If you're reading this, it's probably because your relationship has endured cheating or an affair and either you wonder if recovery will be possible or you're trying to recover and you wonder if you're doing it right. The answer to both is, "it depends on you, your partner, and your relationship."
But there are signs that things are getting better, ways you can tell whether things are moving in the right direction. You communicate differently. You gain a new respect for each other. You treat the relationship, after all this, the way it's always deserved to be treated. The dynamic shifts–slowly, and non-linearly.
Non-linearly is a key word. Things will seem to get better then seem to be at square one. But even while this is happening, you'll see the overall trend start to move upward despite the frequent dips.
So what does that look like?
It's not just that the fights get fewer and further between–though that happens too. You stop blasting your feelings at each other, and start communicating. Even when you don't agree with each other–especially what the partner who cheated has done to your relationship–you allow yourself to let your anger go enough to understand why and how it happened.
But it's about so much more than what the fights look like. One day you'll be sitting at home all day, feeling restless or like something isn't quite right. You'll wonder what's missing. You'll worry it's something in you, or something in them, or something in what you had.
And then they'll come home, heave a sigh after their long day at work, set their bags down, kiss your forehead and ask how your day was and how you're holding up. And even though you've been sitting in the place you live for hours, quietly, suddenly now you'll feel like you're at home.
This isn't the end of the journey. This doesn't mean everything is all better now. It means that you've re-awoken something worth saving.
You'll still revert to screaming matches after that moment. You'll still want to break things; you'll still block your partner out because they hurt you; you'll still threaten to leave sometimes. Healing is not linear. The sickening jealousy takes a very, very long time to go away. But you'll go through all this with the safety of knowing that there's still something worth saving.
Soon, a sense of warmth and safety comes back. Slowly, and timidly.
It's important to remember that things are not going to be like they were. This relationship will now always be one in which an affair has happened, and that may affect future interactions–certain types of jokes will cease to be funny, and you'll take more care with the way you talk to each other.
You don't want to walk on eggshells; it takes a while for your interactions to feel natural again, but you need to get there. Still, it is okay for the relationship to change. This is a new relationship, and you are new people, and you'll need to grow into that.
Maybe that isn't something you'll be able to do, and you can end things peacefully; otherwise you'll adapt to being something different than you were or than you thought you would be.
This is a good thing. Because with or without an affair, someday you'd be people you weren't before. The best part of a relationship is growing into that.
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