of that with the love of my life.
