One of the most devastating things that can happen to any wife is to find out that her husband is having an affair.

First comes the shock. You want to go to bed and wake up and find it was just a horrible nightmare. Then there's the feeling of utter betrayal. "How could he do this to me?" And the sense of loss that something that was whole is forever broken.

Sometimes that's followed by guilt. "Was it my fault? Wasn't I enough for him?"

But then, there's the need to make a decision, weigh the options, devise a plan. In Shakespearian terms: to leave or not to leave.

Judith had been married for 36 years when she found out her husband had been having an affair with a married woman for two years. When she confronted him, he agreed to end the sexual part of the affair, but he insisted on maintaining regular contact with the woman and continuing their emotional connection. Not a good bargain. Not one that Judith could live with.

"After an excruciating period of about six months, during which he stuck to this plan, he finally acknowledged that in order to preserve our marriage and maintain my sanity, he would need to cut off all contact with the other woman. He did this after a lot of very emotional and difficult interchanges between us, and, I'm sure, some difficult conversations with her."

"The other person," as Judith refers to her, ended up divorcing her husband. "She wanted desperately to continue a relationship with mine, even if it was just a 'friendship.'" Judith's husband decided he couldn't end all his contact with the other person. He needed to have some minimal communication with her.

Judith thought she could live with this, as long as her husband was sure he wanted to remain married to her. He said he was. And she wanted to stay married to him. Would that be possible? Could their marriage survive the affair? Judith only found out about the affair nine months ago, and there's no definitive answer yet.

"We're still working on it," says Judith, "but I can offer a few personal insights. Some people will tell you that recovery cannot happen without couple's therapy. Well, my husband would not go to therapy, so I went myself. Fortunately, the therapist was supportive of my determination to hang in there unless it became irrefutably clear that either 1. My husband really wanted the other relationship at the expense of ours or 2. I simply could not handle his continuing contact with her anymore and he refused to end it. Fortunately, those things did not happen."

Judith says one thing she and her husband have going for them is that they had "a lot of tough conversations about why the affair happened and how things can be different between us. Without those conversations, I'd say the chances of getting past an affair are slim."

Although Judith has decided to stay for now, she knows the effects of the affair are far from over. "I don't believe that I will ever get completely past this. I'm not even sure I can totally forgive him or the other woman. But the only way to go forward is by recognizing that people can change and grow at any age and so can relationships."

Did your marriage survive an affair? Send your tale, along with your questions and problems to [email protected]. And check out my new ebook, "Dear Cheryl: Advice from Tales from the Front."

Photo credit: at Pixabay