There is one thing that often hold back a couple trying to work through the shadow of an affair and that is that rebuilding a marriage after infidelity is not just picking up the pieces and trying to live like you once did but instead truly rebuilding the relationship from the ground up.
Think about it, why would you want the old relationship back? It may have caused or at least given an excuse to your partner to feel justified or fall into the affair. This is of course entirely their choice and completely wrong but would you want to go back to a relationship that may have given rise to such things?
It is also wrong headed thinking because it is a way to try to turn back the clock, a way to try to bury and not acknowledge the affair and the reasons behind it. This bottling up of the emotions is indicative of finding it hard to forgive and so trying to forget the infidelity which any marriage counselor or psychologist will tell you is not a healthy thing.
The only way forward is to not only to acknowledge the affair and all the pain and hurt and anger that comes with it but to use what you learn from this experience to rebuild your marriage, your relationship and your love from the ground up.
This will take time. This will be hard. This will be scary even but it is time for a reset to your marriage and only this with real forgiveness will allow you to be married and have a stronger relationship than before.
