D-324, I moved your response to the Open Forum. Discovery is for Betrayed only. I hope you'll stick around. You have alot of insight to share.
Welcome.
Tex
Back to your question "Does any man or woman who has betrayed her husband have any pointers on how to be intimate after discovery?"
Although I am ashamed to admit it, I cheated on my boyfriend of 4 years. This happened years ago, and although we weren't married, we had plans in motion to become so. I won't go into a lot of details, but my boyfriend and I were living many hours away from eachother for a year, and I got involved with an old crush who I began working with....
When the year ended and my boyfriend and I got back together, I had so much guilt inside that I had to tell him, but I couldn't figure out how. I went a cowardly way, and "pretended" to talk in my sleep and say the crush's name. This insued in questioning, and I let the ugly truth spill out - holding back the details and some of the truth because of the pain on my b/f's face, until we slowly worked through it all in the months that followed. We both talked and cried for hours that night of "discovery", though, and to this day I don't know exactly how it unfolded, but he ended up holding me and stroking my hair while I cried, and we ended up making love. While I still hated myself for what I had done to him and our relationship, that move by him changed the outlook of our relationship dramatically. I saw that even though I had hurt him immeasureably, he showed me that despite his hurt and anger, the love was still there in his heart for me. I had thought before that our relationship could never be healed, but that gave me hope. The years after that were tremendously hard, as there were questions and doubts and I felt unworthy of love and afraid that he would do something for "revenge", but his immediate display of a willingness to forgive has stuck with me ever since.
So for your situation, if it is your desire for intimacy, I would start by assessing her emotions - is she truly sorry and carrying guilt? If so, you may start by simply craddling her and letting her cry on you - - I felt as if I didn't have to right to be consoled since I was the offender, but my b/f comforting me spoke volumes that changed my life around. Your love may very well soften her heart, and motivate her to change and put hope in her heart. I pray for you that that will be the case. I was afraid of my b/f's potential anger, so I was trying to cover my own ass - let her know it is safe to be open and honest with you (which DOESN'T mean not getting angry, etc. - that should be expected), but if she is truly sorry/guilty, she may need to know that you do still love her and want to help her set things right. It will be a slow process, and she should feel that she has a lot to make up to you and be willing to face your anger, hurts, doubts, questions, etc. But if she has pain that you will acknowledge, too, the process of a give-and-take relationship can begin anew.
I hope something I said helped.....
