From the people I talk to this comes up a lot. Their spouse will say this to them when they voice that they are still hurting over the affair. They will say they are still in pain over the affair and maybe the affair ended over a year or two years ago. Their spouse will then say to them, “But, I’m not doing it now.” Like we shouldn’t be in pain over something they are no longer doing.

I heard a story today that I really liked. Say you were severely burned causing you tremendous pain over a large part of your body. You end up in the hospital burn unit for months. To heal from this takes a LONG time. Would you really say to this person that you can clearly see is in pain, “Why are you in pain? No body is burning you now?” That would be ridiculous! Recovering from affairs is like recovering from burns. It’s a LONG SLOW PAINFUL process that one just doesn’t get over just because they aren’t doing it right now. And in it’s wake is left many scars.

The Wayward spouse needs to realize this point. We aren’t just going to “get over it” or sweep it under the rug. It takes YEARS to get over an affair. I’m talking over 3!!!! You can’t expect someone only one and a half years out from D-Day to just be “fine”. This just isn’t going to happen. At one year out I was still in pain EVERY DAY!! I was depressed, angry, hurting, devastated, etc. Was an emotional mess most of this year. I couldn’t focus on anything. Had to go on med’s just to function.

At 2 years out I was still VERY angry, mean, had my wall up, wouldn’t let him back into my heart, felt NO love for him at all, would have gladly left him if it wasn’t for the kids, and was still in pain at times. At times I think I really did hate him.