Was it a bolt out of the blue, or had you suspected that something was not quite right? Did you think that you had a great relationship, or did you realize that you had some problems. Whatever the situation, your partner betrayed you, and he put you through a great deal of pain and distress. The fact that you are reading this suggests that you believe that your relationship still has the potential to become something more. The problem is that you are struggling with having to regain your trust in him.

In order for your relationship to work, there has to be trust. If you cannot regain your trust in him then your relationship will not work, and if you remain together your lives will be miserable.

It will take a long time for you to regain your trust in him, and it is possible that you will never regain your trust in him. It is vital that you learn how to trust again, and believe in your own judgment, because you cannot go through life being suspicious of everything and everyone, it’s not healthy.

The first thing is that while you have to learn to trust him, he has to work hard to regain your trust in him. You are the victim in all of this, they didn’t have to have an affair, but they chose to do so. If they realize how stupid they have been, and if they love you, then they will do just about anything to win your trust back.

You have to be able to deal with your thoughts about the other woman, if you don’t then every time that you look at him, you’ll think of her. If you know who the other woman is, it is easier to deal with than if you don’t. As you have probably noticed, you mind plagues you with thoughts like, is she prettier than me, and what did they do together. I remember seeing a useful trick in one of the Harry Potter films. When your mind starts to plague you with images of her, then picture in a ridiculous situation, or looking silly, anything that changes a powerful and damaging image, into a ridiculous one. Please remember that the longer your mind dwells on the affair, the more damage it will do you, and the more critical of yourself and life you’ll become.

Think about the other woman as a sad creature, unable to find a man of her own she has to try to steal someone else’s. He chose you, not her.

For you to regain your trust in him he has to be completely open about what he does. He needs to let you know where he goes and what he does. If something happens to change his routine, such as he’s going to be late, he has to let you know. He’ll have his usual routine, and you’ll be familiar with what he does. However, if something unexpected happens to change his routine, then it is natural that you will be suspicious. You can keep an eye on things like his cell phone and emails to see who he’s speaking to.

If he says that he’s going to do something, then he has to do it, or else have a cast iron excuse as to why he didn’t. The path to your be able to regain your trust in him starts with him keeping his word. Every time he says that he will do something, and then he does it will rebuild a little bit more trust for you. He could say that he’ll meet you at whatever time, or that he’ll take the trash out, every time he honours his word, you will feel a little bit more comfortable in trusting him.

You have to communicate with each other. For your own peace of mind you need to know everything that happened. You need to see that he understands the hurt that he has caused and be able to apologize accordingly. You need to be able to talk about why he cheated on you. You have to be able to identify your relationship problems, and come up with a joint solution to deal with them. You need to be able to work out how you can move forward. You have to be able to just talk again.

If you want to regain your trust in him, you have to regain your trust in yourself. This affair will have damaged your self-belief and your faith in your judgment. I can’t tell you when you can start to trust him again, there is no magical formula that can give you the answer, only you can decide when you can trust in him. If he has done nothing to arouse suspicion, if he has done everything that he can to regain your trust and to help heal the marriage, then the chances are that you can trust in him again. Sometimes in life you need to take a chance, and if you don’t make that leap of faith then you might lose out on happiness. If you both remain committed to each other, then do your best to build the best possible relationship that you can. The past has happened, you can’t change, so instead keep your vision firmly fixed to the future and all the promise that it holds.