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I'm coming up to a year past DD and after a year of therapy for both me and my husband we are now communicating better than we ever have. We show each other love everyday, appreciate each other, listen to each other and are both committed to reconciliation.

Therapy has helped me address my childhood trauma, my codependency, my attachment style, my reactivity and learn new ways to communicate. Therapy for my husband has helped him (and me) understand his whys, address his mother's affair, deal with his abandonment issues, address his avoidant attachment and again, learn new communication skills.

I understand how he came to have an affair and I understand there is no justification for it.

He is 100% remorseful and demonstrates this daily. I have forgiven him and I actually feel a lot of empathy for him that he has to carry the burden of betraying his family and himself.

I have accepted the affair happened and nothing I can ever do will change it.

However...it still hurts so much to think that at a time he pushed me and the kids to the back of his mind to enter the fantasy world of an affair. He has changed over the years into such a family man his past behaviour has shocked everyone. I really don't think he would behave like that now but my gosh it hurts 😔

I generally try to stay positive and have a positive mindset that I can heal. I'm looking forward to Christmas with my family and have booked next year's holiday as I feel confident in reconciliation. But sometimes I think it would be so much easier if my husband wasn't a good candidate for reconciliation (he wasn't great at first due to shame but quickly changed). I know he is a good person who did a bad thing but it would be easier if he was a bad person I could hate and leave.

Being a remorseful, kind, loving husband means I can't leave him as I love him, I love spending time with him and he brings so many positives to my life and I would grieve his absence more than the pain of his betrayal...but... staying with him and continuing to love him involves sadness every time I think of how he abandoned me for the affair.

I know that successful reconciliation is possible and why day I will be healed but it's exhausting and slower than anyone would like it to be and I'm finding myself apprehensive going into year 2 scared - exhausted but the mountain ahead of me and trying to summon the energy to continue my climb 😮‍💨

Any words of advice or encouragement from those who have successfully reconciled? When will the pain and thoughts of pain stop? Where can I find the energy for another year of this? I don't tend to ruminate on the details, it's more just the crushing reality that the person I love so much was ever able to do this to me and I don't know when, or if, I should stop poking that bruise - I am so scared of rug sweeping or 'healing too early' - I keep poking it to check it still hurts!

[This message edited by Evio at 6:22 PM, Thursday, December 11th]

I don't tend to ruminate on the details, it's more just the crushing reality that the person I love so much was ever able to do this to me and I don't know when, or if, I should stop poking that bruise - I am so scared of rug sweeping or 'healing too early' - I keep poking it to check it still hurts!

I think this is natural. When someone betrays or hurts us is there is a part of us that takes over that is meant to protect us from further harm.

I think it sounds like you are doing excellent to be a year out.

My advice is to feel the feelings as you need to, and I think this part just gets better with time. Be patient with yourself, you are a long ways from where you were when you got here. It is exhausting and it will take time to feel safe to rest.

I will say it was around this time we started taking quarterly weekend trips away to bond further. We just tried to use that time to focus on enjoying ourselves and most of the time we’re able to set the affair aside for those short bursts of time and that was restful in many ways. Maybe just find those moratoriums and practice not poking during those times. I think in the beginning sometimes trying to to suppress it for those bursts made it feel awkward and weird but we got over that. We started a tad earlier- it was around the 10 month mark.

I'm finding myself apprehensive going into year 2 scared - exhausted but the mountain ahead of me and trying to summon the energy to continue my climb 😮‍💨

I believe you are entering the Plane of Lethal Flatness or POLF. You can read up on it in the Healing Library.

It usually hits are you enter year 2. It is both nothingness and total exhaustion at the same time.

It is a part of the journey to healing that can't be shortened or bypassed.

I am so scared of rug sweeping or 'healing too early' - I keep poking it to check it still hurts!

This is a trauma response. You still need to verify that this is real, this did happen, this is your reality. This level of acceptance takes a very long time.

It sounds like you are doing amazing Evio.