I am the one who cheated on my spouse.  I believe I have a serious problem....but due to finances, I can't get any help!  I'm trying hard to read everything I can, but I know my spouse doesn't believe I'm really working at it.  It is so frustrating..... 

Time does help. Not time alone, but time that is taken up with the hard work of building a new life together. In the beginning, when the pain was unbearable, I wanted an answer for 'how long' it would last...when would I --- or could I ---ever feel normal again...was it possible not to either hurt or rage. I got answers such as "for as long as the affair lasted' (I despaired; I couldn't bear to feel this way for over 3 years!!) to 18 months as a magic figure for recovery. My experience is that the first year after the revelation was the most difficult because I had to live through the significant moments of that year with the knowledge that one and two and three years previous, those same birthday celebrations, family vacations, Christmas mornings were a lie; my husband had been unfaithful through each of those precious events. Eyes now open to the sham my life had been, all special memories were a brutal twist in the fresh wound and I began to dread any approaching holiday. But we were very conscious that, in that first year, despite all of the weeping and howling and gnashing of teeth, we had to create new traditions and significant moments. We changed the way we did vacations. We celebrated special days with new traditions. We took lots of photos. We crowded the year with new and good memories. The second year was easier, now that we had this buffer between the painful past and our new life together. It's been 3 years now and because we did enough that was constructive in that time, I can say that the pain of the betrayal is less and less a part of our daily lives, unlike the first 12 months. Time, filled with new love and the grueling task of forgiveness, stuffed full of deliberate efforts to change and recreate one's marriage, can heal the cruelest of wounds.

This article is so right, time heals all wounds but depends on how you use the time! your Affair Recovery website and letters helps really..Thanks and God bless your intention to help and guide people recover from broken relationships and become better at relating from their experience.

When I heard it takes around 18 months to get through this horrible ordeal, I almost felt that I couldn't make it that long. But now close to two years later, I am very thankful and happy most of the time. There are triggers but they are becoming less and less. The first year was very hard. The relationship we have now is a healthy one. We have both spent time working on ourselves individually and as a couple. The one thing that helped me the most was leaning on God. He carried me through this ordeal and I am so thankful!

I am very fresh in this process.  Less than 10 weeks since my most recent discovery, however, this is one of many cheating instances we have gone through.   My partner has been cheating essentially since the day we met.     I have managed to forgive and move on each time until now.   This time the realization that he has a serious problem has hit me.  Everything I ever seen in him or believed about him has died and has to be rediscovered and rebuilt.   Some will never be the same.   Some will be better.   It is encouraging to read the posts and articles about so many people who have recovered and have better relationships.   For me, at this early stage, one of my biggest frustrations and sources of anger is his need to feel like things are ok.   They are not ok. They are far from ok.   While I desperately want to feel normal and I usually manage from day to day to act as though things are normal and to work hard at building new moments and memories,  he always manages to seem suprised and wounded when triggers occure or when I can't muster up the "feel good" "loving" attitude enough for his fragile security.   I resent that he put us here and yet I feel like it is my job to push the healing along as fast as possible so that he can feel safe and secure.    I also resent that he feels that because he is finally making an effort to learn why he does what he does that I should somehow feel miraculously better about what he has done or the lie our life now feels like to me.    

  My point in posting is to confirm that though time may heal all wounds, it is definitely what you do with the time that matters.   For those of us who have been cheated on,  it takes a LOT of time,  and a LOT of different milestones and trust building acts before we can begin to tear through the walls of anger and fear.   It is unfair to expect us to be the source of comfort and security for those who made choices to cheat in our relationships and it is unfair to expect us to maintain a constant loving spirit or sense of normalcy, no matter how much you want for us to be able to or want for us to believe in your again.   We NEED time to grieve and go through the stages of grief.   We NEED you to be strong enough to watch and feel us grieve and comfort us instead of wanting us to reassure you.   We know it takes two.  We know we have to forgive and move on.  We know we have to learn to believe in you and have faith in you.   But please please do NOT expect that to happen in the course of weeks, or even months.   We NEED To talk about it, face it, be angry about it and be sad over it, NOT to begin sweeping it under the rug days or weeks after it comes out into the open.

  We have dozens even hundreds of questions we need answered to help us come to terms and find understanding.  To know our roles and to also realize those things we never had control of.   I know that it is uncomfortable and painful to have the same discussions over and over.  I know that you cherish the good days between us and you don't want them to slip away and return to conflict and pain,  but you are chipping away at any foundation we will ever rebuild when you force our healing into overdrive just to make yourself comfortable.  When you feel warm and fuzzy that we have had a week straight of "normal" days, we may hurt inside because the source of our deepest pain feels like it is being avoided.   When you want to profess that you are a new and different person,  we most likely question the validity of that based on how willing or unwilling you have been to face what you have done.   If you are avoiding our pain,  it is very likely you are avoiding the truth about who and what you have been and that affects who you will be.   It's only logical that those things may also affect our ability to believe you will be anything different or whether we can be safe in a relationship with you or whether we must accept that your weaknesses may always require immediate comfort and or gratification from another person.   In short,  you have to build the foundation first if you want us to have faith in the security and stability of who you are.  

   I may be looking at this from the wrong perspective or maybe I am too freshly immersed in the deception and betrayal that rocked our world but I think there are others like me.  Who are weeks into the journey or even a year into the journey who feel this same frustration and sense of being caged in by our cheating spouses desperate and emotional neediness for us to heal and forget.    We read these articles that tell us rage is not the right response and that it all centers on forgiveness and we feel desperately trapped by it all.    I can not stress enough that time is of course specific to each individual but it is crucial not to rush it in those first few months to year.   Time is exactly what it is going to take.  Time and EFFORT,  not time and avoidance or time and insistance or time and pleading.   Time and EFFORT,  real proof of change, real proof of understanding.    And our needing that time does not indicate the incapacity to forgive or an unwillingness to forgive that you may want to believe it indicates.   It means we are human beings who need to grieve and that perhaps some of our cheating spouses are placing unrealistic expectations on us about how we are suppose to go about that.    And some of our spouses are being selfish in wanting to avoid the pain and the process in order to feel normal, comfortable and secure about themselves and their future.    I may be wrong but I do not believe that any amount of time will heal what has been broken when approached in that manner.

It has now been 7 years since my husband confessed that he had an affair, we struggled through 12 months of pain, poor advice, anger and hurt. Mostly trying to decide whether to remain in the marriage. Added with an alcohol problem, it was a very draining time, while he decided which women to stay with. It was very destructive. I then took our 2 young children and went back to my family. I spent 12 months with them. It was the best thing I did, giving us time to talk in a safe environment and to take the pressure off. I told him he had to make some decisions and changes before i would come back, if that was his choice. He visited frequently. I came back to our home with our 3rd child. Now 5 years after returning i am so glad that i tried and continued to walk through the process. Many of our friends did not understand how i could remain with him, but today the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Being willing to allow each other to move through the different steps is so important. My Dad gave me some advice that really helped. He said "Don't keep Him in a box, don't keep looking at him as unchangeable, allow him the grace to change." It is so hard when someone has hurt you and you loose your trust in them to accept that they have changed. Pretty words are not enough. There must be the fruit of repentance. A change in behaviour. Mostly now when i look back i see how much has changed but that is the privilege of hindsight, but you need time to see it. My biggest help came from God. He really is the only one who knows everything about your situation. So many issues came to light through out our process, for each of us many issues really had nothing to do with each other but pain from our pasts. Now i know that much of our success was because we were both willing to take the time and not give up. Willing to give time to each other, and to trust God to help us.

I am a man who was betrayed. The betrayal is pretty recent. The discovery even more recent. And, worst of all, my wife doesn't seem to want to reconcile. And, as a Christian myself, I have asked the question that most are afraid to ask: "Where is God in all of this?" I have read the comments from the women who are betrayed, and they all seem to praise God for being there for them. I do not doubt that He was, nor do I really doubt that He is with me now. But, really, I feel a terrible sense of loss, and I have forgiven my wife...and I still love her, despite the damage, pain, anguish, and the work of healing we must endure now because of her betrayal. But, I have been asking where God is in all of this. I am so broken and so lost for any kind of footing...it seems, though God obviously knows about my situation, I feel He isn't doing anything to help it heal. At least all of you have a spouse that is willing to come back to the marriage after their betrayals. At this juncture, mine does not. It may be too early to tell for me right now...she may just be offering bluster...but I am having to forgive a spouse that may not want to be forgiven. This is like an amputation. Will I live? Yes.but I'd rather have my arm back...even if it is limited in it's ability to use. God will heal me...but I would rather have my wife back. Is ti so wrong to question God in this time? It is bad enough to have your emotions out of control, your manhood (or womanhood) stripped from you, self-worth reduced, your pain going straight to your bones...and now your faith is shaken. I feel betrayed by my wife...and yet trapped because I don't seem to trust God like I once did.

Wow! Although I am very new to this entire process, I can SO identify with so many of the posts. I can take bits and pieces and put them all together to fit my circumstances. I am still in the tunnel of disbelief, sorrow, anguish and apprehension as to where this will end up. My faith has kept me strong, but I find myself weakening, especially when distrust enters time and again, mostly due to the indecision I see in him. He is SAYING he wants to stay and work, but does not seem committed to DO the work it will take to move forward. I do not expect an overnight change...I know it will take YEARS to rebuild what has been destroyed, but I know this will take outside help and work...hard work to ever be restored. The question has been asked, what do you get by staying? My prayer is that with help (God's and counseling) and a changed heart, we can have a better life than ever before. I am trying so hard to hold on to this.

I am 9 days into discovery. Unfortunately, tho he says he wants to save our marriage, he "can't remember" the details. Will he ever or has he "buried the details" forever?

My wife left me 6 weeks ago, and I found out she was having an affair about a week later. We were married 14 years, knew each other for 16. After she left, she went into hiding, and didn't respond to calls or messages from family and friends. When I discovered who she was having an affair with, I texted her his name - and she responded "so now you know why I had to leave". I wanted to work on our marriage. Only a week before she left, we had a good conversation about steps we could take to strengthen our marriage. We made a plan together. Things were going to change. But a week later, she left. Every time I bring up forgiveness, and reconciliation she is not interested. She continues to see the new person. We have signed a separation agreement, and are selling the house. I am living in an apartment on my own now.

I have been battling depression for a long time, and she was always complaining about my physical appearance. She found someone who was an alpha male, physically fit, and she wanted to get sexual satisfaction from that. I feel abandoned, deeply hurt, and initially thought perhaps a friendship could be salvaged. However, all I feel is hate for her now. I never want to see her again. She broke a sacred promise to stay together through good times and bad, sickness and health - and lied to me as the affair was going on ( it started 3 months before she left).

In my opinion, our marriage was amazing 90 percent of the time. The last 6 months my depression was really bad. We dealt with so much together. Family loss, infertility, supporting each other through university. I thought this experience with the affair could be overcome, and it would make our marriage stronger. You go through a lot in 16 years - and now we basically can't talk anymore in a matter of a couple months. In my situation, there is no hope of getting back together, or getting over the affair. She is just not interested. I need to cut her out of my life, and move on. Maybe some day, she will feel regret, but for my to stop hurting, I needed to stop communication and block her out. After all, she doesn't deserve my friendship after what she did.

If there is one lesson I can take away from this experience, it is that a depressed spouse in a marriage can recover. I have an amazing support network, including my family doctor, friends, family, and some treatments for the depression. Despite what has happened, I feel great and am optimistic about the future - however I do think that my marriage didn't need to end and the problems were totally manageable. In the end, I will only see it as a tragedy.