By 
If you are a wife struggling to find her way after her husband has cheated on her, I feel like you and I are soul mates. I’m pretty sure I understand some of how you feel and I’d feel pretty comfortable if I knew that one of your biggest wishes right now is to feel a little bit normal in your everyday life and in your marriage.
You want to look at your husband and feel secure in his feelings for you and his commitment to you. But this can be very difficult if she is not acting the way she used to act. I can tell you with full confidence that in the weeks and even months after a husband’s affair, we wives watch our husbands very closely. We look at everything she says, everything she does, and even the things she doesn’t do or say.
So when we notice a change in his display of affection towards us, we become concerned. And we desperately want to know if this is normal and what it could all mean. A wife may be concerned about her husband’s level of affection. She might say, “My husband is done with his affair. I know that for sure and I have no doubts about it. He’s doing just about anything I ask of him. But the affection just isn’t there. He always used to stroke my face, rub my hair and hold me. This was not planned or asked. He just did it because he seemed to want to express his feelings for me and I always loved that about our marriage. We were always very demonstrative with our affection – always touching. I always felt that by doing this, we were we keep close and give our children a good example of how to share feelings for those you love.
Unfortunately, my husband never does these things again. There is no more touching. And if there is, I’m the one who does it. I often reach out and grab my husband’s hand in the hope that he will follow my lead and show more affection. He does not. I have mentioned this to you. I’ve told him that his lack of affection for me makes me think he’s not attracted to me or that he doesn’t want to be around me. He says that neither of these things is true. He says that he is often reluctant to show me affection because he fears rejection. But I think there is more than this. I think he says something about his attraction and commitment. Is what I’m seeing normal?
In my experience, it is. And honestly, what her husband has told her, that he fears rejection, is also extremely common and may be 100 percent valid. From what I have experienced and seen in other marriages, in the weeks and months after the affair, the spouses can almost be circling each other, afraid to act, watching and waiting for the other person to take the lead. This can be especially true in the case of the cheating spouse. My husband and I were circling like vultures, frankly.
Doubts your husband might have: Husband expresses the following when they write to me. A husband may say that he often doesn’t know how you really feel about him and how receptive you really are. If he tries to initiate affection, are you going to get mad? Defensive? Are you going to think that he is genuine or are you going to think that he is just trying to win back your goodwill? Are you going to turn him down to make things incredibly awkward between you? Or are you going to reject him to get back at him?
One very common thing that happens to both people is that they wonder (and worry) about what the other person is feeling. They assume there is anger. They worry that there is no love. And they worry that they are the only ones having these disturbing thoughts.
Honestly, your spouse often has the exact same concerns that you do. Neither of them wants to feel that he is the only one who cares and that he is the only one who feels affection. So, understandably, you hold back. Most of the time, both people expect the other to be the initiator. And when this does not happen, people may assume that their spouse does not feel love or affection when this is not true.
What happens next? Well, you can be patient and you can promise yourself that you’re not going to just assume things. You can continue to show affection to your spouse and you can be receptive when he shows you affection, so that over time he will feel more secure doing it.
And you can try to accept the fact that there is bound to be some discomfort in this process. Until time has passed and the work has been done, neither person knows where they stand, both are afraid, and both can hold back their feelings and affection until they feel a little safer to do so.
This feeling of security often comes over time and happens more often as you progress through your healing. There’s often little point in pushing your spouse more about it, as this can make the awkwardness worse and mean you get less affection instead of more.