A letter from me to you, as The Unfaithful Wife.

Would you allow me just a few minutes of your time to read this brief letter I wrote just for you?

Dear Friend,

Welcome to my site, “After My Affair”.  Yea, the title kind of gives it away.
I had an affair.  Over 12 years ago, I was the unfaithful wife.

It was the most emotional and heartbreaking time in our lives.
Our marriage was on the brink of divorce because of it.
But we made it through, and are closer now than ever.

It’s the reason I wrote this blog, to help other women going through the same thing.

But right now I want to talk about you
as a friend who may be going through the same thing.

If you’ve found yourself here, you’re likely a woman who strayed from your marriage and is now the unfaithful wife.
It’s not a fun label, I know.
I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.
But I am glad you’re here,  and I welcome you with no judgment or shame.

You might be wondering how you ended up having an affair; something you’d never have believed you were capable of before this.

Wherever you are in the affair process, know that this is a safe place for you to sort through the many conflicting emotions you probably feel.
I also hope it helps you to hear from someone who’s been where you are (that’s me! You can read my affair story here).

There’s a shortage of information written just for the wayward wife, which is why I created this site.

This lack of help, just for the unfaithful wife and betrayed husbands, was especially true 12 years ago when we were in our own crisis.

YOU are the reason I started this site, to give you hope and offer support and friendship from someone who has walked this road before you.
This blog is here to help you make sense of some of the confusing and conflicting feelings you may have,  and to help you sort through the decisions and options you have.

Although I’m not a counselor, and this isn’t meant to replace professional advice, I also speak from experience as someone who has lived through my own affair.
I don’t have all the answers, but having been an unfaithful wife (and also experienced a type of betrayal when my husband
had started an emotional connection with a woman during this time), I know the pain.

I didn’t learn all this from a textbook, but through my own personal experience.
(i.e.How I ended my affair, how my husband got past the betrayal, and what we learned to restore our marriage).

But I also spend a lot of time researching other marriage and recovery professionals advice on certain subjects, for couples and wayward wives.
I try to pull a lot of different information together to be a complete source of various methods and advice.  So it’s beyond just my own life experience

Our marriage is fully restored and healed and we just celebrated 31 years of marriage.

You can read our marriage story here;  how my husband and I eventually healed and recovered from this life altering experience.
It took a lot of hard work and God’s daily help for both of us.  Now we just want to help other couples have the same hope and solutions to have a better marriage too.

There are usually 4 stages of an affair and it helps to know them.

But no matter which stage of your affair that you’re in right now,
help and support is available for you here.

Learn practical steps to have a better, more peaceful, life…even if that seems pretty impossible right now.

Do you relate to any of these?

• You may not be sure you want to end the affair yet, that’s understandable.  Being ambivalent and confused is a real part of the process.
• It’s often hard to make sense of how we can be married but in love with someone else.  I help you sort it out in this post. 
• Are you finding it almost impossible to break it off and wondering why it’s so had to end the affair?  Read more on that here.
• Perhaps you’re still in the affair and confused about what to do.
• Or maybe your secret has been exposed (discovery day has occurred),  and you’re feeling the repercussions of it.
• You might feel shame and struggling with overcoming the shame of your infidelity…I talk in that post about the 6 important ways you can begin to heal from shame.
• Mix that with the other side of the affair, which is the excitement and connection you’re likely feeling for your affair partner.  Read this post to see if it will be a lasting type of relationship. 
• Or maybe your affair is truly over, but you don’t know how to heal your marriage. And how to help your husband heal after your infidelity.

Action steps for you to take now:

• • Get my free comprehensive e-book:  19 steps to restoring your marriage after infidelity. 
    You’ll also be Subscribed to our email community so you’ll be updated on new posts, and information I only share with my email subscribers.

• It’s always good to tell someone what you’re going through. If you don’t have anyone you trust with this delicate information,  I’d love to be that person for you. At least until you can find a good counselor or an accountability friend.  You can email me at: [email protected]  I read every one of them and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
  I’d love to hear from you!

XO, Debbie
P.S.  If there’s a particular subject you’re looking to read about, let me know that too.

SEE ALSO OTHER BLOG POSTS FOR THE WIFE WHO HAD AN AFFAIR HERE.

 Read More Blog posts for the wife who strayed:

6 ways to experience Affair Recovery For The Betrayer

This post is a bit different than some you’ll find out there.
This is about the affair recovery for the betrayer, the wayward spouse.  Specifically the unfaithful female.

Are you the one who was unfaithful?
Are you feeling pretty crappy right now and unsure when
(or if) you’ll ever feel free of guilt and shame?

Then this post is written directly to you, my friend.

Read More….

Married But In Love With Someone Else.

You probably didn’t plan for it to happen. Maybe it just snuck up on you.

A few texts here, a phone call there. And now…
you’re married but in love with someone else.

Even if you manipulated events just right beforehand to have it happen,
it still probably took you by surprise that you actually did it.

Most people don’t go into marriage planning on having an affair some day.
Yet, it happens every day, and women are not immune to infidelity either.

Read More…

6 ways to get free: Overcoming Shame of Your Infidelity.

Looking back to when news of my infidelity came out
to our church, friends and family, people I’d been friends with and loved for years,
were suddenly out of my life or gone silent.
Even my own father, who I love and have been close to my whole life, went silent during that season.
For some people, the disappointment is just too much to deal with. I don’t fault them.

But I’d also never felt so much shame or alone in my entire life.

I witnessed the heartbreak of many lost friendships, gossip and judgment which only reconfirmed my shame and guilt.
But I also experienced the amazing power of unconditional love and forgiveness from others.

Read More…

How to end an affair when you’re ambivalent and confused.

Cambridge English dictionary describes the meaning of ambivalence as
“having two opposing feelings at the same time. Or being uncertain about how you feel.”

If you’ve ever been in an affair, then you are already well acquainted with the word because
you’re probably living daily with ambivalence.

But we all know, when in an affair, we can’t stay ambivalent (or indecisive) for very long.
Eventually a decision needs to be made or it will be made for you.  But How?

You might have one foot in the marriage and one foot out.
Meaning there may be half of you wanting to save your marriage and the other half wanting to stay with your affair partner.

Many wayward spouses find themselves here. And unfaithful wives are no exception, feeling stuck and seeing no way out.  Read More…

5 Reasons why ending an affair is so hard.

Why is ending an affair so hard to do?
Especially when you know in your heart you have to break it off.
Do you feel like no matter hard you’ve tried you go right back into it over and over again?  I remember that feeling.

I had a phone call from one of my readers last month,
she was asking me for advice on how to end an affair she was in.

For privacy, I’ll call her Sue.
Sue told me about her affair with a man that is friends with her husband and she is friends with his wife.
Actually the 2 couples are all friends.  Their kids play together and they all go to the same church. One compromise after another led Sue right into an affair.  Read More…

5 Effective Ways to Help Your Husband Heal. 

So,you screwed up. You had an affair, and now you feel terrible.  I get it. It’s awful, and there’s no way to take it back.

Seeing the look on your husbands face when he found out that you were unfaithful
on “Discovery Day” was enough to break your heart in pieces.

So what can you do now?

Is there any hope that he can forgive you and heal so your marriage can be save?  Yes, I believe there can be hope for your marriage.
It happened for mine.  Read More…

How do affairs begin?

Every affair begins somewhere. They all have a fairly predictable start.

After an affair is over, many women will say they don’t understand how they could be have allowed themselves to be unfaithful
and they are often  confused about how they got into the situation in the first place.

Yet, there are always signs to look for.

The foundation is always set and the conditions are ripe before an affair starts.
Those conditions can be as innocent as discontentment or unhappiness within a woman’s heart and life.
The condition of her heart could be cold toward her husband and perhaps small resentments have built up.
Left unchecked and not talked about, resentments are seeds that can grow into displeasure and a desire to find happiness in someone else.

Read More…