When you can't find hope

When You Can't Find Hope

I received email from a man who wonders if his marriage will ever recover from his affair. He writes: I had a affair on my wife last summer; she found out in September. She wanted a separation so I have been living in a apartment. We talk all the time and see each other daily. She says she loves me and we hold hands and kiss. But when I push her to get back together, she says she doesn't even want to try.

How sad! Here are two people who obviously still have love and affection for each other, and yet the wounds are so deep that she can't risk trusting him again. She probably wishes she had hope, but doesn't believe she can actually find it.

Nobody should tell this woman that she ought to take her husband back again; she's the only one who has the right to decide that. But if she wants him back, it really is possible for her to have him again. His affair doesn't have to be the end of their marriage.

I wish this wife could sit down and talk with a client who just posted this on our wives' support group message board: I feel like I am not getting stuck any longer. Previously, I'd do really well for about a week or two and then it would all come back and I would suffocate in the pain of it all again... I have been allowing myself to feel the pain and acknowledge it when it comes but not sit in it and not let it stir... [My husband] is still going out of his way to make me feel comfortable and still being very attentive to me... I'm starting to let my guard down very much so toward him and it is scaring me. I even told him last night. I'm afraid that I will be hurt again and it scares me that I am allowing myself to be vulnerable now and not playing any games with him... I am just ready now to move forward...

Yes, hope can be risky; even frightening. But the places it leads you to can be wonderful!