My wife had a affair before, I got her back and we are rebuilding out marriage now. but whatever she have done in the past still bothering me. I am willing to forgive her because I was the one pushing her to see out. I did not pay attention to her needs and care her feelings. I did my work to fix my problems and now she is back (hope I guess right). but her past affair is not able to go out from my mind. how can I deal with it? Regards,

What has your wife done to assure you that the affair is over? Do you have any concerns about this?

Isn't forgiveness more about putting yourself in your partner's shoes, and truly understanding what she was going through, that would cause her to go elsewhere? You have to be able to see it from her side, to be able to let go, IMO. If you just do 'she did this, she did that,' you're not truly acknowledging your part in the event - and keeping it from happening again, and you're not able to empathize with her, which leads to forgiveness.

I used to be teased a lot in school, for being so poor, and poorly dressed, in a rich school. At first, I was angry and resentful. One day, it occurred to me that those kids doing something so horrible as to ridicule another student (the same kids who rolled pennies across the floor to watch a retarded boy chase after them) - those kids must be really unhappy with themselves, though they would never admit it. Instantly, with that epiphany, I was lifted above them in status, in my mind, because I at least had family and friends and health and peace with myself, while they were doomed to go around being jealous and spiteful and miserly the rest of their lives. I was rich compared to them! My resentment and anger melted away, replaced with sorrow and pity for them. And forgiveness.

licandmi,

You will need to make a conscience decision to forget. And do it often. Time in itself does not heal, it's what you do in that time. My husband had an affair with my best friend 8 years ago and I can't tell you how long I dwelled on events and conversations, wondered what he had not told me, or got sweaty palms and overcome with anger everytime I saw someone that even resembled her. I tell you this to let you know you are not alone. I have been there. We moved to a different state because of the close ties our families had (we all worked together, children went to same school, all attended the same church and lived blocks from each other). But even so I had to keep reminding myself not to watch for her or dwell on the past.

Just keep reminding yourself that you are starting over and don't allow yourself to dwell on it. Trust me, I did for years and it gave me nothing but headaches and additional problems. Pray about it and let God lead you in loving your wife and in rebuilding your marriage.

There is so much material on this site and I'm new to this site also, but there's a lot of great resources to pull from here.

actully, I am not too sure, she seems happier with me now. she start willing to let me know her location and what she is doing. I did find out she starting to ingore his calls or text messages (I am still checking on her). we spent most of the time together during the day. regards,

I would encourage you first to go to the infidelity forum and ask there what you need to do to bring closure to the affair. You need to make sure there is nothing going on there between the two of them because you will need to do things differently if there is still question about the affair still being in progress.

There are physical affairs and emotional affairs. If she is still in contact with him, just not having sex, it is not over.

Ah, are you positive that she's ignoring his calls and text messages? On the surface it may appear that she is indeed doing just that, but secretly she may have other forms of comunication, such as work phone numbers, a hidden secret cell phone which she keeps at the office, or elsewhere. Also, work e-mail can be another avenue of communication when she's at the office, so beware.

I'm sorry for being such a pessimist, but I've been through this before, and can never take things for granted. I know trust is big part of healing, but if you don't have any, how can you heal. How do you garner trust from someone whos broken it--that's a very difficult question to answer, and one not likely to have a simple answer. Each case is different, but they're all painful.

After you feel confident enough that nothing else is going on, the trust will slowly come back, but until that time you have to watch her every move, and look for subtle changes in her behaviors that may clue you into an affair that hasn't ceased to exsist. Is she home at a regular time each workday? Does she answer your calls when she's out? What does she do during her work hours, lunchtime, etc...? Good luck