Hi Micalex, welcome to Marriage Builders. The first step is to affair proof your marriage and change the environment that led to the affair. Where did you have your affair? Where did you meet this OW? Have you ended all contact?
The first step is to end all contact with her and change your boundaries with members of the opposite sex. You and your wife could have had a great marriage, but if your love bank is open to others, then you would have still had an affair. Correcting your boundaries is a first step.
Another first step is to never spend the night apart again. Spend all of your leisure time together and open up your lives to each other. That means sharing all pass words, email accounts, everything. She should have access to everything.
The affair should be exposed to family, close friends and your children. If the OW is married, her husband should be notified by your wife. There are many reasons for this, but mainly the more people who know, the more people to hold you accountable and support your marriage.
So once you have been affair proofed, the next step is create a romantic marriage using the basic concepts of Marriage Builders. A good guide in this would be the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love. They sell it for $11 on this website and it complements the books, SAA and Lovebusters. There is a worksheet in the back of the book that will help you schedule your undivided attention time.
We both know that Dr. Harley suggests a minimum of 15 hours a week;so any advice on how to get over the residual pain and anguish and time management tips would be helpful.
Her residual pain will take about 2 years to go away, IF you make amends to her following these steps. If not, resentment can linger forever. The way you find the 20+ hours of UA time is to put aside less important things. Sit down once a week and write out your schedule. Line up babysitters, if you have small children, and make plans for the week. This time is best spent out on dates meeting the intimate emotional needs.
How is your wife? Does she want to come here and post?