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Wife had affair and won't talk about it

Q.My wife and I have been married five years, and I found out she had three affairs. I had no idea about the affairs until a friend told me. She said that she has ended them and wants to be with me only, and is sorry for the affairs. I need to talk about this, to find out why, but she refuses to talk about it. I want us to get marriage counseling because I love her, but she won't go. She says that if there is any hope of us staying together that I need to forget about and move on. But I need to know why, details, and get to trust her again. What should I do?

A: It's heartbreaking and devastating to find out your spouse had an affair. It sounds like you want to continue your marriage, build your trust again, but you need to talk about it and she refuses. You might ask yourself what it is you need to know:

• The reasons why she had the affairs so you can find out what is happening in your marriage and work on it, or
• The actual details of the affairs, the who-when-when-where-how many times. And if you know these details, will they help you, or hurt you.

Yes, you need to discuss what happened and decide what you need to do and take it a step at a time to get your marriage back on track. If she refuses to go to marriage counseling, you might want to go to counseling by yourself to help you with your feelings and decide what you want to do.

While it's helpful to put the past behind, in your situation you cannot because there is still so much to know and decide if you are going to build trust, so I applaud you for getting outside help.

But my concern is that she refuses to discuss it, and expects you to forget about it and continue as if nothing has happened. A truly repentant person will do whatever they can do to make up for what they have done, and help you to feel better. A true apology is not only the words, but the actions to remedy the situation.

It sounds like there is no easy answer to your dilemma. And you will need a lot of support to get through it and decide what you want to do. But from what you write, both of you need to work on it, and only half the marriage, you, want to do it, so there may not be much hope for returning to your marriage.

Please write again and let me know how you are doing.