Last year my husband had an affair and moved out. However, after a while he changed his mind and came back to me, we had counselling and are slowly recovering. But despite all this, there's one thing I can't get over: my husband won't tell me the woman's name. This really upsets me because it makes me feel he's protecting her, or maybe saving her for later in case he changes his mind. I'm suspicious of every woman we know - it feels like I'm going mad.

Susan advises
Everyone handles affairs differently. My bet is that your husband is feeling so bad about his fling that now he just doesn't want to think about his lover or about what passed between them.

You, on the other hand, want to know every last detail, so that you feel he is telling you everything, so that you feel he is yours again and ready to open up to you.

You think if you face the past, it will lose its power over you. Your husband thinks that if you rake up the past, it will destroy the marriage you're slowly rebuilding.

Try to talk about your differences, to really understand why each of you is coping in such different ways. To help in this, I would go back to counselling, because a therapist can support you to explore this past that you are both dealing with in such different ways. It takes a longer time than you think to get over a betrayal, whether you are the betrayer or the betrayed, and I sense that you both need a lot more help than you've had. So contact Relate and get that help.