About 3 months ago my husband confessed to me to having an affair with someone he has known since school, she has always been a close friend of his. The affair lasted almost two years and he was very conflicted with whether he wanted to give up on our marriage or stay and work on it. We have been together over 20 years and have three young children, I did not want to give up on it and encouraged him to stay. He stayed and although his reasons for staying are the children, we both have been working hard on rebuilding a new relationship. We began marriage counselling and we have a deeper communication with one another. I have been initiating more intimacy and things seem to be going well.
From our first marriage counselling sessions, he talked about his feelings for his affair partner, saying he loves her and that he would like for her to still play some part in his life. The marriage counsellor says that while he has feelings for her it wouldn’t be appropriate. I thought with time he would simply forget about her and shift focus to what’s important (i.e. his family, his wife). But last week he brought her up again and wanted to know if he can reconcile with her and have a friendship with her. I said I wasn’t ready, I’m hoping to stall this until he stops asking. He said he understood that it might be too soon.
I am worried if I never allow him to speak to her, he might just start talking to her behind my back. Though currently he seems so committed to being honest with me but that could change with time as his guilt for cheating begins to fade.
As I said, his main reason for staying are the kids but I’m keen on having a strong relationship with us, that can’t be possible if she is reintroduced into his life, his feelings for her will probably come flooding back if they have gone at all. I don’t understand how he can’t see that.
I don’t know whether continually blocking him will breed resentment over time.
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