Trying to talk through some other issues this past weekend my wife admitted to cheating on me with a mutual friend 6 years ago.

What she told me was that we were in a rough patch and she wanted to do something that would force an end to the relationship. She made the decision to cheat on me and went out of her way to accomplish it. She did this with someone we both grew up with but a much closer friend of her’s. This is a person who we would both visit on trips back home. Thinking back to Christmas’s, playing board games with him during visits back home after this incident is another aspect of this that is killing me.

My wife is, or at least I had thought, a very open and honest person, almost to a fault. I have always had 100% trust and faith in her. I don’t want to throw away our 20 year relationship but I am truly hurt and do not know how I can regain that trust in her now. She told me she felt immediate regret and bottled it up until the other day. I am sure this secret has lead to more issues between us since.

I do believe her it was a one time thing, and I really want to believe it won't happen again. Waiting six years to tell me feels almost as painful as the act itself.

For those of you both at have accepted your partners mistakes, how did you work to build that trust back?

What options are there other than the extreme ends of ending it completely or forgiving her and going back to status quo? I am not looking to punish her but just accepting her apology and moving on doesn’t seem fair to my pain either.