Last year, after twenty-seven years of marriage, I found out my husband had been cheating with a younger woman for four years. To make things worse, he's had two children by his mistress! Although the affair had ended by the time I discovered it, my world still fell to pieces. My husband is very sorry and ashamed, but still I can't seem to get over what he's done.

Susan advises
Of course you can't get over what your husband has done! That said he seems to want to make amends, which is a good start.

What needs to come next is to understand why he strayed, and to know he won't stray again - otherwise you'll never be able to feel forgiveness or regain trust. This won't be easy. The fact that your husband not only had an affair but also had an affair so serious that he has children with his mistress means that something was badly wrong either for him or with your marriage.

He'll need to look at his childhood and find out why he was driven to behave as he did. Both of you will need to look at why you chose each other originally and what went wrong between you over the years. This isn't something that your husband can do alone - the affair wasn't your fault, but building the love back up again is 50% your responsibility.

You'll need to work through your anger at him, mourn the loss of the marriage you thought you had. He'll need to get through the guilt - and, weird though it seems, grieve the loss of an affair which meant so much to him.

Of course, what I'm suggesting is counselling - you'll never get through this without. Contact Relate and get started today.