How to recover after discovering a year-long affair

You were married for 30 years and, after years as close friends, your husband grew distant while remaining kind. By chance you discovered he had been having a year-long affair and you describe your life as having 'lost its cohesion' and being 'reduced to pieces'; shame and intrusive thoughts now fill your days.

Prof Alessandra Lemma, a chartered clinical and counselling psychologist and psychoanalyst, says the discovery can feel less like a single painful blow than the collapse of both inner and outer worlds, undermining a sense of self. She also highlights the striking absence of anger and the presence of shame directed at yourself, which can be a coping strategy to make an otherwise unthinkable rupture seem explainable.

Lemma suggests this narrowing often taps into earlier pain or trauma that has not been acknowledged.

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