Dear Dr. Andrea,
I have been married for nearly nine years and thought things were great between us.  I recently discovered that my husband had an affair with another woman. I was devastated and crushed. I found out by snooping in his email, but I would never have found out otherwise. He said he probably would not have told me. (After all, how do you tell your loved one that you have been with someone else?)

Realizing all the love I have for him, I forgave him. However, I am having a very difficult time forgetting.

Our relationship has been better since the whole thing hit the fan. He tells me that he is so sorry. He says he loves me and if I were to leave him, his world would be crushed. We have been very sexual together, but I sometimes wonder if he is thinking of her when we are being intimate.

I love him and want to be honest with him, but I have a hard time forgetting. When I express these feelings to him, he acts irritated and seems to think that I have been thinking about it all the time. I only think about it when someone says her name (a very common name) and when we drive by where they met. It is killing me and causing me to contemplate having my own affair. Wrong I know.

What can I do? I love him and want to trust him, but I have to let it go. I have tried to release it, but I can't. Maybe it is because it just happened two months ago. What helpful advice can you give me on the subject?
-- Hurt and Confused

Dear Hurt and Confused,
Having your own affair does not settle the score. Aside from being wrong, it will not make you feel better about what he did, although it might make you feel like you succeeded in getting revenge.

You must consider, though, the price you will pay to accomplish your vengeance. You will have to use another human being as an object in your plot. You will risk hurting him and hurting yourself, as well as risk opening up feelings of attraction and romance toward a new partner. You will risk disease, and possibly pregnancy. You have an even greater risk of feeling empty and miserable after your affair.

Revenge is never as sweet as you might imagine. There is always a cost to you.

You will never forget he had an affair, but you might learn to forgive him if you work things through with each other. You both need to learn to communicate your feelings to each other with respect and acceptance. That means he has to learn how to listen to your anger and you need to learn to listen to his anger.

Each of you needs the other to understand your frustration. At the core of all anger is HURT. You cannot move on with each other and get past this affair until you acknowledge the pain each of you has felt in the marriage.

I strongly recommend that you and your husband seek some counseling together. A therapist provides an objective support and guidance, somewhat like going into neutral territory so both parties are more inclined to really listen to each other. You need this professional guide now because things have gone too far. A skilled marital therapist can help you get to your core feelings and teach you reparative strategies. It is deep therapeutic work, but it is so rewarding when you complete it.

Good luck.