20 June 2024 , 17:35
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Dear Coleen
I got married last summer and we had a huge wedding with all the bells and whistles, but the celebrations didn’t last long.
About a month after we got back from the honeymoon, my new husband confessed he’d been having an affair for
two-and-a-half years.
He explained he’d ended it just before the wedding, but that he’d been having a hard time coping with the guilt since. He begged for forgiveness and a fresh start but I was devastated.
The past few months have been hell, as we’ve tried to work through it. He moved out to stay with a friend and I stayed in our flat. We’ve been meeting up regularly to talk, but I’m finding I just can’t move on.
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I’m still so angry, not to mention ashamed and embarrassed, too, after making such a big deal of our wedding. It all feels like a lie and that I don’t even know this person I married. He didn’t want me to tell my family and friends, but I had to because I couldn’t cope on my own.
Needless to say, they are furious with him and their advice is to dump him.
He knows he’s really messed things up and I do believe he loves me, but the trust has been broken and I don’t know if I could ever trust him again.
I’d love your opinion.
Coleen says
You can’t expect to move on from this quickly. It’s going to take time, a lot of talking and possibly relationship counselling if you both want to save the marriage.
It’s a crisis point, and I think it’s important that he’s completely honest about why he had the affair. It’ll be hard to hear, but it’s essential in order to get past it.
However, he can’t think that now he’s told you and unburdened himself of this big secret he’s been keeping that you can just go back to how things were.
The truth is, things will probably never be the same, but that doesn’t mean you can’t move on and have a good marriage.
I do think relationship therapy is the way to go, especially for you, and at the end of it you might decide to go your separate ways, but at least you will be supported through making those decisions.
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Lastly, your family and friends won’t give two hoots about the wedding, all they will care about is you.
You have no reason to feel any shame or embarrassment – this whole mess is on him. He’s the one who needs to acknowledge what he did and to try to repair those relationships. Good luck.