How to Deal With Sadness After an Affair

Sadness and depression are normal emotions to feel after you discover that your husband has betrayed you. Knowing its normal though, isn’t enough to see you through this time of grief. You are heartbroken about what you thought was true about your life, and even though you are trying to make your marriage work, you are grieving for the loss of innocence in the belief that your marriage would always be perfect like it was when you first married.

It’s Not You, It’s Him

No matter the advice given here you must understand that you could be a perfect wife and your spouse can still choose to have an affair. The affair is always more about the cheater than the person cheated on. But, there are ways in which you can deal with your sadness in order to get through this time.

The suggestions aren’t made so that you feel bad about yourself or that you were somehow to blame for your husband cheating on you. Betrayed wives rarely are horrible people and even cheating spouses are rarely horrible people. When you consider the statistics, you will realize that more long term marriages have infidelity issues than not, you will also realize that over a long marriage no one is perfect and a relationship can always be improved upon.

Take Care of You

It’s important to always remember to take care of yourself first. It’s just like the airline attendant says, if your cabin loses oxygen fix yours first before helping anyone else including your own children. If you were to pass out, you would be of no use to anyone. The same thing can be said of going through the sadness after an affair.

Find ways to take care of yourself so that you are still able to be of use to your family, including your spouse. If you give the sadness some time each day, and address the issues that come up you’ll be more able to work on your marriage and build a stronger foundation to grow your marriage.

Take Time for Some Self-improvement

Whether it’s getting more education, learning to sing, or getting a new hairstyle it’s important that you start taking time for yourself to improve yourself. Do not look at it as you’re improving yourself for him. Instead, do it for you. What are some things that you’ve put off doing because you are married? If there is a way for you to start doing them now, then start doing them.

Don’t allow your self-improvement to come before working on your marriage, but make it part of the process. Working on yourself will make you feel better. It will make you feel more confident in yourself. The worst reason to stay with someone is because you feel worthless. Ensure that you do enough to feel good about yourself so that your marriage can be solid and strong, or so that you can move on solid and strong.

Journal Your Feelings Every Day

It’s important to find an outlet for your emotions and one good way to do that in a safe way is to write them down. Use either an online method or an offline old fashioned paper method but whatever you choose, make sure that you do it every day to avoid stuffing your feelings down. It can be easy to play strong, but not as easy to let your feelings go. Use the journal to work through emotions before talking to your spouse about them so that you can be very honest about how you feel. Don’t be afraid to hurt your spouse’s feelings but don’t continuously barrage your spouse with them.

Using a journal can help you figure out how to deal with what is happening. One way to deal with sadness is to focus on positive things. Journal each evening about three things you’re thankful for. Even if you’re simply just thankful for the ability to breathe in and out that day -- that’s something special to be thankful for -- it doesn’t have to be deep.

Talk To a Professional

Many betrayed wives resist the need to talk to a professional. In their minds nothing is wrong with them; it’s their spouse’s problem. But, this isn’t about assigning blame; this is about you getting help dealing with the sadness after an affair that you feel. Professionals know how to help you deal with it better than anyone.

There are many kinds of professionals you can talk to. You can find a counselor who specializes in grief associated with an affair or you can find a life coach that will help you overcome your sadness or work on other specific issues, one at a time, as you work through this situation. The type of professional you choose will depend on what you feel will work best for you.

Choose a professional who is on board getting through this in the way you want, to either save your marriage, or move past the marriage and the affair. It’s up to you how you want to proceed but it’s good to ensure that you and the professional are on the same page as to the results you’re hoping for.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open with Your Spouse

If you and your spouse have decided to work out your problems and stay married, it’s imperative that you keep the lines of communication open. You and your spouse should be able to discuss everything about the affair that needs to be discussed including your sadness. While you shouldn’t make how you feel the topic of every conversation you should set aside time where you talk about it.

Also let your spouse talk about things that are important to them. Even though you are really sad, your spouse is likely suffering too. It can be hard to let yourself believe that, but more than likely when you can open your heart up to how he feels too, you’ll find that you start to overcome your own sadness.