What can I do to get my husband to forgive my cheating?

DEAR BEL,

I’M 29, married with two children, but have always been a sexual person, flirty, trying to be attractive, receiving attention since I was young.

For a year I had an affair with an intense, arrogant man at work who was feverishly in love and (I think) a sex addict. I gave in, seduced by just the thought of him. Truth is, I was so sexually charged I cheated with the first person who tried, and now I don’t recognise myself.

Married for almost seven years, my husband and I had a rough start, having children when I was 19 and 21. They’re now ten and seven, and beautiful, wonderful kids.

We love them very much. But I always felt Joe was dragging me into family life, as I was so young. He worked hard to get us a better life, but was rough in his ways and found it hard to show me love.

I felt I could do nothing right. He found out about the affair and says he knows I’d have carried on with it. I feel I must be a psycho to have an affair, yet still smile at my husband and kids every day. And to lie so well. Now Joe says he loves me, but doesn’t know who I am, and all the special things in me he believed in have gone.

He compared my affair with being drunk in the car with the kids and rolling it off the road. He thinks I’m a slut at heart.

The only good thing is I’m an excellent mother in spite of my offence, which may greatly affect them. I give my kids loving care that they can really feel and see.

I also love my husband tremendously and regret my affair so much I could die. I wish I could make Joe believe me, but why should he?

After six months of sleeping together and having good times, Joe suddenly doesn’t want to sleep in the same bed. I’m on the couch tonight. He seems cold, as if this all just happened.

What can I say to help him see I want a future with him? Will he always look at the past? Is there recovery for someone like me? JAYNE

Your husband tried to process the discovery of your infidelity, put a brave face on for the sake of the children, thought he could deal with it — and then succumbed to delayed shock six months on.

Perhaps he’s thinking that he tried to make it work, but now finds it impossible to banish the images of you with your lover from his mind.

I’m sure men reading this will sympathise — and most of the women, too. Here’s a man who married young, worked hard for his family and was then betrayed. It’s a very old story, but the pain is fresh every single time.

Some people may withhold judgment; men and women who know what it is to crave the drug of attention and long for sexual thrills, all the more so when they feel they have hardly had any time of freedom.

You stepped from your carefree teens into careworn motherhood (for motherhood always brings cares as well as joy) and longed for adoration from a man who was too busy/tired/unable to give it.

He didn’t indulge your needy ego enough, leaving you too ready to fall into bed with a new guy who did. Yes, an old saga, as ancient as sin, and just as dangerous.

You two need help and must seek it for the sake of those children.

You know what you did will have an effect on their lives and I believe your penitence — and that’s why you need to act.

It’s no good blustering in a panic that you love him, you’re a good mother etc. This man is deeply hurt and angry, and it will take a lot of

patience and humility ( not something you’ve needed before, I guess) from you to try to make the situation better.

Obviously, this marriage needs much quiet talking, but this man isn’t good at communication, is he? All the more work for you.

Can you afford to go to couple counselling? That’s what you need and urgently. If you can’t, then do you have a wise, trusted older friend who could step in to help you both?

Somebody needs to sit down with the pair of you and pick through these issues step by step, before you can work out how to go forward. Please try your hardest to make this happen. You can’t find your way through the thorns without help.

Quietly ask Joe to list all the things in you he thought special. Then carefully list all the reasons you fell in love with him. You could each make a list.

Talk about good times, then share memories of how scared and frustrated you felt when the prison doors of marriage and parenthood clanged shut.

Tell him how much you look forward to when the kids are older and you and he will be able to carve out quality time together.

Tell him how sorry you are and how much you love him. Believe you can heal him. What else is there to do?