After The Affair - Your Journey Of Rediscovery

Making the painful discovery that your husband has been having an affair behind your back causes untold damage to your self-esteem. Your marriage has been smashed and everything you held dear seems to have crumbled. Where you once felt happy and secure, there is now misery and uncertainty. You thought you stood on solid ground. Now you feel as if you are sinking into a bog. Everything has changed after the affair and you feel as if you hardly know who you are anymore.

Your emotions are in turmoil. Your mood veers from disbelief to anger to jealousy and back to disbelief. You experience horrible moments of feeling totally worthless. You don't know if it will be possible to put the pieces of your broken relationship back together. You don't know what the future has in store for you and feel unable to cope. You are anxious to make decisions so that you can move on from the bad place you have fallen into.

You are naturally desperate to sort out this situation, and the only way to do it is step by step. The first step is to recover your self-esteem. You won't be in a fit state to make decisions until your self-esteem is healed. You won't be equipped to discuss the future of your relationship with your husband while you are handicapped by feelings of worthlessness and insecurity. You need to rediscover yourself in order to repair your shattered self-esteem.

Your first priority must be to shake of that feeling of now knowing who you are. You need to banish the idea that you are not worthy of love and respect. Your husband's infidelity has not changed you or diminished your worth. His cheating has just clouded the way you see yourself. You need to clear away those clouds and rediscover yourself. Here are three things you can do to help you find yourself anew and rebuild your self esteem.

1. The first step to regaining your self-esteem is to replace negative thoughts with positive images. Every time you have a negative thought about yourself, counteract it by thinking of something positive. At first this might feel somewhat strange, but it will soon become a habit. It will help if you write down a list of your good qualities. Then, if negative thoughts start to overpower you, you can refer to your list and focus on positive images of your good attributes.

2. Focus on the positive things in your life. Start a journal of the positive actions you take each day. It does not matter how small and insignificant those actions seem, every small thing can help. Write down every tiny positive thought and action. They will form a pattern and block out the negative thoughts.

3. Set goals. Start by setting small goals that you can reach easily and quickly. The knowledge that you have made a goal and have achieved it will give you strength to set a bigger goal. At first you can set goals day by day. Gradually you will build up the confidence to set goals for your long-term future. You will be able to see things more clearly and be able to plan the course of your life after the affair.

When you have rediscovered yourself, you will find that you will be able to move forward. You might decide to stay with your husband and work at rebuilding the broken marriage. You might feel that you would be happier if the two of you separate. Your recovered self-esteem will enable you to make important decisions and to build the future you truly want.