Staying married after your wife has an affair can be extraordinarily difficult, but it is not impossible. Infidelity causes extreme emotional pain and distrust in a relationship, but if you and your wife both focus on mending the relationship and rebuilding trust and communication, you can be successful in your efforts. The process of healing a marriage after an affair is often a lengthy one, and every couple responds to and handles the situation differently.
Step 1
Take a break from your wife for a short time after learning about the affair. You will both likely experience multiple emotions, and you may say or do something you will later regret if you fail to take time to regroup and address your feelings.
Step 2
Identify and acknowledge your emotions. You may feel angry, hurt, scared, sad, shameful or several other things as you process the information. It is very common to feel several emotions at once or have wildly changing moods after you learn about your wife's affair, explains MayoClinic.com.
Step 3
Talk to a friend, family member, spiritual leader or counselor about the affair and your feelings. Simply having someone outside of the situation listen to your feelings can help you organize your thoughts and emotions so that you can express your thoughts to your wife clearly.
Step 4
Discuss the affair openly and honestly with your wife after you have had a chance to cool off and process your feelings. Explain to your wife that you need her to listen to your feelings and answer your questions so that you can begin to heal.
Step 5
Suggest marriage counseling to your wife. Coming together in therapy sessions with a professional who has dealt with infidelity before can help you work on communicating openly and honestly. A marriage counselor can also help you and your wife identify problems or disappointments in your marriage that may have contributed to the affair, so that you can work on addressing the root cause of the problem, explains MayoClinic.com.
Step 6
Accept responsibility for your role regarding problems in your marriage. While you are not responsible for what your wife did, acknowledging that you play a role in the success and faithfulness of your marriage can help you and your wife come together and begin the healing process.
Step 7
Establish rules for working through problems and arguments. Open communication can help you and your wife feel comfortable discussing difficult issues so that you can minimize the chance of an affair happening again.
Step 8
Discuss your definition of infidelity with your wife and allow her to share her view as well. Determine rules for your marriage and discuss what constitutes an affair. For example, some people engage in online affairs that do not include physical intimacy or sexual contact, but these relationships can be just as devastating to a marriage as a physical affair, explains the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Step 9
Work toward fully forgiving your wife, recommends MayoClinic.com. Forgiveness does not mean that your wife's affair was acceptable, but working on dealing with your emotions and rebuilding trust to reach a point of true forgiveness can help you strengthen your marriage and prevent future problems.
