A man had revealed how he felt after forgiving his cheating wife. He wrote, After five years of marriage, my wife revealed to me that she had two sexual experiences with another man and had been cheating emotionally with him for several months. I was unbelievably hurt and angry and a thousand other feelings passed in and out of my life. In the end, I determined in the deepest part of my soul to forgive her.
She also still wanted to make things work and we began a long process of trying to fix everything she’d broken. It largely worked! I think there will still be scars on my heart and in our marriage until the day we die but it has been more than three years and things are still improving. We have a beautiful new baby. There are still struggles and emotional difficulties between us but, by and large, life is on an upswing.
But I need to make sure you understand something. I love my wife more than ever I thought I could love another human being. If my love had not been so deep and so absolute, I would’ve left without hesitation. Our first child also influenced my decision; I didn’t want that child to grow up with divorced parents. I am glad for these influences because I still have the woman I love with all my heart and all my soul and she’s still the light and love of my life.
But my deep love and trust in her produced a dark result. Even now, years later, I still have what may be labeled “post traumatic” flashbacks. I’ll have a painful image of her in bed with this other man or I’ll have a suffocating moment of thought about what she must have been thinking or why she did it. I can’t really describe how utterly painful and consuming these feelings and thoughts are to me;
English just doesn’t have the expressive ability to frame properly the anguish it causes me. Sometimes I fall against the nearest wall, put my face in my hands, and fight back tears or the urge to scream at the top of my lungs. I doubt these things will fade much over the years. What’s worse is the fact that I can’t really go to my wife for comfort and help in these moments because it only salts the guilt and pain she still feels for her actions. This was my sacrifice of not hardening my heart against her.
And she only had two sexual experiences with this other man! You have been betraying your husband’s trust for much much longer. What you have done is unspeakably awful. You have to decide if you are willing to go through the life-long effort to fight for him. You will need to sacrifice a lot of different things and you’ll need to put him first for the rest of your life. I promise you that it is worth it. He may reject you (and he’d be entirely justified in doing so) but, if he loves you enough to take you back, you will begin the most difficult journey you will ever take. You will have to be willing to change anything and everything about you that needs to be changed and he will have to be willing to endure pain and sorrow and accept changes himself.
What should you do right now, in my opinion? Find somewhere deep down your love for him and bring yourself into the depths of humility in preparation. Then, if your desire is to stay and make this work, set aside a day or even a week and then tell him. There will be a storm which may last minutes, hours, or much longer. Then begin to work very hard. Fight for him and show him you have changed permanently.
If you don’t want to stay, it is difficult for me not to tell you to just make up something plausible and to leave him without telling him. But I’d encourage you to try and make it work. My experience enabled me to truly demonstrate a love for my wife that was deeper and larger than even I had ever expected. And, amid all the pain and anguish, I am grateful for that.
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