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I don’t think we talk enough about what it takes to heal within a relationship. What exactly it takes to get the relationship back to being healthy & re-building trust. I don’t if we think people celebrate 20, 30 & 40 year anniversaries without some tormenting experiences...
I mean firstly, you surely HAVE to accept that you will NOT be with the same person for the rest of your relationship, marriage. By this I mean they’re bodies change, their interests, their priorities, and mostly they also GROW as a person in every sense of the word
Would it not be madness to expect a person to be the VERY same at 40 as they were when you met them at 20? I mean you yourself grow, why would your partner be an exception? Some of that growth would be on things that attracted you to them in the first place.
i.e, You loved how you and your party used to party like you were homeless in your 20s. But At 30-35, they’d rather host dinner parties & braais. They are excited by things like new furniture, holiday trips and games night.
All these things are merely a prelude to some of the more serious changes, compromises and obstacle you are yet to face in a long term commitment...
Now, comes the elephant in the room... Cheating in a relationship. Can you recover from it? Can a couple overcome? Can things ever be the same? 
Now with that,I think we have to first acknowledge the kind of pain & damage we inflict onto our partners with something like that. Sometimes, even trigger some deep routed traumas. You have to accept that that kind of pain is probably the emotional equivalent to attempted murder
You cannot heal from something like that until you emphathize fully, and yku cannot empathize fully until you understand the extend of the damage you have caused. It would be like a doctor prescribing medicine to you without even getting a proper diagnosis of what is wrong
After you then fully understand the extent of the pain you’ve caused and genuinely taking the accountability, you would then find it easier to know what steps to take in fixing it and then reassuring your partner.
Reassurance: a word that we’ve come to throw loosely in tweets and conversations, but do we really understand what it means? Do we understand it’s purpose? Do we understand the role it plays in a situations like healing a broken relationship?
It takes more than an apology to recover from something like that, and reassurance is probably the most important ingredient (after changed behaviour, of course).
I would even go as far as saying you must put it the same effort and energy you put into cheating.
I would even go as far as saying you must put it the same effort and energy you put into cheating.
By this I mean that excitement you had for your co-adulterer, the thought you put in your lies, the time and effort you gave your co-adulterer. ALL OF IT. Because one thing your partner is definitely thinking at this point is “are they still together/talking”....
So reassurance is the only thing that is a real gateway to regaining & rebuilding trust. You HAVE to get out of the mindset of being annoyed when your honesty is being questioned, because, my friend, you are the one that made that bed after all...
The thing about reassurance is that it requires a lot of proactiveness. You CAN’T wait for your partner to bring it up or even beg for it. Otherwise, then, they would be better off healing on their own, without you as a constant reminder of the heartbreak.
You have to be comfortable with constantly reminding your partner that you are fully in this. That you love them and you are genuinely willing to do what it takes to rebuild. That’s where your partners love languages come into play. They would be a great guide...
