On my iGoogle, I have a widget for WikiHow. It has articles on everything from how to make a cheesecake to how to survive federal prison. The other day the article was How to Mend a Marriage after an Affair. (So of course I was interested and clicked through). And, I actually agree with most of the advice. Everything except the first line–decide whether or not to tell.
My advice would be: tell it all, tell it fast, tell the truth. (Even though the act of doing it is almost an impossible thing to survive.) Anything less and your spouse is living in un-reality. (Not only that, but the chances of it coming out in a way not controlled by you are pretty high.) One of the mistakes Mark made that made our process harder was in holding back information. As things came out over months, it felt like things were still happening. (They weren’t, but each new blow sent me spinning.) And it made it that much harder to know what to believe.
One of the things they wrote in the article that I’ve found four years past to be true is: Remember that you must deal with the consequences of this decision forever. Trust is given easily – we fall in love and give our hearts, and we don’t question whether or not the person we love is worthy of our trust. We simply trust that person with all our heart. But once you break that trust, it is fragile forever after. Think of trust as a beautiful, delicate, vase made of crystal clear blown glass. It is a marvel that something so delicate and lovely holds water, can be the vessel for the stuff of life itself, and that it can last forever if lovingly cared for. It can be broken, however, if you are careless, and though you may be able to glue it back together, you will always see the cracks. It may be able to stand on its own again, hold water, and be all it once was to both of you, but there will always be visible reminders of the break.
I find we still have visible reminders. We both have insecurities that weren’t there before. Deep ones. Conversely, we have also gone through so much to be together that shallow insecurities, little arguments and little things we used to take for granted are gone. When people ask me if they should fight to stay together, I never know how to answer that. Each couple is different. I do know that if you are both willing to try, it is worth the risk.
