No matter how you start your marriage, there is always an element of fairy tale involved. You have found your soul mate, someone who was made just for you, and you embark on your life together surrounded by love amid well wishes from your family and friends.

Fast-forward to when the glow has worn off, as it always does in a marriage, and the harder realities of life become more prominent than your love for each other. You have a mortgage, bills to pay, possibly children who suck up all of your time and desire. You lose that connection that brought you together in the first place. Although you may not realize it at the time, daily life will open the door to an affair faster than almost anything.

If you have just found out your spouse has had an affair, you have my sympathy. No matter what your ultimate decision is regarding your marriage, you are about to walk a path to a place that I am sure you never wanted to go. Whatever your feelings about your spouse or your marriage, discovering that the person meant for you is/was sleeping with someone else will feel as though someone cut you wide open, ripped out your heart, and stomped on it repeatedly. Expect a physical ache in your chest, a lump in your throat that never seems to want to go away, and a level of anxiety that most likely will only be relieved with Ativan.

Yes, it's excruciating, but you can survive this. Although I believe that an affair is the ultimate form of betrayal, I also believe that you can recover from that affair and remain married. The trick? Both you and your spouse have to adamantly believe you want to remain together.

The first step to saving your marriage? Be absolutely certain that the affair is over. If your spouse has stated that it's over, they should be prepared to provide the proof. Ask for their cell phone, their phone bills, and access to their voice mail and email accounts. You have the right to ask for that access, do not be pushed or bullied by your spouse into not providing that very basic show of trust. Remember, it's on your spouse’s head to provide the burden of proof, not you.

Second, get a good counselor. Find someone you both can trust and feel comfortable with. While in counseling, don't let your spouse get away with being vague and not participating in the recovery. It's painful to hear the details of an affair, so if you don't feel the need to ask or you don't feel as though you can handle the truth, DON’T ASK. You basically gain nothing but pain, and it will set you up for those thoughts of "I was up all night with a sick baby while you were sleeping with someone else." Details will eat at you, and they will make it impossible to recover from the affair.

Ask for change, and don't give up until you get it. You are the wronged party. It's simple to feel guilt about your 'role' in the affair, and maybe that loss of connection is somewhat your own responsibility, but don't let that guilt suck you into continuing on with a life and situations that led to the affair in the first place. If your spouse is still working with the person she/he cheated with, you are within your rights to ask for a job change. If the person lives next door to you or near to you, move. If you feel the need to move out of the city/town you live in and you are able to make that happen, do it. This one single step will make all the difference in the world to your recovery. You cannot survive an affair if every single thing in your life goes back to exactly the way it was before. If ever there was a catalyst for change in your life, an affair is it.

Buy the book "After the Affair" by Janis Spring. Read the book from cover to cover, and ask your spouse to read it as well. There are insights in that book that will explain how your life has been altered and needs to change in order to continue, and it will give you hope of recovering your marriage in light of people who will tell you it's over.

You may wonder right now how you will feel in a year, two years, or 10 years down the road if you stay in your marriage. You will never forget the affair, no matter how many years go by, and if you accept this fact it will make the bumps you are going to endure that much simpler to deal with. You will feel jealous and suspicious. You are going to check his/her cell phone and email for a long time, maybe always. Occasionally you will feel so angry and confused about your relationship that you will push your spouse away. A good counselor will prepare you for these bumps and your spouse should be nothing but supportive.

Remember, the road to a better marriage and recovery from an affair lies in the acceptance that it is a constant journey with no ultimate destination. You cannot expect to feel better about it someday, you literally never will. There will always be a small piece of you that is broken by this, but time and love from your spouse will help you heal. With time comes acceptance and understanding, and if you and your spouse are both putting the effort in, you can both recover from an affair.