Will anyone who has a happy marriage after infidelity take the stand?

In the trial of infidelity, what is the final sentence? So much of what I read on infidelity, when couples choose to stay together, is disheartening. Even though there is a school of thought that marriage can survive infidelity and become better, and the chances of re-offending reduces (if the cheater went through counseling and tried to understand the pain of betrayal and regret), there are terrible moments that continue to surface.

Whether it be one year, two years, or five years, everyone seems to have that moment when they are doing the laundry or washing the dishes and they get a flashback and their heart breaks all over again. Just for a moment, but it is there.

Then there are the couples that didn’t stay together, who are also caught up in these broken moments where trust seems like an idea that someone made up but isn’t real. Is there another happily ever after, even though you had already married the one that you wanted to be with forever? Bam. Pain. Again.

So, rise up, I say. Anyone who is secure and happy and not chagrined after leaving or staying. Anyone?

It seems that in many instances, the cheater has ‘moved on.’ Life as usual. And the betrayed is still in a state of vulnerability. But the cheater seems to offer no comfort because he has done it, over and over and over again . . .

What is acceptable?

In a betrayed relationship, is it ever right to expect the betrayed person to ‘move on.’ And what does that mean? Forgive, forget, great it’s over, back to living, just now we make more time for dates.

No.

There has to be something better than that. Where are all the couples that have found the key to an everlasting life of pain that was, hope, and a future of beautiful intimacy with your partner like it was always intended to be?

How do get from here to there? What does the cheater have to do? And should you lay the ground rules? Like, if you see that I’m crying while I do the dishes, you better address that right away because if you don’t my next thought is walking out the door.

I want to accept, to move into that direction and to forgive, to move there too . . . someday. The fact that my husband is not here, barely calls, has told me that HIS healing is priority one, along with his higher power and our daughter and that I come later, after rehab, seems yet another betrayal. But I guess the fact that he has never been betrayed or spent any time trying to understand it, just reiterates that my healing won’t come from him, can’t and probably shouldn’t. Won’t I just continue to be broken and vulnerable if that is where I look for comfort and healing? Everyone keeps saying that I need to look within. And I hear this, I repeat it to myself, I just have not yet figured out how to understand it.